TheEconomistFebruary 1st 2020 671I
n 2013 charles lieber, a pioneer of
nanoscience who is now the chairman of
Harvard University’s chemistry depart-
ment, visited the Wuhan University of
Technology (wut), in China, to celebrate
the founding of a lab he was credited by
that university with helping to establish
and oversee: the wut-Harvard Joint Nano
Key Laboratory. It was a remarkable coup.
wutis an institution of little renown. Har-
vard is generally regarded as the top of the
academic tree. And Dr Lieber, whose re-
search has since become part of Elon
Musk’s ambitious scheme to supercharge
the human brain with nanotechnology, has
been seen as a potential Nobel laureate.
Harvard’s officials had not, however,
approved the laboratory and did not know
about it until early 2015, according to the us
Department of Justice. Nor did they know
that while conducting his research with
grants from the Department of Defence and
the National Institutes of Health (nih), Dr
Lieber was, according to federal authori-
ties, also being paid up to $50,000 a month
by wut, plus at least $150,000 in “living ex-penses”, as a prized recruit in China’s Thou-
sand Talents programme to bring foreign
scientists, and return Chinese expatriates,
to that country’s research laboratories.
On January 28th agents of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (fbi) arrested Dr
Lieber on a charge of lying to federal au-
thorities after his having denied his alleged
participation in the Thousand Talents pro-
gramme. He was jailed pending a court
hearing on January 30th. Harvard placed
him on administrative leave and said it was
co-operating with the authorities while
conducting its own review. (Dr Lieber’s
lawyer did not respond to a request for
comment.) The Justice Department also
announced charges against two Chinese
nationals who had been in Boston ostensi-
bly as researchers. One, a lieutenant in the
People’s Liberation Army (pla) who is now
in China, allegedly worked on behalf of pla
officials and has been charged with visa
fraud, conspiracy and making false state-
ments to federal investigators. The other,
who is under arrest, allegedly tried in De-
cember to smuggle to China 21 vials of ma-terial stolen from a teaching hospital.
By putting one of Harvard’s superstars
in handcuffs, federal authorities seek to
shock America’s research institutions into
greater vigilance about collaborations with
Chinese counterparts. At the least the ar-
rest is expected to have a chilling effect on
research partnerships between America
and China after a decade in which they
have flourished. Certainly, the Trump ad-
ministration would not view that as a bad
thing. The Justice Department has said that
more than 90% of prosecutions for eco-
nomic espionage since 2011 have involved a
link to China. Christopher Wray, the fbi’s
director, has lamented to Congress the
“naïveté” of American academia, and has
cited China’s “so-called talent plans” as a
vehicle for the theft of research.
One concern of federal authorities, in-
cluding investigators at the nih, has been
the establishment of “shadow labs” in Chi-
na run by Thousand Talents recruits in par-
allel with their American-funded research.
Those authorities may consider the wut-
Harvard Joint Nano Key Laboratory to be
such a shadow lab. In an affidavit support-
ing the criminal complaint against Dr
Lieber, the fbi, quoting emails between
him and a professor at wut, says that in
2012 he entered into a Thousand Talents
agreement that promised, in addition to
his personal compensation, 11m yuan
($1.74m) from wutand the Chinese govern-
ment for development of the joint labora-
tory, including the recruitment of talent.The arrest of Charles LieberNo small matter
NEW YORK
A prominent American nanotechnologist has been arrested on suspicion of
illegal dealings with ChinaScience & technology
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