The university suspended Ang after his arrest.Īlso last Friday, Dr. Last Friday, Simon Saw-Teong Ang, an electrical engineering professor at the University of Arkansas, was arrested for failing to disclose his ties to the Chinese government and Chinese businesses in a grant application to NASA. While the three cases announced this week do not allege outright intellectual property theft, they involve researchers at American institutions who hid their work for the Chinese, raising the risk of unauthorized intellectual property transfer. says the programs have a nefarious purpose: stealing U.S. and other foreign academics and researchers to work in China.Ĭhinese officials have made no secret about what they aim to accomplish through these programs: access to critical intellectual property. The Thousand Talents Program is the best known of more than 200 Chinese recruitment plans that target U.S.
“The Department of Justice remains vigilant over programs such as the Thousand Talents Program that recruits professors and researchers to work for China,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers speaks during a news conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, Nov. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.FILE - Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information.
Perhaps most notably, a grant fraud case brought against a Tennessee professor, Anming Hu, who was ultimately acquitted on all counts.Ĭopyright © 2021 NPR. So far, eight have ended in convictions or pleas. In the last three years, the department says it has brought 16 economic espionage or trade theft cases with a link to China and 12 involving alleged grant fraud. LUCAS: Justice Department officials say they are sensitive to such concerns and that their investigations are based on an individual's conduct, not ethnicity. JENNY LEE: They are concerned that any connection with China - this may mean collaborating on a research project, visiting China, applying for a grant or working and collecting data, analyzing data - any extent of that would open themselves up for potential investigation by the FBI. One thing she heard back from Chinese Americans and Chinese nationals in the U.S. University of Arizona professor Jenny Lee led a recent survey of scientists at leading U.S. She and other advocates say that fear runs especially deep among scientists at American colleges and research labs. LUCAS: Gisela Kusakawa is a staff attorney for the civil rights organization Asian Americans Advancing Justice. GISELA KUSAKAWA: There is this fear in the community that economic espionage, that this national security threat, is just being used as a pretext. Critics say the program amounts to racial profiling and has created a climate of fear among Asian Americans, particularly those of Chinese descent.
LUCAS: Despite such assurances from Garland, the department's China Initiative has come under fire. GARLAND: We never investigate or prosecute based on ethnic identity, on what country a person is from or came from or their family. At the same time, he sought to assure lawmakers that the department plays things straight. LUCAS: And the department, he said, has an obligation to protect the country against this threat. They represent a serious threat with respect to espionage. MERRICK GARLAND: One is that the People's Republic of China is a serious threat to our intellectual property. He said there are two important things to bear in mind. RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: At a congressional hearing last week, Attorney General Merrick Garland was asked about the Justice Department's China Initiative. Critics say that initiative also has created a climate of fear among Chinese Americans. Justice Department called the China Initiative aims to counter the Chinese government's theft of American secrets and technology.
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