New Delhi: There is a big worry in many powerful nations of the world including the United States and India over the next big thing in the Chinese military—China’s much-touted H-20 strategic stealth bomber—a long-range aircraft with the capability to fly 12,000 km undetected—which may spell a global game-changing military equation.
There are reports that the H-20, with a payload of between 10 and 20 tons—may be inducted into the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) as early as 2025.
Sounding the alarm, the 2019 US Congress report on the China military says: “A photograph of a possible H-20 prototype depicted a flying wing airframe akin to the B-2 bomber and X-47B stealth unmanned combat aerial vehicle.”
But was it an Indian-origin scientist who aided the stealth ability of the H-20 by passing on US vital stealth technology to the Chinese? The Americans certainly think so.
An Indian by birth and later a naturalized American citizen, Noshir Gowadia, was arrested by the US authorities on October 26, 2005, after a 10-day questioning by the FBI. On January 24, 2011, Gowadia was sentenced to 32 years in US prison.
At Gowadia’s sentencing hearing the prosecutor, Assistant US Attorney Ken Sorenson, said: “This case was unique in that we litigated know-how, the very concept of exporting the knowledge base that you derive, in whole or in part, from your activities working in the United States classified programs. If you can take that and go sell it or market yourself on an international stage in secrecy to other governments and not suffer criminal sanctions for it, then we’re in trouble.”
Having come to the US in the 1960s, Gowadia was nothing short of a prodigy having got a PhD at 15.
In 1968, he joined Northrop Corporation which was then developing the super-secret B-2 Spirit “stealth” bomber.
Also Read: China detains 99,000 telecom fraud suspects
By the time he left Northrop Corporation in 1986, he was acknowledged expert on nozzle design and a specialist in hiding the infrared signature from the B-2 bomber’s jet propulsion.
With a ‘top-secret clearance’, the aeronautical design engineer’s first contact with the Chinese began in January 2002 through a “Chinese access agent” named Henry Nyoo and Tommy Wong from the Chinese State Bureau of Foreign Exports.
On July 29, 2003, Gowadia, accompanied by Nyoo, and Wong went to Chengdu, the headquarters of fighter aircraft and cruise missiles research and development in China, where Gowadia made a PowerPoint presentation and for which he was paid $15,000.
His subsequent visits and collaboration brought about $110,000 that was deposited in his secret Swiss bank accounts, the US prosecutors said.
Between 1999 and 2003, Gowadia’s private consulting firm had earned more than $750,000 (about Rs 5.5 crore).
In 2002, Gowadia bought some land in a beach in Maui, Australia where he built a luxurious home that had a roof shaped like a B-2 bomber.
The type of information he passed to China, among a host of other countries, included “exhaust systems for the B-2 bomber, stealth avoidance using infrared sensors, radar-evading stealth exhaust nozzle for cruise missiles”.
As of now, only the US and Russia have the capability to develop big strategic stealth bombers. With the H-20, China will be the third.
The strategic bomber's advantage lies in the fact that it can deliver strategic (read nuclear) payloads to any part of the globe without getting detected.
From the Chinese perspective, all US worldwide military assets lie exposed. And the US’ worst fears could come true if the H-20 doubles up as a networked reconnaissance and command & control platform.
Not just China, Gowadia sold classified information to Israel, Germany, Switzerland and also approached Austria, Lichtenstein, among others.
Gowadia admitted in a statement after his arrest: “On reflection…what I did was wrong…What I did was espionage and treason”.
Nor is this the only time that an US-based Indian-origin professional had compromised military secrets.
In 1994, Kota Subrahmanyam, a software professional from Boston, was caught in an FBI sting. He was convicted for selling technology related to mercury cadmium telluride missile detectors, radar-absorbing paint for stealth technology, biotechnology used to produce a synthetic hormone, to the Soviet Union.
Kota’s willingness to cooperate and in exchange for his cooperation against an accomplice got him a much-reduced prison term.
Reported by senior journalist Sanjib Kr Baruah.
Also Read: Xi Jinping visits Macao to celebrate 20 years of China rule
