Posted on 04/23/2021 7:12:07 PM PDT by ransomnote
Note: A full copy of the indictment can be viewed here.
WASHINGTON – Today, a federal grand jury in Carbondale, Ill. returned an indictment charging a mathematics professor and researcher at Southern Illinois University – Carbondale (SIUC) with two counts of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement.
According to court documents, Mingqing Xiao, 59, of Makanda, Illinois, fraudulently obtained $151,099 in federal grant money from the National Science Foundation (NSF) by concealing support he was receiving from the Chinese government and a Chinese university.
“Again, an American professor stands accused of enabling the Chinese government’s efforts to corruptly benefit from U.S. research funding by lying about his obligations to, and support from, an arm of the Chinese government and a Chinese public university,” said Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers for the Justice Department’s National Security Division (NSD). “Honesty and transparency about funding sources lie at the heart of the scientific research enterprise. They enable U.S. agencies to distribute scarce grants for scientific research fairly and equitably. And they allow other researchers to evaluate potential conflicts of interest and conflicts of commitment. When researchers fall short of fulfilling these core academic values in ways that violate the law, the Department stand ready to investigate and prosecute.”
“Fraudulently obtaining U.S. taxpayer funding is a slap in the face to the vast majority of university researchers who do the right thing and abide by the rules,” said Alan E. Kohler, Jr., Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. “To those individuals who choose to conceal affiliations with foreign universities or foreign governments while applying for U.S. taxpayer-funded grants, the message should be clear: the FBI and its partners are aggressively investigating allegations of grant fraud.”
“The FBI takes seriously its commitment to work with our partners in academia to protect U.S. research funded grants,” said Special Agent in Charge Sean M. Cox of the FBI’s Springfield Field Office. “This investigation, like so many others, should serve as a reminder that failure to be truthful and transparent on an application for U.S. funded grants is a violation of the law. In this case the applicant allegedly failed to disclose his affiliation with China. Individuals who fail to disclose their affiliation with any foreign nation will be held accountable.”
“The charges in this case are very serious,” said U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft for the Southern District of Illinois. “University grant fraud allows China to co-opt U.S. research and development at a fraction of the cost. Prosecutions like this one play an important role, not just in protecting American investments in academic research from foreign exploitation, but also in combating the growing threat that China poses to our national security. We will continue to work with our partners at NSD and the FBI on these important cases.”
According to the indictment, Xiao has worked in SIUC’s mathematics department since 2000, focusing his research on partial differential equations, control theory, optimization theory, dynamical systems, and computational science. In that position, Xiao allegedly applied for and received NSF grant funds for a project set to run from 2019 to 2022 without informing NSF about another, overlapping grant he had already received from the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China. Xiao also allegedly failed to inform NSF that he was on the payroll of Shenzhen University, a public university in Guangdong Province, and that he had already committed to teaching and conducting research at Shenzhen University from 2018 to 2023.
The indictment further alleges that in March 2019, while his NSF grant proposal was still pending, Xiao submitted another grant proposal to the Natural Science Foundation of China. According to the indictment, Xiao allegedly applied for the funds as an employee of Shenzhen University and did not disclose the new Chinese proposal to NSF. Xiao is charged with falsely certifying to SIUC that his NSF grant proposal was true, complete, and accurate.
Before awarding the grant, NSF questioned Xiao about any current or pending funding from “worldwide sources,” including specifically whether he held any position outside of the United States or had obtained funding from non-U.S. funding sources. The indictment accuses Xiao of falsely reporting to NSF that he had nothing else to disclose.
If convicted, Xiao faces up to 20 years in prison on each count of wire fraud and up to five years in prison for making a false statement. All three charges are also punishable by a fine of up to $250,000. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
The investigation was conducted by the FBI, the IRS, and the Department of Homeland Security. Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter T. Reed is prosecuting the case, with assistance from NSD’s Counterintelligence & Export Section.
The prosecution is part of the Justice Department’s ongoing China Initiative. Led by the Department’s National Security Division, the China Initiative is a broad, multi-faceted effort to counter Chinese national security threats and safeguard American intellectual property.
