USA's High Tech Exports to India & China; Cirrus Electronics Employees Arrests for Exports to Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Aeronautical Development Establishment, and Bharat Dynamics

USA's High Tech Exports to India & China; Cirrus Electronics Employees
Arrests for Exports to Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Aeronautical
Development Establishment, and Bharat Dynamics

By Ravi Visvesvaraya Sharada Prasad

Published in May 2007 issue of Realpolitik Magazine, http://www.realpolitik.in

Copyright 2007, Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

International Publishing Rights in all Media, in all
Jurisdictions, in all Languages with Realpolitik Magazine,
http://www.realpolitik.in

Reproduction & forwarding strictly prohibited, and will be
prosecuted without any warning

Written on Wednesday, 25 April 2007

by Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

CellPhones: {91}(0) 92 12 08 86 00, 99 90 265 822

Tel: {91}(11) 25 26 54 39, 25 26 42 75

Fax: {91} (11) 25 26 68 68

Email: rp at k dot st, p at r 6 7 dot net, r at 50g dot com

Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, an alumnus of Carnegie Mellon and IIT
Kanpur, is Consulting Editor of Realpolitik. He also heads a group on
C4ISRT (Command, Control, Communications & Computers Intelligence,
Surveillance, Reconnaissance & Targetting) in South Asia.

By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad


It is gratifying that USA has announced that the indictment of top
executives of Cirrus Electronics, as well as of Indian government
officials posted at the Indian Embassy in Washington DC, for supplying
US electronic items to Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Aeronautical
Development Establishment, and Bharat Dynamics, will not affect
negotiations on the 123 Agreement. US State Department spokesman Sean
McCormack stated that he did not see any connection between the
indictments and the US-India nuclear deal, and added: "I expect that
the Indian Government will continue to negotiate the 123 Agreement in
good faith. Certainly, the United States will."

Following the Pokharan-I nuclear blasts in 1974, USA had placed
severe restrictions on transfer of high technologies to India,
especially those having applications in the nuclear and space sectors.
In May 1992, USA imposed sanctions on Indian Space Research
Organization due to its deal with Russia's Glavkosmos for transfer of
cryogenic rocket engine technologies. In particular, USA had placed
ISRO on the "US Department of Commerce's Entity List" consisting of
"organisations which present an unacceptable risk of diversion to
developing weapons of mass destruction or missiles used to deliver
those weapons".

On 23 March 2007, a US District Court indicted four officials of
Cirrus Electronics, with offices in Singapore, Bangalore, India, and
South Carolina, USA, of violating USA's International Emergency
Economic Powers Act and its Arms Export Control Act. Also indicted
were an unnamed official of the Indian embassy in Washington as well
as an Indian employee of the Aeronautical Development Establishment in
Bangalore. This followed a joint investigation by the US Federal
Bureau of Investigation, the US Department of Commerce, and US
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and a 15-count indictment was
returned by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia.

The indictment alleges that Singapore-based Cirrus Electronics
took orders for electronic components from Vikram Sarabhai Space
Centre and Bharat Dynamics, both on the US Department of Commerce's
Entity List. The Entity List is "designed to inform the public of
entities whose activities imposed a risk of diverting exported and re-
exported items into programs related to weapons of mass destruction."
The indictment alleges that in coordination with an official in the
Indian embassy in Washington DC as well as an official of the
Aeronautical Development Establishment, the US subsidiary of Cirrus
purchased from US vendors electronic items such as Intel i960
microprocessors, capacitors, semiconductors, rectifiers, and
resistors. These purchases were allegedly made without obtaining the
licenses required by the US Bureau of Industry and Security for
exports to parties on the Entity List. Cirrus USA would ship these
items to Cirrus in Singapore which would them reship them to Vikram
Sarabhai Space Centre, Aeronautical Development Establishment, and
Bharat Dynamics in India. The indictment alleges that when the US
vendors requested End-User Certificates for the parts being sold to
Cirrus USA, its chief executive, Parthasarathy Sudarshan, would lie to
them and claim that the parts were destined for the Naval Physical and
Oceanographic Laboratory in Kochi.

But it is clear that USA has been having double standards in
dealing with India, China and Pakistan.

