This Sunday, CBS’ 60 Minutes will broadcast a report on espionage in which they show an FBI tape of a transaction between a Department of Defense employee and a Chinese spy:
China may be the number-one espionage threat now. “The Chinese are the biggest problem we have with respect to the level of effort that they’re devoting against us, versus the level of attention we are giving to them,” says Michelle Van Cleave, once America’s top counter-intelligence officer who coordinated the hunt for foreign spies from 2003 to 2006.
“Definitely, without a doubt,” the Chinese focus most of their espionage on the U.S., says Fengzhi Li, who once recruited spies for China’s Ministry of State Security and is now in the U.S. seeking asylum.
The Chinese, says Van Cleave, have had the designs to all of the nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal for years and they have been after a lot more lately. “Virtually every technology that is on the U.S. control technology list has been targeted at one time or another by the Chinese,” she tells Pelley. “Sensors and optics…biological and chemical processes…all the things we have identified as having inherent military application,” says Van Cleave. “I think we are a real candy store for the Chinese and for others.”
