involve U.S.-based scientists working in the
high-tech industry or academia, rather than
someone sent by a foreign government to
steal secrets.
Lieber, who was born and trained in the
United States, is a member of both the U.S.
national academies of sciences and medi-
cine. He has pioneered work on the chemical
synthesis of nanowires and their incorpora-
tion into devices including transistors, light
emitters, and sensors, and at the time of
his arrest was chair of
Harvard’s department of
chemistry and chemical
biology. In 2011, he began
a collaboration with Wu-
han University of Tech-
nology (WUT) in China
that is at the center of his
alleged violations. (WUT
did not respond to re-
quests for comment.)
Lieber was released
on 30 January after post-
ing a bond of $1 million
and agreeing to remain
in Massachusetts. He has
been suspended with pay from Harvard,
which has called the charges “extremely
serious” and says it is “cooperating with
federal authorities.” His lawyer, Peter
Levitt, declined to comment on the charges.
Lelling says Lieber’s stature was not a
“deciding factor” in DOJ’s decision to file
criminal charges. “This wasn’t about look-
ing for a bigger scalp,” Lelling insists. But,
“The fact that Lieber is a prominent aca-
demic helps us to get out our message ...
that transparency works,” he adds.
The DOJ team has been working closely
with the National Institutes of Health (NIH),
which also funded Lieber and has beenmuch more aggressive than other federal
agencies in pursuing apparent violations of
federal policy requiring disclosure of foreign
research support. Over the past 18 months,
NIH has asked more than 60 institutions to
investigate potentially questionable behav-
ior by some 200 researchers.
Many are involved in one or more of the
programs run by Chinese institutions to at-
tract foreign talent. Lieber, for example,
joined China’s Thousand Talents Program in
2012, according to court
documents. At least
15 scientists have re-
signed or been dismissed
for undisclosed ties at
half a dozen institutions.
“I think those [NIH]
letters have had an in ter-
rorem effect,” Lelling says,
using a legal term for how
the threat of prosecution
can scare people into law-
abiding behavior. “And
that’s good, because you
want a little bit of fear
out there to sensitize
people to the magnitude of the problem.”
DOJ weighs several factors in decid-
ing when to press charges, according to
Lelling. “Is there deception?” he says. “How
much money was involved? What kind of
technology was transferred? And what
other steps did a researcher take to de-
velop the relationship?” The department’s
89 field offices have been told “to be ag-
gressive,” he says, “because we want them
to prioritize these cases.”
Both DOJ and NIH are content to leave
some cases to universities, he says. “There
may be situations in which a professor has
done something that doesn’t quite reach thelevel of charging them with a federal fel-
ony,” Lelling explains. “So maybe the federal
authorities say to the university, ‘You should
deal with that.’”
However, he concedes that U.S. univer-
sities haven’t been consistent in dealing
with such cases. “The responses of univer-
sities to this kind of behavior have been all
across the spectrum,” Lelling told Science.
“And obviously, we don’t control what the
universities do.”
Lelling rejects criticism that the depart-
ment has targeted ethnic Chinese people
and other Asian Americans. “Dr. Lieber is
probably the most prominent academic
charged in this kind of case so far,” Lelling
says, “and he is not a Chinese national, nor
is he of Chinese descent.” But Lelling says
many targets will inevitably be people of
Chinese ancestry.
“The bottom line is that this is an effort
by a rival nation state to steal U.S. technol-
ogy, and that rival nation is made up almost
exclusively of Han Chinese,” Lelling says.
“And so, unfortunately, a lot of our targets
are going to be Han Chinese. If it were the
French government targeting U.S. technol-
ogy, we’d being looking for Frenchmen.”
The two other people from the Boston
area who were charged on the same day
as Lieber are both ethnically Chinese. Ye
Yanqing, a 29-year-old former student at
Boston University, is charged with lying about
her military affiliation; prosecutors allege she
is a lieutenant in the Chinese military. Zheng
Zaosong, a 30-year-old cancer researcher
who worked at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospi-
tal, is charged with trying to smuggle 21 vials
of biological material out of the country as
well as lying about the contents of his suit-
case to airport security agents. Ye is believed
to be back in China, whereas Zheng has been
detained since 30 December.
Lelling says he recognizes that inter-
national collaboration has boosted U.S.
science, and he thinks that U.S.-trained
scientists should be free to live and work
anywhere. But he also believes that those
who mingle their federal funding with sup-
port from Chinese institutions are playing
a dangerous game.
“What concerns us ... is that a scientist
who accepts their support becomes de-
pendent on it to the point where they are
willing to accept [an assignment] from the
Chinese government or a Chinese university
for whatever it is they need,” he says. “Those
of us that work on public corruption cases
develop a radar for when person or entity
A is attempting to coopt or corrupt person
or entity B. And a large enough amount of
money can shift loyalties.” jWith reporting by Dennis Normile and Robert F. Service.7 FEBRUARY 2020 • VOL 367 ISSUE 6478 615PHOTOS: (TOP TO BOTTOM) KATHERINE TAYLOR/REUTERS/NEWSCOM; KATHERINE TAYLOR/REUTERS
U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling helps lead the government’s China Initiative, which began in 2018.Charles Lieber is alleged to have lied
about his links to China.SCIENCE sciencemag.org
Published by AAAS