First, USA has already lifted sanctions on Vikram Sarabhai Space
Centre, Aeronautical Development Establishment, and Bharat Dynamics,
although such sanctions were in place during most of the time the
alleged exports took place. USA started relaxing sanctions on India
since 2004 following several measures taken by India. Under an updated
End-Use Verification Agreement, India agreed to allow US Department of
Commerce officials to conduct end-use spot checks at Department of
Space entities importing US dual-use items. India also agreed to the
placement of an export-control attaché in the US embassy in New Delhi
to further monitor end-use verification of US exports to India. In
addition, India took measures to ensure that indigenous, Indian-made
dual-use products and expertise are not transferred to potential
proliferators.

Second, there are several unexplained loopholes and discrepancies
in the indictment, which alleges that Cirrus and Sudarshan obtained
and exported, without obtaining the necessary license from the US
Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, items on the United States
Munitions List, such as Intel i960 microprocessors, as well as
capacitors of model numbers M39014/01-1284, M39014/01-1299,
M39014/01-1317, M39014/01-1535, and M39014/01-1553.

The Intel i960 microprocessor was already long obsolete during the
time of the alleged exports. The i960 was manufactured and utilized
during the early 1990s. Only one variant, called the i960MX, was
specifically designed or configured for military use. However, the
indictment against Cirrus does not allege that the military grade
i960MX microprocessor was exported, and it refers only to the i960.
Moreover, even the i960MX was apparently no longer in production by
Intel during the time frame covered by the indictment. Further, the
capacitor models mentioned are Commercially-available, Off-The-Shelf
(COTS) items which are widely used in civilian applications all over
the world.

Third, it was hypocritical of the US government to have denied
much-needed technologies to India's peaceful space programme for three
decades, when it was simultaneously permitting transfer of identical
technologies by US corporations to China, which was transferring
nuclear and missile technologies to Pakistan.

A few months after USA placed sanctions on ISRO over the
Glavkosmos deal, Pakistan bought 34 M-11 missiles from China in
November 1992, in violation of the terms of the Missile Technology
Control Regime. These are based at Sargodha air force base, west of
Lahore, next to Pakistan's plutonium reactor at Khushab. Pakistan's
National Defense Complex's missile production factory at Fatehgunj (40
kilometres west of Islamabad) imported gyroscopes, accelerometers, on-
board computers, and other equipment to manufacture M-11 missiles from
China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corporation in 1996.

There have been numerous instances when advanced equipment and
technologies imported from USA by ostensibly civilian Chinese
companies have been diverted to China's People's Liberation Army. In
February 1997 Sun Microsystems exported an E-5000 server to 'Automated
Systems Limited Warehouse' in Hong Kong. This powerful computer
immediately ended up in Changsha Institute of Science and Technology,
which trains PLA officers in missile and rocket technology, where it
was used to design the Dong Feng series of nuclear missiles. In
contrast, the US government hauled up Chyron Corporation of New York
for exporting a harmless animation system to ISRO.

While USA insinuated, without any proof, that Indian organizations
were re-exporting US technologies to Iraq, Chinese companies have done
so for years. In 1994, AT&T transferred advanced fiber-optic
communications equipment and encryption software to a Chinese company
called Galaxy New Technology, mentioning in its export license that
these were intended for commercial civilian use within China. These
were immediately incorporated by the PLA's Electronics Design Bureau
into a secure air-defense system (NATO code-name Tiger Song), and re-
exported to Iraq. AT&T officials stated that they saw no reason to
question Galaxy New Technology's bona fides, even though it had been
formed only a few weeks earlier and was headed by Madam Nie Lie, wife
of General Ding Henggao, who then commanded China's Commission on
Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense. Galaxy's
President was Senior Colonel Deng Changru, head of the PLA's
Communications Corps, and its General Manager was Senior Colonel Xie
Zhichao, director of PLA's Electronics Design Bureau. It was later
discovered that General Ding Henggao had arranged for political
contributions to the Democratic Party (the notorious China-gate
scandal), and that the deal had been facilitated by William Perry and
Adlai Stevenson III.

China's PLA obtained satellite and missile technologies such as
encrypted radiation-hardened integrated circuits from Loral, post-
boost vehicle technologies from Lockheed, telemetry systems from
Motorola, and nose-cone technologies from Hughes. The US government
denied these corporations permission to transfer similar technologies
to India's civilian space programme.

