Taiwan Espionage: A senior Powell aide and top State Department China expert has been charged with passing US documents and concealing a trip to Taiwan.:

Donald W. Keyser, who was elevated to principal deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs this year, made the trip [to Taiwan] last year, according to an FBI affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. Keyser, 61, who advised Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on China issues, met with one of the agents in Taipei last September during an official trip to China and Japan, the affidavit says.

Tailed by the FBI in recent weeks, Keyser and two Taiwanese agents conducted a series of covert meetings around Washington. At a meeting July 31 at the Potowmack Landing restaurant, the affidavit says, Keyser handed the Taiwanese two envelopes "that appeared to bear U.S. government printing.''

On Sept. 4 at the same Alexandria restaurant, on the Potomac River with a view of downtown Washington, FBI agents saw Keyser pass a document captioned "discussion topics,'' the affidavit says. FBI agents stopped the three men outside the restaurant and took the six-page document, described in the affidavit as something "derived from material to which Keyser had access as a result of his employment with the Department of State."

The court documents do not say that Keyser accepted money and do not otherwise ascribe a motive. Neither Keyser nor his attorney returned phone calls yesterday.

Keyser told the FBI that the document he gave the two Taiwanese agents contained "talking points" that he often would prepare for his meetings with the two agents, according to the affidavit. He said that his trip to Taiwan had been for sightseeing and that he had not notified anyone about it, including his family. His wife is a CIA officer. . . .

Keyser is charged with concealing the trip to Taiwan by lying in May on State Department forms for security clearance that required him to disclose foreign travel.

News of Keyser's arrest stunned some in diplomatic circles, in which he is highly regarded as a China analyst. Keyser, a Foreign Service officer for three decades, speaks fluent Mandarin and is knowledgeable about the former Soviet Union. He has served in high-ranking positions in the U.S. embassies in Beijing and Tokyo, and was deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs when he allegedly made the trip to Taiwan.

Keyser retired in July as the No. 2 person in the State Department's East Asia bureau, but he is still assigned to the department's Foreign Service Institute in Arlington. . .

Court documents say James A. Kelly, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and Keyser's superior at the time, told the FBI that Keyser was not permitted to travel to Taiwan on official business because the United States and Taiwan don't have diplomatic relations and that he would have vetoed such a trip.

Posted by Laura at September 16, 2004 08:54 AM