Science - USA (2022-03-04)

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SCIENCE science.org 4 MARCH 2022 • VOL 375 ISSUE 6584 945

U

niversity scientists and civil rights

groups in the United States are of-

fering qualified praise for the federal

government’s decision last week to

rename and revise the China Initia-

tive, a controversial, 3-year-old law

enforcement campaign intended to prevent

the Chinese government from stealing U.S.-

funded technologies.

“Dropping the name is good,” says Steven

Pei, an electrical engineer at the University

of Houston who has been a prominent ad-

vocate for reforming an initiative critics say

has unfairly targeted U.S.-based scientists

of Chinese origin and improperly subjected

researchers who made paperwork errors to

criminal prosecution. “But the real issue is

how the new policy will be implemented.”

Pei and other observers also worry the

China Initiative has already done lasting

damage to international research collabo-

rations. The same suspicions that fed the

initiative, they say, are driving Congress

toward adopting tougher disclosure rules

for U.S. researchers working with foreign

partners and banning certain collabora-

tions altogether.

Since its launch in 2018 under then-

President Donald Trump, the China Initia-

tive has resulted in criminal charges against

some two dozen academic scientists, typi-

cally for failing to tell U.S. funding agen-

cies about their financial ties to Chinese

institutions. Most of the defendants were

of Chinese origin. Although several pled

guilty and were sentenced to prison terms,

prosecutors dropped other cases and only

one scientist, Harvard University chemist

Charles Lieber, has been convicted by a jury.

Both that checkered record and sharp

criticism from many quarters led to a re-

view of the initiative by President Joe

Biden’s appointees at the Department of

Justice (DOJ). Last week, Assistant At-

torney General Matthew Olsen, who took

over DOJ’s national security division in No-

vember 2021, announced the initiative will

now be called “a strategy for countering

nation-state threats.” The new name, Olsen

explained during a 23 February speech at

George Mason University, recognizes that

the biggest danger to U.S. national security

comes from foreign governments, not indi-

viduals or a particular ethnic group.

China stands at the top of that list,

Olsen said, pointing to its ongoing cyber-

attacks and silencing of dissent as well as

several explicit acts of economic espionage.

He cited a recent speech by FBI Director

Christopher Wray that described China’s

behavior as “more brazen and threatening

than ever before.”

In another change, Olsen said federal

prosecutors will look more carefully at

whether academic scientists accused of

disclosure violations should face criminal

charges. Science advocates have argued

that most such lapses should be treated

as a form of scientific misconduct and ad-

dressed with civil or administrative pen-

alties. Olsen appeared to tacitly agree,

referring to statements from academic lead-

ers that DOJ’s “pursuit of certain research

grant fraud cases ... can lead to a chilling

atmosphere ... that damages the country’s

scientific enterprise.”

Olsen also acknowledged criticism from

civil rights advocates that the Trump-era

label had “fueled a narrative of intolerance

and bias.” But he did not apologize for any

missteps that might have occurred, a si-

lence that rankles many scientists.

“If you don’t admit that you’ve done

something wrong, then how can you pre-

vent it from happening again?” asks Pei, a

co-organizer of the nonprofit Asian Pacific

American Justice Task Force, which has

highlighted the plight of scientists it argues

were unjustly prosecuted. Pei and others

would like DOJ to conduct a blanket review

of all pending cases. “That would go a long

way toward winning back the trust of the

Asian and scientific communities,” Pei says.

In his speech, Olsen said the new strategy

would be applied “going forward” and not

used to review existing cases. Even so, the

government has agreed to a 4-month delay

in the case of physicist Zhengdong Cheng,

a tenured professor who was fired by Texas

A&M University, College Station, after the

government accused him of defrauding

NASA by not disclosing ties to China in a

2013 grant application. The trial of Cheng,

who was detained for 1 year after his Au-

gust 2020 arrest, was supposed to start on

4 April. But 2 days after Olsen’s speech,

Cheng’s lawyer filed an unopposed mo-

tion for delay. It states the government and

Cheng “have now entered into good-faith

negotiations to resolve the prosecution ...

so that justice may be done.”

Olsen also promised to exercise greater

oversight over FBI-conducted investiga-

tions. Michael German, a former FBI special

agent now at New York University’s Bren-

nan Center for Justice, says the China Initia-

Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen has

renamed a controversial Department of Justice

initiative that has prosecuted academic scientists.

New name won’t fix all flaws in

China Initiative, critics worry

Justice Department promises tighter focus on preventing

espionage and no profiling of Chinese academics

SCIENCE AND SECURITY

By Jeffrey Mervis