Hughes also supplied remote-sensing data-acquisition, processing,
archival and distribution equipment to China's remote-sensing cum real-
time secure-communications Feng Ho series of military satellites.
Other space technologies transferred by Hughes to China included anti-
jam capabilities, advanced antennas, cross-links, baseband-processing,
encryption devices, radiation-hardening processes, and perigee kick
motors, as well as the design and manufacture of missile nose cones
and electronic missile control systems. The PLA incorporated these in
its Dong Feng 31 missiles. DF-31, with its range of 6000 miles and
warhead of three 90-kiloton nuclear bombs, poses a serious threat to
all of India.

These US corporations had made political contributions to the
Democratic Party, then headed by Ron Brown, who later became Secretary
of the Commerce Department. Sources close to the Chinese government
had also contributed to the Democratic Party - the notorious China-
gate scandal. Faced with opposition from the US Departments of State
and Defense regarding exports of satellite technologies to China,
Michael Armstrong, then chief executive of Hughes, Bernard Schwartz,
then CEO of Loral, and Daniel Tellep, then CEO of Lockheed, co-wrote a
letter to President Bill Clinton in October 1995 stating: "We
respectfully request your personal support for establishing the
Commerce Department's jurisdiction over the export of all commercial
communications satellites...The US government does not require
Congressional approval to remove commercial satellites from the United
States Munitions List, which is under State Department jurisdiction,
and placing them on the Commerce Control List, which is under Commerce
Department jurisdiction..." President Clinton granted this request
quickly without consulting the US Congress.

A US House of Representatives Committee charged Lockheed, Loral,
and Hughes with violating national security. Hughes pleaded 'No
Contest' to 123 charges of violating the "US Arms Export Control Act"
and "International Traffic in Arms Regulations", and was fined 32
million dollars. Lockheed paid a penalty of thirteen million dollars
to settle thirty charges of violating these Acts, and Loral was
penalized twenty million dollars.

No official from China or from Lockheed, Loral, or Hughes was
jailed. In contrast, of the four Cirrus employees indicted,
Parthasarathy Sudarshan faces a likely sentencing guideline range of
97-121 months in prison, if convicted of the charges. Mythili Gopal
faces a likely sentencing guideline range of 63-78 months. A.K.N.
Prasad and Sampath Sundar face likely sentencing guideline ranges of
78-97 months, if convicted of the charges.

In another instance, Boeing sold transport aircraft to China
United Airlines, a front company owned by China's People's Liberation
Army Air Force (PLAAF). These aircraft could be used to quickly
airlift troops to the Tibetan plateau near India's borders. In
response to a request under USA's Freedom of Information Act, Barbara
Fredericks, assistant general counsel of the US Commerce Department,
replied: "Information about export licenses and license applications
that list China United Airlines as a consignee or end-user are
protected from disclosure. Disclosure would not be in the national
interest."

In contrast, the US government denied permission to Boeing to
enter into a joint venture with ISRO to manufacture satellites for the
international market.

While negotiating the 123 Agreement, India should emphasize that
it is high time that USA transferred not only space technologies, but
even much-needed defence, nuclear, and missile technologies to India.
India is in particular need of US space technologies in launch
vehicles, sensors, telemetry, communications surveillance and
decryption, real-time imagery, and data-mining.


by Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

Written on Wednesday, 25 April 2007

Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, an alumnus of Carnegie Mellon and IIT
Kanpur, is Consulting Editor of Realpolitik. He also heads a group on
C4ISRT (Command, Control, Communications & Computers Intelligence,
Surveillance, Reconnaissance & Targetting) in South Asia.
Title: USA's High Tech Exports to India & China; Cirrus
Electronics Employees Arrests for Exports to Vikram Sarabhai Space
Centre, Aeronautical Development Establishment, and Bharat Dynamics

By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

Published in May 2007 issue of Realpolitik Magazine, http://www.realpolitik.in

Copyright 2007, Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

International Publishing Rights in all Media, in all
Jurisdictions, in all Languages with Realpolitik Magazine,
http://www.realpolitik.in

Reproduction & forwarding strictly prohibited, and will be
prosecuted without any warning

Written on Wednesday, 25 April 2007

by Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

CellPhones: {91}(0) 92 12 08 86 00, 99 90 265 822

Tel: {91}(11) 25 26 54 39, 25 26 42 75

Fax: {91} (11) 25 26 68 68

Email: rp at k dot st, p at r 6 7 dot net, r at 50g dot com

19 Maitri Apts

A-3, Paschim Vihar

New Delhi 110 063
India

.

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