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Our analysis shows a significant shift towards academics starting in 2019 and continuing into 2020. In 2018, none of the cases were related to research integrity. As of 2020, there were 16 (52%) of the 31 newly announced cases. (One research integrity case in 2020 included an accusation of violating the EEA.)
At least 14 of these research integrity cases started because of suspicions arising from links to “talent programs” where Chinese universities provide financial incentives for academics to do research, teach, or partially bring back other activities to the sponsoring institution. or on a full time basis. (At least four cases of trade secret theft include participation in the alleged talent program.)
Federal officials have repeatedly said that participation in talent programs is not illegal. wanted In the words of former FBI deputy director of counterintelligence Bill Priestap, “brain gain programs” that “encourage the theft of intellectual property from US institutions.”
Cases collected over the years under the China Initiative
National security links are sometimes weak.
The initiative’s growing focus on research integrity includes several cases of academics working on topics such as artificial intelligence or robotics that could have national security applications. However, most of the work in these areas is basic research, and many of the disciplines in which cases are brought do not have clear links to national security.
Nine out of 23 research integrity cases involve health and medical researchers, including people working on heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and cancer; Six of them focused on NIH-funded researchers — a reflection of the institute’s aggressive stance on countering “the improper influence of foreign governments on federally funded research,” a representative of the NIH Office of Extramural Research. NIH’s efforts Before the China Initiative, and the representative referred questions about the initiative to the Ministry of Justice.
Funding agencies allegedly scammed in research integrity lawsuits
Instead, the national security implications seem to center around concerns that anyone with ties to China could serve as “non-traditional collectors.” Participating in technology transfer contrary to US interests.” But as our database shows, only two of the 22 researchers were accused of trying to improperly access information or smuggle goods into China. The charges were later dropped.
China Initiative cases not as successful as Justice Department claims
Three years after the program began, less than a third of China Initiative defendants have been convicted. Of the 148 people charged, only 40 were found guilty or found guilty with pleas guilty, which usually included fewer charges than originally brought. Almost two-thirds of cases – 64% – are still pending. And 71 of the 95 people still accused are not actively prosecuted because the accused is in an unknown location or cannot be extradited.
In particular, most cases involving research integrity were disbanded. While eight are still pending, seven cases against academics have resulted in dismissal or acquittal, and six have resulted in pleadings or convictions. This contrasts sharply with the usual outcome of federal criminal cases, where the vast majority result in a plea of guilty. Pew Research Center analysis of federal statistics.
Consequences for defendants charged under the China Initiative
About 90% of all cases are against people of Chinese descent
One of the earliest and most persistent criticisms of the China Initiative was that it could lead to an increase in racial profiling against individuals of Chinese descent, Asian Americans, and Asian immigrants. Justice Department officials have repeatedly denied that the China Initiative engaged in racial profiling, but people of Chinese heritage, including American citizens, were disproportionately affected by the initiative.
Our analysis shows that 130 of the 148 people accused under the China Initiative – or 88% – have Chinese heritage. This includes ethnically Chinese American citizens and citizens of the People’s Republic of China, citizens and others with ties to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and longstanding Chinese diaspora communities in Southeast Asia.
Defendants of Chinese heritage
Those numbers are “really high,” says Margaret Lewis, a law professor at Seton Hall University who has written extensively on the China Initiative. “We knew there would be a majority,” he added, but “it underlines that the ‘but we prosecute other people’ argument… is not credible.”
New cases still being brought under the Biden administration
The initiative was launched under the Trump administration, and while the number of cases clearly linked to the China Initiative has fallen since President Joe Biden took office, it hasn’t stopped.
For example, Mingqing Xiao, a professor of mathematics in Illinois, was accused of failing to disclose his ties to the Chinese university in his April 2021 National Science Foundation grant application. An indictment was filed against four Chinese nationals accused of hacking dozens of companies and research institutions in July.
Meanwhile, federal lawyers continued to advance the prosecutions. The trial of Harvard chemistry professor Charles Lieber, accused of hiding ties to Chinese universities, is scheduled to begin in mid-December. Prosecutors plan to face trial in cases brought against high-profile academics in Kansas, Arkansas and elsewhere in the first few months of 2022.
New China Initiative cases brought in 2021
How was it start
Concerns about Chinese economic espionage targeting the US have been growing for years, and estimates of the cost to the US economy are $20 billion to $30 billion as high as 600 billion dollars. The practice began to increase dramatically under the Obama administration: in 2013, the administration introduced a new strategy China has been mentioned more than 100 times to reduce theft of US trade secrets.
In 2014, the Ministry of Justice filed charges of cyber espionage against five hackers affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army of China – the first time state actors were prosecuted by the US for hacking. Then in 2015, the United States and China signed a historic agreement committing not to commercial cyber theft against each other’s businesses.
However, by 2018, as part of the Trump administration’s much more confrontational approach to China, the department officially launched its first country-specific program.
The effort was “data-driven”, according to the former Justice Department official, and “emerged from intelligence briefings that the PRC and its associated actors deliver daily to the attorney general and senior DOJ leaders from the FBI. [were] It is deeply concerned with hacking, economic espionage, trade secret theft, breaking our export controls and engaging in unconventional collection methods. He added that Chinese consulates “help mask the true histories of Chinese visa applicants to avoid visa denial based on their ties to the Chinese military.”
But Trump had campaigned in part on anti-Chinese and anti-Communist rhetoric. a rally In 2016, “We cannot continue to allow China to encroach on our country and that is what they are doing.”
In the months prior to the initiative’s launch, Trump reportedly told a group of corporate executives at an indoor dinner party at his Mar-a-Lago mansion:almost every [Chinese] The student who comes to this country is a spy”
This was in the background when Sessions announced on November 1, 2018 that it was launching the China Initiative.
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