Universities question FBI calls to monitor Chinese students and scholars

L. Rafael Reif, MIT  president

ASAM NEWS & VIEWS FROM THE EDGE

The FBI is stepping up their investigations against China's alleged efforts to steal US research and secrets by asking American universities to keep a close eye on Chinese students and scholars.

The public radio network, National Public Radio, reports authorities have visited at least 10 universities to make that request.

“We are being asked what processes are in place to know what labs they are working at or what information they are being exposed to,” Fred Cate, of Indiana University, said. “It’s not a question of just looking for suspicious behavior — it’s actually really targeting specific countries and the people from those countries.”

Amid the Trump Administration's request and warnings about Chinese espionage, the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) last week wrote an open letter to “members of the MIT community,” in support of students and scholars of Chinese descent. 

L. Rafael Reif wrote that he felt compelled to share his “dismay” over the Trump administration’s scrutiny of Chinese and Chinese American researchers and pupils due to heightened concerns about academic espionage.

“Faculty members, post-docs, research staff and students tell me that, in their dealings with government agencies, they now feel unfairly scrutinized, stigmatized and on edge – because of their Chinese ethnicity alone,” he wrote. “Nothing could be further from – or more corrosive to ­– our community’s collaborative strength and open-hearted ideals. To hear such reports from Chinese and Chinese American colleagues is heartbreaking.”

The increased emphasis comes against the backdrop of what FBI director Christopher Wray said at a speech in New York back in April.

RELATED: 'Yellow Peril' fears arise in Chinese American community

“China has pioneered a societal approach to stealing innovation in any way it can from a wide array of busi­ness­es, universities and organizations,” he said to the Council on Foreign Relations, according to the South China Morning Post. “Put plainly, China seems determined to steal its way up the economic ladder at our expense.”

As AsAmNews previously reported, Xifeng Wu was recently asked to step down as director of public health for the Center for Public Health and Translational Genomics at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center under suspicion of strong ties to China.

The request by the FBI has left many universities confused and uncertain. Yale University president Peter Salovey is among them.

He said he was “working with my presidential colleagues in the Association of American Universities (AAU) to urge federal agencies to clarify concerns they have about international academic exchanges. The AAU has encouraged agencies to use the tools already in place, such as export controls, while affirming the principle of open academic exchange for basic research.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists fears that scientific partnerships are being criminalized. The organization posted on its blog:

Scientists of Chinese descent are being put into an impossible situation. On the one hand, they have been encouraged for years by their research institutions in the United States to seek out relationships with their international scientific peers in order to work together and solve hard problems. The clearest example of this collaboration comes from cancer research. The NIH’s Cancer wing, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), has stressed the importance of international collaboration in order to improve cancer outcomes in the scientific literature and in the webpage of the NCI’s Cancer Moonshot program (one of the tag lines read “Cancer knows no borders”). There is even a NCI group dedicated specifically to the purpose of international research collaborations.

On the other hand, several of the FBI actions towards Chinese or Chinese-American scientists (i.e. arrests, house visits to ask about “loyalty,” and reading private emails) have been directed at cancer researchers who were carrying out perfectly reasonable scientific partnerships with oncologists in China. And through these actions, the US government may be scaring off brilliant scientists of Chinese descent from conducting research that could help find treatments for cancer.

The increased scrutiny by the government is creating a new landscape for ethnically Chinese researchers in the United States, says Frank Wu, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings, and a member of the Committee of 100, a group of prominent Chinese Americans that works to advance US–China relations. Whether the US government’s focus on foreign influence in academia is right or wrong, he says, researchers need to understand that behaviours that were once considered OK, are now questioned or banned. 

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2 men charged with stealing turbine technology for China

TWITTER

FBI agents escort Xiaoqing Zheng upon his arrest last summer.

The government's apparent focus on alleged industrial espionage by China have Americans of Chinese descent nervous about being caught between a racial profiling dragnet and China's apparent efforts to steal ideas and technology.

An indictment unsealed Tuesday (April 23) charges Xiaoqing Zheng, 56, of Niskayuna, New York, and Zhaoxi Zhang, 47, of Liaoning Province, China, with economic espionage and conspiring to steal General Electric’s (GE’s) trade secrets surrounding turbine technologies, knowing and intending that those stolen trade secrets would be used to benefit the People’s Republic of China. 

Zheng, who gave up Chinese citizenship to become a U.S. citizen in 2001, pleaded not guilty and was released pending trial. Authorities believe Zhang, who is the nephew of Zheng's wife, is in China, thus out of reach of U.S. authorities.

