Thefts of U.S. technology boost China's weaponry

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Part I:Chinese dragon awakens

Second of two parts.

China is stepping up its overt and covert efforts to gather intelligence and technology in the United States, and the activities have boosted Beijing's plans to rapidly produce advanced-weapons systems.

"I think you see it where something that would normally take 10 years to develop takes them two or three," said David Szady, chief of FBI counterintelligence operations.

He said the Chinese are prolific collectors of secrets and military-related information.

"What we're finding is that [the spying is] much more focused in certain areas than we ever thought, such as command and control and things of that sort," Mr. Szady said.

"In the military area, the rapid development of their 'blue-water' navy -- like the Aegis weapons systems -- in no small part is probably due to some of the research and development they were able to get from the United States," he said.

The danger of Chinese technology acquisition is that if the United States were called on to fight a war with China over the Republic of China (Taiwan), U.S. forces could find themselves battling a U.S.-equipped enemy.