An indictment is merely an allegation and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
He will be pardoned by bidet.
Almost every 1st or 2nd generation Chinese American necessarily sends whatever scientific or social information he encounters back to China if there are relatives in China. All relatives in China are hostages for the “good behaviour” of Chinese nationals and their children in America and Europe. Chinese family ties are much stronger than Most American family ties.American immigrants and settlers up to the middle of the last century came here as individuals with family ties in the Old World mostly cut because communication was not so easy as it is now. Now immigrants are progeny sent to America by their families and there is intimate communication across the ocean and borderss.
Yet Americans with the right qualifications - PhDs or other terminal degrees - can’t get hired at American schools. All Indians and Communist Chinese
Go Salukis! I went there for school. And since I now work in academia at a large research university, it’s pretty much axiomatic that many if not most of the Chinese faculty play fast and loose with the paperwork.
A fake American, a spy. Convict and execute.
LOL. That was the first thing I thought of too. 👍
Tip of the iceberg.
Mingqing Xiao, 59, of Makanda, Illinois
The Chinese certainly know deceit and cheating.
“Go Salukis! I went there for school. And since I now work in academia at a large research university, it’s pretty much axiomatic that many if not most of the Chinese faculty play fast and loose with the paperwork.”
It’s part of their culture, they are nothing but cheaters.
Back in 1985, I graduated with a degree in Mathematics. I decided to apply for the Masters program at the same school. I was accepted but was informed that there were no scholarships/assistantship available. That was unusual since there were usually at least five available every year. I had a 3.8 GPA and had already taken half of the courses for the Masters program as an undergrad. It just wasn't me that was turned down. There were 2 other students that were turned down as well. The scuttlebutt was that the head of the grad department gave all of the scholarships to Chinese students ( which by the way was in violation of state law at the time. There was a law on the books that no state money could be given to a member of the Communist party. At that time, any Chinese student studying overseas had to be a member of the party ). What really pissed me off was that summer there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about the lack of American students in graduate programs in the US. They interviewed this professor and he had the gall to say that the " the scholarships are there for the taking, but there are no students applying for them". It turns out the following year, this professor had a full 2 year sabbatical in Beijing paid for fully by the Chinese. Now my brother went to the same school and graduated 2 years later. I looked at the graduation guide that lists all of the students who got their degrees. Sure enough, in the Mathematics program ALL of the Masters awarded were to Chinese students. There was not one American among them. At least 3 of these students already had a Masters degree in Mathematics from a Chinese university. Were they really there to earn a degree or was it for something else ?
Wow, I have certainly heard of this before. Was this in California?
I assume all these very similar indictments against Chinese professors and researchers began under Trump?
And, yes, he will he be pardoned by Biden, and any white people who testify against him will be charged with an Asian hate crime!
Yeah. Went to apply for state jobs at CSU-Ft Collins and CU-Boulder.
Whole departments are India or Communist Chinese
Who cares about private Unis. But I’m paying taxes to the UC/CSU system.
Not slots for Americans, all given to foreigners.
“Dawg” those fraudulent profs! (I’d say “sniff ‘em out, but, I believe Salukis are sight hunters. The real dog, I mean. I have never actually seen one hunt, but it must be interesting. As a child we had a Full Collie that would run down rabbits with sheer speed and agility.)
Nope. Ohio.
Pretty common I think. They’ll spend a year in prison and then get released. You can’t explain grant fraud to a jury very well.
While the Chinese government maintains ambitious strategic goals to dominate certain global economic sectors, its ability to achieve those goals is hampered by its lack of domestic innovation. Comments made by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at a Communist Party gathering in March 2019 underscore this dilemma: “Our capacity for innovation is not strong and our weakness in terms of core technologies for key fields remains a salient problem.”¹ Given this identified weakness, China resorts to various forms of economic aggression to achieve its strategic goals, including hacking, theft, espionage, and recruiting “non-traditional collectors” in academia to acquire U.S. technologies and intellectual property. The China Initiative works with academia and private industry to combat the PRC government’s diverse counterintelligence threats.
Not exactly news, but interesting that the direct quote from Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was included.
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