Exclusive: The FBI Hunts Chinese Spies At An Elite American Children’s Hospital

Forbes ^ | Sep 16, 2019, 02:00pm | Thomas Brewster

[Zhang Fei]

Yu Zhou and Li Chen were a husband-and-wife team that had built their reputations on breakthroughs in cutting-edge medical therapies at Ohio’s elite Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Along the way, they’d also founded a Chinese company and sold it to a Nasdaq-listed biotech business worth more than $150 million. But Zhou and Chen’s careers took a dramatic turn on July 29 when federal agents arrested them for stealing medical secrets from the former employer.

But there’s more: Though they’re not being charged with economic espionage on Monday, Forbes has learned they’re still being investigated over links to the Chinese Communist Party. Those charges, according to a prosecutor on the case, could be filed at a later date.

The case, exclusively revealed by Forbes ahead of an announcement by the Department of Justice and the unsealing of an indictment on Monday, forms part of a major operation by the FBI’s counterintelligence and IP theft units to hunt down those the agency believes are either pawns or recruits of the Chinese government.

It’s a purge that, from the perspective of the Department of Justice and national security experts, is a long overdue step in tackling the trade war with China. The flip side from those defending Chinese scientists under investigation is that this “red scare” is terrorizing and scaring off elite researchers who could benefit America’s economy.

China’s IP assaults on American hospitals

Federal agents have been fighting the theft of American military and tech secrets by the Chinese government and companies for decades, but the Zhou and Chen case offers a glimpse into the perceived depth of the problem. The scientific breakthroughs the pair are accused of stealing and taking back to China are niche to the point of being incomprehensible to the layman. To dumb it down, they’re accused of pilfering

[jmacusa]

China is a land of thieves and they are a very clear and present danger to America. They mean to over take us.

[NativeSon]

They cheat, they steal, they poison people to win.

[jmacusa]

They do. We should put an immediate end to allowing their students to come here. And their doctors from coming here.

[AmericanCheeseFood]

Why bother though? We already know they leave them be with the one that was at Mar a-Largo.

FBI is just doing that thing in front of mockingbird media so the suckers will believe they’re somehow still good guys.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

I’d be more concerned with them stealing military secrets than medical ones. What are they going to do with medica secrets? Cure people?

[Zhang Fei]

[I’d be more concerned with them stealing military secrets than medical ones. What are they going to do with medica secrets? Cure people?]

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Industrial espionage weakens the strong US economy that makes a well-funded military possible. That’s why a deterrent sentence in a Supermax prison might set an example to anyone thinking of following in their footsteps. Doesn’t even have to be a long sentence. 5 years in solitary confinement should do it.

[BillyBonebrake]

Yale University is crawling with Chinese.

[Zhang Fei]

[Yale University is crawling with Chinese.]

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I expect most of them are on the up and up. But just in case, sending the lawbreakers to a Supermax prison is a good incentive to stay on the straight and narrow. Just because the Rosenbergs gave away A-bomb secrets to the Soviets, and many Jews in the program were borderline fellow travelers, if not actual Party members, was no reason to fire all the Jewish weapons researchers. There are a lot of Chinese researchers stateside doing interesting work. We just need to vet them thoroughly. And dish out really long sentences to anyone engaged in industrial espionage that leads to China.

[Gay State Conservative]

I am firmly convinced that every single Chinese national in the West (particularly in the US) is a spy. Some are military spies,some are industrial/economic spies.Some are enthusiastic spies,loyal to the memory of The Great Helmsman (Mao) and some are forced into it.

How would a Chinese citizen be forced to be a spy? "Comrade,we see that you're planning to study in the US.We want you to get certain information for us.If you refuse to do so just remember...we know where your family lives".

[Gay State Conservative]

I expect most of them are on the up and up.

See Post #10

[Tai_Chung]

Their money should be considered as ill-gotten gains and taken away.

[bantam]

Many instruments used to cure people, can be re purposed for MANY types of applications!!!

[gaijin]

great post.

[Rapscallion]

They cheat, they steal, they poison people to win

They lie, cheat, and steal to get American business processes

[Reily]

Agree mostly!

However I don’t think they are loyal to the “Great Helmsman” so much any more as much as they are loyal to the ideology of “400 years of national humiliation”.

I pick 400 years as about the time the West(Europeans & later us!) started dominating China. Consider the Opium Wars, the Taping rebellion (may have had more deaths then WWI & WWII combined!), Boxer Uprising intervention & suppression, these are all viewed as national\racial disasters to the Middle Kingdom forced on it by the West. Even communism a western ideology destructive to China and its culture forced onto China by Mao. Though the current leadership would never admit that out loud!

[Henry Hnyellar]

As if their many economic spies aren’t being directed by the CCP. Forbes gets dumber by the day.

“But there’s more: Though they’re not being charged with economic espionage on Monday, Forbes has learned they’re still being investigated over links to the Chinese Communist Party.”

[rbmillerjr]

From what I am told, when any Mainland Chinese are allowed to depart China as a student or technology employee, they are required to be active Party members and agree to collect any tech info they can; even if it is primarily an isolated part of the desired package.

I have many friends in DIA and NSA. I lived near NSA for many years. I have to be honest, there seemed to be an inordinate number of hot Chinese wives of employees for NSA.

Currently I live in an area near a high tech military company which designs and makes missile motors, sensors and entire missiles in some cases. Several guys frequented my former business. Since I’m into national security and intelligence issues as a serious hobby and a former paratrooper, they would open up to me about their general work, stating nothing classified.

Again, their wives would come in and again, a high number of Mainland Chinese wives.