US ‘China Initiative’ stymied scientific innovation, study says
- More than 90 per cent of researchers agreed their Chinese colleagues made important contributions to research and training
- Study also finds overwhelming support for greater collaboration with mainland China
The Chinese-American scientific community marshalled more ammunition on Thursday in its bid to roll back the Justice Department’s “China Initiative” with the release of a detailed study aimed at fighting racial bias in national security investigations.
Since the Justice Department launched the initiative in 2018, designed to fight suspected Chinese theft of technical secrets and intellectual property, indictments have risen; so too have stories on the cost of the programme measured in baseless accusations and ruined careers, activists and community members have said. But they have argued that hard data needed to fight against well-entrenched policy in Washington is lacking.
Thursday’s 30-page study by two University of Arizona researchers – quantifying the widespread racial profiling of Chinese scientists in US academia, the high value placed on their contribution and the chill the investigations have on innovation – is meant to help address that gap. And similar findings by at least two other scientific organisation studies are expected soon.
“The results of the study are not particularly surprising, that this has caused a lot of fear and damage. But the quantification of it, attaching numbers to it, is very important,” said Jeremy Wu, founder of APA Justice, one of numerous groups fighting to end the initiative. “After that, it’s a question of what to do with it. If you want to fight espionage, use a scalpel, punish the guilty, don’t engage in racial profiling.”
Underscoring the challenge faced by the Asian-American community in its campaign to kill the China Initiative, Federal Bureau of Investigations Director Christopher Wray on Thursday doubled down in arguing that the programme was more essential than ever.
Addressing the Economic Club of New York, Wray said Beijing is expanding its use of “non-traditional collectors”, including businessmen, researchers, graduate students and scientists “effectively under the thumb of the Chinese Communist Party, all geared towards a common aim of trying to steal our information to put the Chinese government in a way to become the world’s only superpower”.
According to Thursday’s report, funded by the Committee of 100 civic group, more than 90 per cent of 1,949 top Chinese and non-Chinese scientists working in the US said Chinese researchers made important contributions to research and teaching, while over three-quarters from both groups felt the US should strengthen scientific collaboration with mainland China.
