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CHINESE SILK
According to the Byzantine historian Procopius, Emperor Justinian sends Nestorian Christian monks to China to bring back the secret of silk. They return to Byzantium with silkworm eggs concealed in their staffs, which later hatch, breaking the Chinese monopoly. -
CHINESE PORCELAIN
The French Jesuit priest François Xavier d’Entrecolles travels to China’s imperial kilns in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, to steal the secret of hard-paste porcelain. -
BRITISH TEXTILE MILLS
The English immigrant Samuel Slater establishes America’s first water-powered textile mill by replicating techniques from his home country. -
BRITISH TEXTILE LOOMS
The New Englander Francis Cabot Lowell sets sail for Britain, where he tours textile factories in Glasgow and Manchester, examining the revolutionary power loom. Taking machine plans out of the country is illegal, but Lowell uses his powerful memory to recreate the designs he saw on returning home. -
CHINESE TEA
The Scottish botanist Robert Fortune journeys to the tea-processing mountain towns of China’s Fujian province, his hair styled to pass as a local. His observations allow the British East India Company to found vast tea plantations throughout South Asia. -
U.S. TRACTORS
When Representatives of the Soviet Amtorg Trading Corp. visited US Ford Motor, they swipe blueprints and parts for the revolutionary Fordson tractor. -
U.S. BIOTECHNOLOGY
Manager at a Boston biotechnology pilfers proprietary documents about biotech research for west German to photocopy and reportedly pass on to the German electronics company Siemens, before being caught and attempting suicide.. -
U.S. ELECTRONICS
The FBI confirms that French intelligence targeted U.S. electronics companies including IBM and Texas Instruments between 1987 and 1989 in an attempt to bolster the failing Compagnie des Machines Bull, a state-owned French computer firm. The efforts mixed electronic surveillance with attempted recruitment of disgruntled personnel. -
JAPANESE CARS
As U.S. President Bill Clinton’s administration considers sanctions on Japanese luxury car imports, National Security Agency and CIA officers eavesdrop on conversations involving Toyota and Nissan executives using cutting-edge surveillance technology. They pass on the intelligence to U.S. trade negotiators.
