Chinese Peril: Who is the Sino-American engineer accused of nuclear espionage?

CGNPC employee Szuhsiung Ho conspired to develop nuclear material in China without US approval. Who is he and what is his background?
By Rob Davies
 

Szuhsiung ‘Allen’ Ho, a nuclear engineer employed by the China General Nuclear Power Company. Photograph: Knox County sheriff's office

Szuhsiung “Allen” Ho is, according to a motion filed by his lawyer, a 66-year-old American citizen who was born in Taiwan, educated in the US and lives in Wilmington, Delaware.
In character statements submitted to a court in Tennessee, friends and neighbours described him as an honest and law abiding member of the community who is accused of nuclear espionage brought against him by the US government.
Ho came to the US in 1973 to attend the University of California and married his wife Anne a year later.

He received a PhD in nuclear engineering from the University of Illinois in 1980, and became a naturalised US citizen three years later. .
The couple are childless, but Ho fathered a son outside the marriage in 2007. 

Neighbours said his wife had declared herself willing to help raise the child in the US.
They are described as active members of the local Chinese American Community Centre in Wilmington, where Anne Ho is involved in running a women’s book club.
The couple live in a large house in the town, which has sizeable Chinese community, but Ho spends much of his time in China working for his nuclear consulting business, Energy Technology International, which was set up in 1996.
Prosecutors say he has two flats in China, one of his own and another for his son and the boy’s mother.
Ho has worked as a consultant for China General Nuclear Power, which has a 33% stake in the UK’s £18bn Hinkley Point C project.
He enticed US nuclear experts at the federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority energy corporation to pass sensitive information to Beijing by paying them bribes. 

He failed to register with the Department of Justice as an agent of a foreign state and that he is paid by the Chinese government.
Ho is charged with helping a foreign power produce nuclear material, a term that refers to enriched uranium and plutonium for nuclear reactor fuel.
His lawyer, Peter Zeidenberg, said in court papers Ho had “no expertise or experience in the development or production of special nuclear material”.
He said Ho was helping nuclear plants in China to run safely in order to avoid a Chernobyl-style disaster.
Ho was arrested in Atlanta, Georgia, in April and has been jailed pending trial. 

If found guilty he could face life in prison.
Zeidenberg has requested bail, pointing out that Ho, 66, is “not a young man” and is “poorly equipped for dealing with the stress and potential dangers inherent in detention”.
He said that at one facility where Ho was held, he had to be segregated from other inmates after they were heard discussing a plan to harm him.
“It has been brutal for him in every way imaginable,” a friend of Ho’s said.

Sino-American eternal conflict of loyalty
Neighbours and family friends have provided statements praising his character, according to filings with the court intended to support his bail request, which will be heard on Tuesday.
Gwen and David Chen, also of Wilmington, said Ho was a “bright, honest, warm, mild, likable [sic], and friendly man”, adding that the allegations “must be some misunderstanding”.
Friend Amy Chien said he was a “man of filial piety” who always visited his family in Taiwan when he travelled to China and was “well liked and respected in his circle of friends”.
Shirley and Evan Tseng said he spent a lot of time in China for work, but that he had “roots deeply planted in Delaware”.

“But China is his home and his country, and he would never betray it,” they said.

Sino-American Conflict of Loyalty

Secrecy surrounds sentencing of Chinese government operative in nuclear tech spy case
By Jamie Satterfield

Szuhsiung "Allen" Ho, a confessed operative for China, faces sentencing in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Tennessee for buying American nuclear technology secrets for China. 
An engineer working as an operative for the Chinese government in a bid to use American know-how to beef up China's nuclear program faces sentencing Wednesday in the first-of-its-kind prosecution in the nation.
Chief U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan will decide Szuhsiung "Allen" Ho’s fate at a hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Knoxville for using China’s money to buy information about American nuclear power generation the country was forbidden to have.
Ho was a key catch for the U.S. intelligence community, and the case brought against him by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Charles Atchley Jr. and Bart Slabbekorn is the first of its kind involving China.

Shrouded in secrecy
Since he pleaded guilty earlier this year, he’s been honoring his side of a plea bargain negotiated by attorneys Wade Davies and Peter Zeidenberg by cooperating with the government in hopes prosecutors will recommend a shorter stint in prison than sentencing guidelines suggest.
But every document associated with Ho’s sentencing has been sealed. 

