List of Chinese spy cases in the United States

This is a list of public cases in the United States involving accusation of Chinese nationals or immigrants of espionage for China.

Larry Wu-Tai Chin worked in the U.S. intelligence community for nearly 35 years while providing China with classified information. Chin was recruited as a spy by a Chinese Communist official in 1948; an interpreter at the U.S. consulate in Shanghai, he was later hired by the CIA’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service. After he became an American citizen in 1965 he was transferred to Arlington, Virginia, where he had access to reports from intelligence agents abroad and translations of documents acquired by CIA officers in China. Chin sold classified National Intelligence Estimates pertaining to China and Southeast Asia to China, enabling the country to discover weaknesses in its intelligence agencies and compromise U.S. intelligence activities in the region. He provided sensitive information about Richard Nixon’s plans for normalizing relations with China two years before the president visited the country. In February 1986, Chin was convicted of 17 counts of espionage, conspiracy and tax evasion.

In 1982 FBI special agent James Smith recruited Katrina Leung, a 28-year-old Chinese immigrant, to work in Chinese counterintelligence. Leung, a prominent business consultant, was valued for her contacts with high-level Chinese officials. Smith and Leung became involved in a sexual relationship lasting nearly two decades. At this time, Smith made classified documents available to Leung; she copied them, providing China with information on nuclear, military and political issues. Another FBI agent, William Cleveland, also became sexually involved with Leung.

Lee, a physicist born in China who worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and later for TRW Inc., pleaded guilty to lying on security-clearance forms and passing classified national-defense information to Chinese scientists on business trips to Beijing. He compromised classified weapons information, microwave submarine-detection technology and other national-defense data, and the Department of Energy later concluded that his disclosure of classified information "was of significant material assistance to the PRC in their nuclear weapons development program ... This analysis indicated that Dr. Lee's activities have directly enhanced the PRC nuclear weapons program to the detriment of U.S. national security."

...
Wikipedia