Chinese spy ring arrests are the tip of the iceberg.

Two Chinese-American brothers and their wives were arrested in southern California on October 28 for conspiring to steal sensitive information about U.S. Navy warships and smuggle it to China. On November 15, a federal grand jury indicted both of the men and one of the wives for the relatively minor crime of failing to register as Chinese agents.

The indictment alleges that Chi Mak, 65, a naturalized U.S. citizen; his brother, Tai Wang Mak, 56, a Chinese national; and Chi Mak's wife, Rebecca Laiwah Chiu, 62; are agents of the People's Republic of China. Failing to register as a foreign agent carries a maximum possible penalty of 10 years in federal prison. Tai Wang Mak's wife was not indicted.

According to an FBI affidavit, Chi Mak, a lead engineer for U.S. defense contractor Power Paragon, had given his brother several computer disks that contained data on U.S. Navy weapons, specifically information on Quiet Electric Drive (QED) systems used in U.S. warships. Tai Wang Mak was planning to travel to China to hand the disks over to another man, the affidavit said. The FBI characterized the QED data as "extremely sensitive."

Tai Wang Mak, a broadcast director for the Phoenix North American Chinese Channel, and his wife were arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on October 28 as they boarded a plane to China. Asked by CNN's Lou Dobbs to characterize the implications of this case, Richard Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center replied: "Tremendous, simply tremendous. This will affect the security of all Americans. The Chinese spy case, combined with the former Northrop engineer that betrayed information about stealth aircraft, combined to cost the American taxpayer ... billions and billions of dollars in terms of making up for new vulnerabilities and then investing in new systems in order to regain our superiority.... This challenge by Communist China ought to be at the top of the agenda of the Congress, our intelligence communities, instead of the politics of destruction that's now occupying them. But China has clearly targeted the United States, and very sadly, has targeted the Chinese-American community for recruits, as this latest spy scandal demonstrates."

It is difficult to exaggerate the extent to which our national security may be compromised, since thousands of Chinese nationals and naturalized Chinese, like the Mak brothers, have been given access to our defense industries and thousands of Chinese companies are allowed to operate freely throughout the U.S., yet virtually all Chinese companies operating here have to be considered--at least potentially--front companies for the People's Liberation Army or Chinese intelligence.