> I don't know how the US would know this when doing his clearance check. It's not as if the US can call up China and ask to verify. And if they do provide tha

> I don't know how the US would know this when doing his clearance check. It's not as if the US can call up China and ask to verify. And if they do provide that answer, should the US trust it? Presumably when he entered the US he did so with a Chinese passport, and applied for his visa from China. It wouldn't be difficult to determine that he was a Chinese citizen, unless he used false papers and a fake identity from a third country, which didn't happen in this case. > The whole national origin thing, though, seems to be a red herring because there are plenty of Americans of Chinese birth who do not spy for China Well, that's the standard for security clearance. There's a variety of reasons why you wouldn't want to give clearance to someone foreign-born. When you evaluate someone for a clearance one of the biggest things you look for is potential weaknesses. For instance, someone with a gambling problem and lots of gambling debts shouldn't be trusted because they would be vulnerable to bribery. If someone has family or friends living in another country, then that country's government could extort that person by threatening their family and friends with arrest.