Or are we?
Breitbart carried a couple of brief news reports on January 15 about microwave and visible light cloaking technology being developed at Duke University by David M. Smith’s team at the Center for Metamaterials and Advanced Plasmonics. The news items can be viewed here and here. This cloaking technology would at the very least be considered dual-use. Any export of the technology would doubtless require permission from the U.S. Directorate of Defense Trade Controls or the Bureau of Industry and Security. It’s very interesting technology but that’s not what caught my eye.
What caught my eye were these bits from the two reports:
The research was supported by Raytheon Missile Systems, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, InnovateHan Technology, the National Science Foundation of China, the National Basic Research Program of China and National Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China.
and
The team, who were backed by the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Science Foundation of China among others, worked off their 2006 prototype that proved the project’s feasibility.
Huh?
David R. Smith’s website proudly lists among his collaborators critical agencies of the U.S. defense and intelligence infrastructure. These include DARPA, the Office of Naval Research, NavAir, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Director of CIA and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. There is no mention of Chinese government involvement.
But assuming that the reporting is correct, how is it that U.S. defense and intelligence organs have any sort of developmental relationship with Chinese foundations that ultimately have connections with the Chinese government? The Chinese organizations listed are:
National Science Foundation of China. This organization funds science projects around the world. The site has not been updated for many years and the list of projects does not include Duke University.
National Basic Research Program of China. According to its website, the NBRPC:
is China’s on-going national keystone basic research program, which was approved by the Chinese government in June 1997 and is organized and implemented by the Ministry of Science and Technology. The 973 Program is created on the basis of existing research activities and deployments made by the National Nature Science Foundation and major dedicated pre-studies, to organize and implement basic research to meet the nation’s major strategic needs.
National Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China. This is probably a missprint. The more likely name is the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province. This is how it turns up on Google. While it gets frequent mentions in connection with various universities and projects, it does not have a website.
‘InnovateHan Technology’ is a real puzzler. Apart from the two news reports, it doesn’t turn up in any search. Given the use of ‘Han’ in the name, I assume that it is some sort of Chinese company. Searches of Delaware, New York, California, Florida, North Carolina and Nevada corporate databases turn up nothing.
But back to the original questions: are critical U.S. defense and intelligence agencies working with organs of the Chinese government on technologies with important defense applications? Are these reports correct and how were they sourced?
Finally, who’s licensed the export of this technology – to the Chinese?
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Well, considering the only person working on the project with American name was Smith and Mock, and Smith was a computer scientist, not material, and two other members are in a Chinese university, the more reasonable question seems to be why is the US letting China to use American equipment to do its defense research.