Chinese Military Turns to U.S. University to Conduct Covert Research

When a researcher from a Chinese military academy applied to study with celebrated Boston University physicist Eugene Stanley, he said her affiliation didn’t raise red flags.

“I’m not interested at all in politics. I’m a scientist,” said Mr. Stanley, whose wide-ranging research has included using artificial intelligence to decode financial markets and applying statistical physics to prevent diseases.

The recent indictment of the researcher, who is accused of lying on her U.S. visa application to conceal she is a lieutenant in the Chinese military, shows how U.S. universities’ openness to international collaboration in cutting-edge research leaves them vulnerable to potential exploitation.

Mr. Stanley said that he receives droves of research requests and that he vets candidates’ scientific credentials. A Boston University spokesman said the school doesn’t engage in classified research and relies on the State Department to screen foreign applicants for national-security risks.

A range of U.S. agencies, from the Defense Department to the National Institutes of Health, have sounded alarms over Beijing’s alleged attempts to tap U.S. university expertise to boost China’s military and technological competitiveness.

U.S. officials accuse China of targeting academia, including by sending military researchers to American labs and using talent-recruitment programs to attract to China top-flight scientists, entrepreneurs and experts, as well as their intellectual property.

Beijing has denied any systematic effort to steal U.S. scientific research, and Chinese state media have called U.S. allegations of intellectual-property theft a political tool.

Federal prosecutors in Boston brought the most high-profile China recruitment case to date last month when they charged the chair of Harvard University’s chemistry department with deliberately lying about receiving millions of dollars in funding through Beijing’s Thousand Talents Plan. When a researcher from a Chinese military academy applied to study with celebrated Boston University physicist Eugene Stanley....more at link

Harvard’s Chemistry Chair Charged on Alleged Undisclosed Ties to China.
Charles Lieber allegedly lied to Defense Department, NIH about
Chinese government funding WRT participation in China’s Thousand Talents Plan,
Wall Street Journal ^ | January 28, 2020 | Aruna Viswanatha and Kate O’Keeffe / FR Posted by karpov

The chair of Harvard University’s chemistry department was charged in a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday on allegations that he did not disclose Chinese government funding he received, in an escalation of U.S. efforts to counter what officials describe as Beijing’s aggressive recruitment at U.S. universities.

The professor, Charles Lieber, allegedly lied to the Defense Department and the National Institutes of Health about his participation in China’s Thousand Talents Plan, the complaint said.

U.S. authorities have raised alarms in particular about the so-called talent programs run by the Chinese government, which officials say create conflicts of interest and offer incentives to bring intellectual property back to China. (Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...

Six Prominent U.S. Universities Failed To Report A Combined Total Of 1.3 Billion In Foreign Funding

A recent report from the Clarion Project shows a huge amount of foreign funding that comes from countries like China, Qatar, and Russia. Six prominent U.S. universities failed to report a combined total of 1.3 billion in foreign funding, according to the Department of Education (DOE).

The Department of Education (DoED) is conducting an investigation into foreign governments funding U.S. universities, and they have found that governments such as Russia, China and Qatar (a huge donor to the Clinton Library Fund) have given them a staggering $1.3 billion.

These are the preliminary findings in an ongoing investigation into six different universities, and Education Secretary Betsy Devos believes that much more money could be discovered before the investigation concludes.

The universities under review include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Texas A&M, Cornell, the University of Maryland, Georgetown (Bill Clinton’s alma mater), and Rutgers. Acting general counsel Reed Rubinstein called the initial findings very “disturbing” in a letter to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, the Education Department.

A Boston University spokesman said the school doesn’t engage in classified research

This nonsense is circular. "We don't do classified research" is taken to mean that we can do whatever we want with whomever because we don't accept funding from the US government to do research which the US government has classified.

But that ignores the fundamental issue. Does the information to be developed pose a threat to US national security if given to a "rival" country.

The idiot sophistry of these fools is justification for overlooking the damage they are doing to their own country.

They won't do hypersonics research for DOD but they will for the Chinese.

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