Source:
https://scmp.com/article/544184/plot-thickens-sino-us-spy-game-takes-lonely-turn

Plot thickens as Sino-US spy game takes a lonely turn

It was five years ago this month when the central government charged Nanjing-born scholar Gao Zhan with spying for Taiwan. Word of Gao's arrest quickly reached Washington DC, where the then 38-year-old had been working as a scholar-in-residence at American University's noted School of International Service.

An angry groundswell of protest against the detention of the self-proclaimed dissident sprang up in the US capital. It began with her university colleagues, who knew Gao as an earnest wife and mother of Andrew, five.

Gao's US supporters quickly grew to include Republican Senator George Allen of Virginia, where Gao had lived as a permanent resident before visiting China with her family. Mr Allen, a member of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, gave a speech before Congress chiding Beijing for holding Gao on spying charges while presenting no evidence, aside from asserting that she had reportedly confessed.

'Mr President,' declared Senator Allen, 'today is the 39th birthday of Gao Zhan, a woman of Chinese descent who lived in Virginia with her husband Xue Donghua and her five-year-old son. [But] far from spending this 39th birthday in the warm embrace of her family, she is enduring her 87th day of detention by officials of the People's Republic of China, some 7,000 miles from home in an unknown location and in unknown condition.'

Senator Allen went on to introduce legislation to make Gao a US citizen. From there, her plight became known to then US secretary of state Colin Powell, and her story was quickly moved up to the White House. US President George W. Bush intervened, personally asking then president Jiang Zemin to release Gao.

Soon after the White House took up Gao's case, her 10-year prison sentence was dropped and Gao was deported to the US, where she received a hero's welcome. Civil rights organisations such as the New York-based Human Rights Watch, and the Washington-based American Immigration Law Foundation, acclaimed Gao's bravery and her righteous return home.

Five years on, Gao's tale appears to have more twists than a Sherlock Holmes story. She is once again back in prison, again charged with espionage. And, once again, she is facing deportation. This time, however, her jail is not in Beijing but in a US federal detention centre in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside Washington.

And her once numerous American defenders have stepped away from her in shocked and pained silence.

Soon after Gao's return to US soil, and as she was about to become a naturalised American citizen, the US Justice Department began delving into the would-be heroine's non-academic life. Investigations revealed Gao had apparently been playing a two-handed ping-pong game of international espionage, in which she seemingly played both sides of the table.

Less than two years after being released from a Chinese jail to return to her Virginia home, Gao was back in the news, this time charged by the US government for espionage. And in a move that shocked her supporters, Gao pleaded guilty. Her bid to become an American was halted, and a naturalisation ceremony was abruptly cancelled.

While her loyalty may yet be unknown - she claims to love America - Gao's motives are crystal clear: money. And unlike her Chinese accusers, the Americans not only had a signed confession, they also have a meticulous paper trail that proves their allegations.

According to the US Justice Department, soon after Gao's return to the US in 2001, she went back into her secret business, and in a big way, something which she had apparently been involved in before her arrest in China.

US officials seized US$515,000 in two US bank accounts in her name; bank records showed wire transfers to her account for a false front firm called 'University Services', money which had come from a Chinese research institute with ties to the PLA.

In 2003, Gao pleaded guilty to illegally exporting more than US$1 million worth of military-grade computer microprocessors - 80 processors in all - which could be used for military purposes, to a Chinese government agency, compromising America's national security. Court records of the case revealed that Gao had been involved in such schemes as early as 1998, well before her 2001 arrest in China; and that she knew the computers would be used by the PLA.

Today, Gao sits in her cell waiting to see if the Department of Homeland Security can convince a US Justice Department judge that she is a high national security risk and should be deported. Having struck a plea bargain with the government and co-operated with federal investigators as to precisely what was sold to China, Gao's initial sentence of up to 10 years was reduced to seven months in jail, followed by eight months in a low-security halfway house. She also agreed to forfeit to the government US$505,000 paid to her by the Chinese 'research firm' and US$89,000 in unpaid tax on that income. Her husband, Xue Donghua, also pleaded guilty to tax evasion.

Whether she will be deported remains to be seen, and Judge Paul Schmidt has ordered everyone involved in the case not to talk to the media, so even officials from the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security declined to comment to the South China Morning Post.

But even if Gao is allowed to remain in the US, her life there is ruined. Her friends and many supporters have left her. Her research job at American University is no more: 'Just let the facts speak for themselves', said the university's spokesman Todd Sedmak. No other university is likely to hire her as a convicted felon.

The Washington-based American Immigration Law Foundation rescinded an award it had given her, when the foundation learned she had pleaded guilty. Invitations to speak at human rights rallies are no more.

Senator Allen, the White House, and Human Rights Watch all declined to comment on her case. Gao Zhan quotes the Bible often and claims that if she is not granted asylum, she is likely to be executed in China. But people are no longer listening.