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end the venture

An MIT Technology Review investigation published in December found that the China Initiative has strayed too far from its original mission. Rather than focusing on economic espionage, the initiative appeared to be an umbrella for cases somehow connected with China. Defendants were often charged with more minor violations such as grant fraud, visa fraud, or lying to investigators. But even when the defendants were not charged with espionage, federal prosecutors still portrayed them as national security threats.

Concerns over China’s economic espionage have been growing among US government officials for years. During the Obama administration, Justice Department officials filed a record number of lawsuits under the Economic Espionage Act, including many against Chinese organizations. It was this department that filed cyber espionage charges against five hackers affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army of China – the first time state actors have been accused of hacking.

But the China Initiative, announced by the Trump administration on November 1, 2018, was the first country-specific initiative in the Justice Department’s history. The announcement comes after months of confrontational rhetoric by Trump and administration officials portraying China as a threat. “whole society” response and recruited all Chinese students at American universities as potential spies.

“While continuing to focus on the emerging significant threat posed by China, I have come to the conclusion that this initiative is not the right approach. Instead, the current threat landscape requires a broader approach.”

Deputy Attorney General Matthew Olsen

Our investigation involved compiling and reviewing a list of cases known to be part of the initiative, primarily based on Ministry of Justice press releases highlighting activities and achievements. The ministry is not transparent. made it impossible to create a complete list.

We found some cases that closely matched the stated purpose of the initiative, such as indictments of hackers linked to Chinese state security believed to be behind the massive Equifax data breach, or prosecuting a Taiwanese company and three individuals for theft. Trade secrets from an American semiconductor company to benefit a Chinese state-owned enterprise.

But the review found that prosecutors are increasingly focusing on issues of research integrity, such as grant fraud or “double immersion,” seeking funding from both American and Chinese sources for the same research, even though most of the academics involved are working on basic research for publication. clearly.

Our data also showed that nearly all of the defendants – 88% – were ethnically Chinese, including many American citizens or individuals who have lived and worked in the US for many years.

Andrew Lelling, a former federal prosecutor who helped shape the initiative as a member of the steering committee after publishing his findings in the MIT Technology Review, said: wrote in a LinkedIn post He said the initiative was “solid policy” but “deviated and lost focus in some important ways”. “DOJ should revamp and shut down parts of the program to avoid unnecessarily cooling scientific and commercial collaborations with Chinese partners,” he continued.

A country-specific policy

In the 2018 announcement of the initiative, Attorney General Jeff Sessions referred to “non-traditional collectors”, pointing to researchers in laboratories, universities and the defense industry, and favored technology transfer against the interests of the United States.

“’Unconventional collectors’ were used as a euphemism for ‘spies’,” Gisela Kusakawa, a staff attorney for Asian Americans Advancing Justice, said in an email.

“It blurs the line between the Chinese government and people of Chinese descent. Essentially, the obsession with ‘non-traditional collectors’ has the effect of focusing on people of Chinese descent rather than those perpetrating State-sponsored acts of espionage,” he added.

Our investigation found that by 2021, cases classified as “China Initiative cases” by the federal government had become a prosecution mix, accusing defendants of a wide variety of crimes. The only crossing line was what Justice Department officials vaguely described as a “link with China.”

Many groups and individuals advocating the end of the initiative have said they view some actions by the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party as legitimate economic or security threats.

But the same groups and individuals said the government could address these concerns without targeting Asian-Americans.

moving towards clarity

Part of the problem was that in the majority of academic cases, guidelines for disclosing foreign affiliations and other sources of funding were not always clear. For example, it is legal to participate in a Chinese talent program – but this participation has been a cause of suspicion and a factor in several China Initiative cases.

Collaboration with researchers at foreign institutions has long been an accepted and encouraged part of academic life. However, the strained political relationship between the United States and China and the prosecution of academics under the China Initiative have created uncertainty over the future of collaboration between American and Chinese researchers.

New guidelines from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to strengthen U.S. research security, published in early January, provide some new clarity on what kind of international cooperation is allowed.

The guidelines are to clarify requirements for federally funded researchers and to develop best practices for federal research agencies.