“The indictment alleges a textbook example of the Chinese government’s strategy to rob American companies of their intellectual property and to replicate their products in Chinese factories, enabling Chinese companies to replace the American company first in the Chinese market and later worldwide,” said John C. General Demers., Assistant Attorney General for National Security.

“We will not stand idly by while the world’s second-largest economy engages in state-sponsored theft. As part of the Attorney General’s China Initiative, we will partner with the private sector to hold responsible those who violate our laws, and we urge China’s leaders to join responsible nations and to act with honesty and integrity when competing in the global marketplace,” said Demers.

Last week, Asian scientists were ousted from a cancer research center in Houston, Texas for allegedly conspiring to steal research secrets. The three researchers were the latest alleged victims in the government's crackdown on economic espionage.

Other Chinese American scientists accused of spying have lost their jobs, reputations and careers ruined even if they are eventually found innocent.

According to the 14-count indictment, Zheng, while employed at GE Power & Water in Schenectady, New York as an engineer specializing in sealing technology, exploited his access to GE’s files by stealing multiple electronic files, including proprietary files involving design models, engineering drawings, configuration files, and material specifications having to do with various components and testing systems associated with GE gas and steam turbines. 

Zheng's indictment followed months of failed plea negotiations between the U.S. attorney's office and Zheng's attorney, Kevin A. Luibrand, according to people briefed on the case. The investigation has also involved members of the U.S. Justice Department in Washington, D.C., who have examined Zheng's alleged ties to China and the Chinese government.

At a detention hearing last year, Luibrand said his client's reputation had been unnecessarily "destroyed" and he offered a forceful defense against many of the government's arguments. Luibrand said there was no evidence that Zheng colluded with the Chinese government or that he sold or used the GE data.

At the time, Zheng was released on $100,000 bail.Zheng is accused of e-mailing and transferring many of the stolen GE files to his business partner, Chinese businessman Zhaoxi Zhang, who was located in China. 

Zheng and Zhang allegedly used the stolen GE trade secrets to advance their own business interests in two Chinese companies - Liaoning Tianyi Aviation Technology Co., Ltd. (LTAT) and Nanjing Tianyi Avi Tech Co. Ltd. (NTAT), companies which research, develop, and manufacture parts for turbines.

The indictment also alleges that Zheng and Zhang conspired to commit economic espionage, as the thefts of GE’s trade secrets surrounding various turbine technologies were done knowing and intending that the thefts would benefit the People’s Republic of China and one or more foreign instrumentalities, including LTAT, NTAT, Shenyang Aerospace University, Shenyang Aeroengine Research Institute, and Huaihai Institute of Technology. 

The defendants, through LTAT and NTAT, allegedly received financial and other support from the Chinese government and coordinated with Chinese government officials to enter into research agreements with Chinese state-owned institutions to develop turbine technologies.

Zheng was arraigned Tuesday in Albany, New York, before United States Magistrate Judge Christian F. Hummel, and released with conditions pending a trial before United States District Judge Mae A. D’Agostino.

After Zheng's arrest last summer shone a spotlight on China's Thousand Talents Plan, for which he was allegedly recruited in 2012, according to Bloomberg News.

Many of the accused scientists and researchers caught up in the government crackdown are reportedly recruited by China's  program of seeking overseas Chinese to share their knowledge and talents with China. Chinese leaders once saw "talent" recruitment as crucial to their quest to be a global scientific and technological power by 2049, with Xi Jinping calling it “the key” to China’s scientific development.

One estimate said that 84% of Chinese students studying in the U.S. remained in the U.S. five years after their graduation, according to a U.S. study by the National Science Foundation.

Since Zheng's arrest, China has sought to downplay the plan's significance, purging terms depicting it as a menacing power and toning down language on plans for expansion.

"Keeping a humble attitude is constructive for China’s international relations, easing the doubts that China is anxious to overtake the U.S.’s position in leading the world,” said Wang Huiyao, founder of the Center for China and Globalization, an independent think tank.

Unfortunately, China's strategy has placed many Chinese and Chinese Americans in an awkward position. From China's view, they are encouraging overseas Chinese  and Americans of Chinese descent to share their knowledge and technology to create jobs for Chinese workers or family members remaining in China. Loyalty to family is one of the strongest values of most Asian immigrants.

On the other hand, from the U.S. perspective, that same desire to help family or to Chinese researchers' desire to benefit China and aid the relatives still in China, is giving the impression that they are "stealing" their knowledge and technology from the U.S economy and research institutions.

If found guilty of the multiple charges, Zheng could face up to 15 years in prison and fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

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