His penalty range, the government’s recommendation on sentencing and the defense’s position on it are hidden under the veil of court sealing orders.
Atchley has said the Chinese government paid through Ho millions to buy American information on the production of nuclear energy – the by-product of which can be used to make nuclear weapons. 

The Chinese government refuses to even acknowledge the indictment of its own nuclear power company.

Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas A. Varlan 

Ho, his firm Energy Technology International, and Chinese nuclear power plant China General Nuclear Power were indicted in April 2016 in a plot to lure nuclear experts in the U.S. into providing information to allow China to develop and produce nuclear material based on American technology and below the radar of the U.S. government.
It is the first such case in the nation brought under a provision of law that regulates the sharing of U.S. nuclear technology with certain countries deemed too untrustworthy to see it. 

Those countries include China. 

Engineer turned informant
The investigation began at the behest of the Tennessee Valley Authority Office of the Inspector General, which contacted the FBI with concerns about one of TVA's senior executives, engineer Ching Guey, who later admitted he was paid by Ho and, by extension, the Chinese government, to supply information about nuclear power production and even traveled to China on the Chinese government's dime. 

Huey agreed to cooperate in the probe. 

He has since struck a plea deal.
Ho is a Taiwan native who became a naturalized U.S. citizen. 

Atchley has repeatedly insisted in court that the Chinese government had paid Ho millions for his spy work. 

Ho worked for the Chinese government and lived in China most of the time.

The Howard H. Baker Jr. United States Courthouse.

Ho's defense team worked in plea negotiations to get into the official court record Ho's position on why he was involved in the plot. 

They won. 

The plea deal says Ho wanted to make money and was only trying to help speed up and make cheaper nuclear energy in China by using American technology and expertise.
Guey is set for sentencing Sept. 21. 

There have been no sentencing documents filed in his case yet.

China's Fifth Column: Szuhsiung "Allen" Ho has 'vital' intelligence on China

• Plea set for Chinese spy Szuhsiung "Allen" Ho
• Szuhsiung "Allen" Ho's cooperation seen as key to national security

By Jamie Satterfield

The Quiet Chinese

In the nation's first legal challenge of Chinese procurement of American nuclear know-how, the government has scored a victory in procuring the cooperation of an operative for China, federal court records show.
According to a docket entry, Szuhsiung "Allen" Ho is scheduled to plead guilty Friday in U.S. District Court in the nation's first case of nuclear espionage involving China. 

The plea deal itself has not yet been filed.
But a stack of documents already filed in the case suggest Ho's plea is considered key to gathering intelligence on the inner workings of China's nuclear program -- both the one used to power homes and the one to make war -- in a case in which the Chinese government refuses to even acknowledge the indictment of its own nuclear power company.
Ho is charged in U.S. District Court in Knoxville with plotting to develop special nuclear material illegally outside the United States.
Ho, his firm Energy Technology International, and Chinese nuclear power plant China General Nuclear Power were indicted in April in a plot to lure nuclear experts in the U.S. into providing information to allow China to develop and produce nuclear material based on American technology and below the radar of the U.S. government.
It is the first such case in the nation brought under a provision of law that regulates the sharing of U.S. nuclear technology with certain countries deemed too untrustworthy to see it. 

Those countries include China. 

Although the technology is used for nuclear-power generation, the by-product of that process can be used to produce nuclear weapons.
The investigation began at the behest of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which contacted the FBI with concerns about one of its senior executives, engineer Ching Huey, who later admitted he was paid by Ho and, by extension, the Chinese government, to supply information about nuclear power production and even traveled to China on the Chinese government's dime. 

Huey agreed to cooperate in the probe. 

He has since struck a plea deal.
Ho, a Taiwan native who became a naturalized U.S. citizen, brought to the defense table a stable of high-priced attorneys, including Washington attorney Peter Zeidenberg and Knoxville attorney Wade Davies. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Atchley Jr. has repeatedly insisted in court the Chinese government had paid Ho millions for his spy work. 

Ho worked for the Chinese government and lived in China most of the time.
Testimony from FBI Agent William Leckrone also emphasized Ho's key position in the eyes of those tasked with national security for the U.S. 

In a recent hearing, Leckrone said the FBI "believed Ho had information of value to the intelligence community." 

The FBI pushed him to cooperate the day of his arrest in April, but he refused, court records show.
A lawyer with the Justice Department's National Security Division is now attached to the local prosecution team of Atchley and Assistant U.S. Attorney Bart Slabbekorn Jr.
Under a standard plea deal, a suspect is required to debrief with the government. 

The extent of Ho's cooperation agreement is not yet known.