The committee, chaired by Jean Arthuis, minister for economic planning and development, will use information gleaned from both French intelligence services and French business people. The Australians as well are improving their intelligence capabilities. How much is for commercial and how much for defense reasons is uncertain, but Indonesia and China, two lucrative regional markets, are clear priorities. In 1988, Australia opened a new station on its north coast to eavesdrop on Indonesian satellite traffic. That station will replace a joint British-Australian station in Hong Kong that will revert to China in 1997.
Japan too is active.
Its agents reportedly aimed an infrared beam at a window in the Australian embassy in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, to eavesdrop on conversations inside. In the US, the emphasis on economic espionage has been gathering momentum for several years, and spying by other nations is often cited to justify it. In 1991, President George Bush, a former CIA director, told an agency meeting that we must have intelligence to thwart anyone who tries to steal our technology or otherwise refuses to play by fair economic rules. Robert Gates, then CIA director, said a Bush directive emphasized tracking international economic trends. The following year, Bill Clinton invited Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen to attend daily White House CIA briefings.