They set the target standard disclosure requirements and forms for researchers seeking federal funding, and provide more information on when researchers should disclose potential conflicts of interest and participation in foreign programs such as Chinese talent schemes. The guidelines also outline the possible consequences of violations, including the possibility of criminal charges.

While the guidelines provide greater clarity, it’s unclear exactly what impact they will have.

OSTP openly condemned xenophobia and called for the guidance to be implemented without adversely affecting scientific collaboration and recruitment.

“The research security issues we face are real and serious: some foreign governments, including the Chinese government, are working hard to illegally acquire our most advanced technologies. This is unacceptable,” former OSTP Director Eric Lander wrote in the report introducing the guidelines.

“At the same time, we will be doing ourselves more harm than any competitor or adversary if our policies for these actions significantly reduce our superpower to attract global scientific talent or fuel xenophobia against Asian Americans. That’s why we need a thoughtful and effective approach.”

Many experts who provided written input to the code recommended that the guidelines include a “mechanism for pardon” as a way for people involved in talent programs and other affiliations to disclose those ties without fear of punishment – ​​though the idea was floated in early 2021 when it first emerged. Republican lawmakers quickly dropped it.

When asked how researchers should act in the absence of an amnesty provision, an OSTP official pointed to language in the guidelines instructing research agencies to “ensure that mechanisms for redressing disclosures exist, are communicated clearly, and are simple and understandable.” OSTP’s rules encourage researchers to disclose past violations—but the language may not be enough to reassure researchers after three years of the China Initiative.

“The China Initiative was chasing problems in academia that academia had yet to realize,” says Emily Weinstein, a China policy analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology and one of the experts recommending some form of security measure. amnesty.

“It has to be some kind of olive branch,” he says. “Fixing the disclosure requirement is just putting a Band-Aid on it.”

A moment of celebration and the need for reflection

However, Princeton University professor Rory Truex, who has written about the initiative’s impact on American science, says that despite the end of the initiative, there is “a palpable fear” in academia.

It’s notable that hundreds of people in the academic community came together to oppose the government’s actions, including many ethnically non-Chinese researchers, Truex said.

“Scientists and academics in general rarely move together,” Truex says.

Changes in the initiative may not fully address concerns in the Asian American community.

“The end of DOJ’s China Initiative is a big step towards stopping racial profiling by Chinese scientists,” Jenny J. Lee, a professor in the Center for Education Policy Research and Practice at the University of Arizona, told MIT Technology Review in an email. Before Olsen’s statement.

However, hostile views towards China, including those associated with China, will likely persist,” he said. “Negative stereotypes and discrimination against the Asian community extend far beyond the courtroom.”

“The China Initiative and the broader rhetoric around it have damaged our nation’s competitiveness, ruined the careers of innocent academics, and severely damaged the government’s relationship with Asian American communities,” said Linda Ng, national president of OCA-Asia Pacific American Advocates. In a statement emailed after the announcement.. “While we are cautiously optimistic about the Justice Department’s review of the program, this should not be a rebranding effort. Attorney General Garland and Deputy Attorney General Olsen must be committed to implementing concrete and focused reforms in the national security interests.” should never be used as an excuse to systematically deprive Asian Americans and Asian immigrant scientists of their civil liberties.”

And for scientists on trial by the government, the ordeal continues—sometimes for years—after being acquitted.

The cases of hydrologist Sherry Chen and Xi Xiaoxing, a physics professor, preceded the China Initiative – charges against them were brought in 2014 and 2015, respectively. But they followed a similar path, with prosecutors dropping the charges before the trial. Years later, both are still pursuing legal action and damages against the federal government.

Meanwhile, MIT professor Gang Chen, who was accused of electronic fraud, falsely filing a tax return, and failing to disclose a foreign bank account, was ultimately dismissed before trial as he failed to meet the government’s burden of proof.

He went back to his lab and went back to the classroom. It is determined to continue its work, but will not apply for federal grants in the future – although government grants make up a significant portion of the money available for research funding. “I don’t know yet how to do that,” he told MIT Technology Review a few days after he was sacked. “I’ll have to figure this out.”