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Chinese Espionage and French Trade Secrets
Paris prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin on Jan. 14 began an inquiry into
allegations of commercial espionage carried out against French carmaker
Renault. The allegations first became public when Renault suspended
three of its employees on Jan. 3 after an internal investigation that
began in August 2010. Within days, citing an anonymous French government
source, Reuters reported that French intelligence services were looking
into the possibility that China played a role in the Renault espionage
case. While the French government refused to officially confirm this
accusation, speculation has run wild that Chinese state-sponsored spies
were stealing electric-vehicle technology from Renault.
The Chinese are well-known perpetrators of industrial espionage and have
been caught before in France, but the details that have emerged so far
about the Renault operation differ from the usual Chinese method of
operation. And much has been learned about this MO just in the last two
years across the Atlantic, where the United States has been increasingly
aggressive in investigating and prosecuting cases of Chinese espionage.
If Chinese intelligence services were indeed responsible for espionage
at Renault it would be one of only a few known cases involving
non-Chinese nationals and would have involved the largest amount of
money since the case of the legendary Larry Wu-Tai Chin, China’s most
successful spy. Read more »
Dispatch: Self-Immolation as a Political Tool
VP of Strategic Intelligence Rodger Baker examines the tactic of self-immolation as a way to galvanize protest movements. Watch the Video »
