China's Student-Spies

President Trump Aides Pushed to Ban Chinese Students From the U.S.

By DAVID MEYER

President Trump’s political advisor, Stephen Miller, tried to get the president to scrap visas for Chinese who want to study in the U.S. 

A couple months back, President Donald Trump was reported to have told a group of executives that “almost every Chinese student that comes over to this country is a spy.” 

Now, a new report suggests President Trump’s team almost convinced him to stop all Chinese from studying in the U.S.
According to a Tuesday piece in the Financial Times, President Trump’s political advisor, Stephen Miller, earlier this year tried to get the president and other top officials to scrap visas for Chinese who want to study in the U.S. 

Miller said the idea would not only combat Chinese spying, but would also cause trouble for pro-China universities where criticism of President Trump is rife.

However, Terry Branstad, the U.S. ambassador to China, countered by pointing out that such a move would harm smaller colleges, and U.S. embassy officials in China noted that spending by Chinese students contributes to the service-sector trade surpluses that most U.S. states are running with China.
The FT reported that, while President Trump rebuffed Miller’s entreaties, officials such as White House trade advisor Peter Navarro are still calling for tougher action on Chinese students.
Chinese economic espionage provides one of the key themes of President Trump administration’s anti-China stance. 

Earlier this year, the State Department cut visa periods from five years to one for Chinese grad students working in sensitive fields, after FBI Director Christopher Wray warned of a “whole of society” spying threat.

President Trump considered banning Chinese student visas to keep out spies

• The Trump administration debated banning visas for Chinese nationals to come and study at US universities for fear of spying 
• The head of the FBI said China uses non-traditional intelligence gatherers, like students, to steal information in the US.

By Alex Lockie

Chinese honeytraps: FBI Director Christopher Wray said Chinese "collectors" — what the intelligence community calls people who gather intelligence on behalf of agencies or governments — had infiltrated US universities.

President Donald Trump's administration debated the idea of banning visas for Chinese nationals to come and study at US universities for fear of spying, the Financial Times has reported.
Former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, now US ambassador to China, shot the initiative, according to the FT.

The report said the idea was championed by Trump administration immigration hardliner Stephen Miller.
Under Trump the US has confronted China like never before, and the FT's report comes at a time of record high military tensions between the great powers.
President Trump's recent National Security Strategy explicitly called for the kind of review reportedly put forth by Miller.
The strategy said it would "review visa procedures to reduce economic theft by non-traditional intelligence collectors" while reevaluating how the US provides access to foreign students in science fields, which have national security implications.

Chinese students-spies
FBI Director Christopher Wray.

In February, FBI Director Christopher Wray described China as a "whole-of-society threat" that required from the US a "whole-of-society response."
Wray said Chinese "collectors" — what the intelligence community calls people who gather intelligence on behalf of agencies or governments — had infiltrated US universities.
"I think in this setting, I would just say that the use of nontraditional collectors — especially in the academic setting, whether it's professors, scientists, students — we see in almost every field office that the FBI has around the country," Wray said.
"They're exploiting the very open research-and-development environment that we have, which we all revere, but they're taking advantage of it," Wray said. 

He added that there is a naiveté among academics about the risks posed by Chinese nationals at US universities.
The Institute of International Education found that US universities in 2015-16 admitted nearly 329,000 Chinese students. 

These students, who live and spend money in the US, represent one of the few trade surpluses the US enjoys over China in the services sector, while China dominates trading of goods.
"We do not open investigations based on race, or ethnicity, or national origin," Wray later told NBC News. 

"But when we open investigations into economic espionage, time and time again, they keep leading back to China."

Downward spiral of US-China relations
The US and China have increasingly began butting heads in less of a rhetorical sense, and more in their military relations.
Beijing protests every time a US or international warship transits the South China Sea, a key waterway in the Pacific that China has laid unilateral claim to, in violation of international law.
On Sunday a Chinese destroyer nearly rammed a US destroyer that was sailing within 12 miles of a sea feature claimed by China.
The encounter "constituted a risk of collision, in violation of the International Rules of the Road [Collision Regulations], which govern the safe navigation of vessels" and "violated the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), a multilateral agreement including both the PRC and the US," Lawrence Brennan, a maritime lawyer and former US Navy captain told Business Insider.
The incident also followed the US sanctioning China for buying Russian arms, as well China denying a US ship the right to make a port call in Hong Kong. 

China recent cancelled military-to-military talks with US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, despite previously hailing those talks as important.
In May, the US banned all Chinese-made smartphones from the Pentagon, saying devices from Huawei and ZTE "may pose an unacceptable risk to department's personnel, information and mission."

Academic espionage: China's student-spies

Ruopeng Liu believes his work at a Duke lab was simply "fundamental research" that he brought back to China. His former professor thinks otherwise.
By Cynthia McFadden, Aliza Nadi and Courtney McGee
Liu Ruopeng of KuangChi Science Ltd. poses with a Martin Jetpack, made by New Zealand's Martin Aircraft, during a demonstration at a water park in Shenzhen, China, on Dec. 6, 2015. KuangChi Science Ltd said it will sell the flying machine in mainland China for 1.6 million yuan ($249,902).

SHENZHEN, China — Meet the man dubbed China's Elon Musk, Ruopeng Liu.

Like Musk, he's working on sending people into space, and has already sent them flying. 

He's the man behind jet-powered surfboards, and is a multi-billionaire at just 35 years old.
"We call ourselves the future studio," said Liu during an NBC News visit to his company's headquarters here. 

"We design the future."
But is he guilty of stealing the intellectual property of a famous American scientist?
Dr. David Smith of Duke University is one of the world's experts on something called "metamaterials." 

Liu, who says he had long been a fan of Smith's, came to the U.S. a dozen years ago with the express intent of studying at Smith's lab. 

Some observers, including the former assistant director of counterintelligence at the FBI, believe he was actually on a mission from the Chinese government.
Dr. Smith is famous for creating a metamaterial that functions as a so-called "invisibility cloak." Metamaterials, he explains, are "some weird material that doesn't exist in nature." 

Dr. Smith's invisibility cloak is not like Harry Potter's famous version as it does not hide things from the human eye, but it does make them invisible to microwave signals.
Dr. Smith's discovery is such a big deal it was even a question on Jeopardy and made the routines of various late night comedians.
The U.S. military saw the potential of the "invisible" material and spent millions supporting Dr. Smith's basic research on optical and electromagnetic material design, with the hope that one day it could be used to protect U.S. forces.
Liu believes his work at the Duke University lab was simply "fundamental research" that he brought back to China. 

U.S. law enforcement officials believe it is an example of a trend: Chinese theft of U.S. intellectual property.
Former FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi, now an NBC News analyst, says a lot of valuable research is allowed to walk out the door of American institutions and right into the labs of America's adversaries.
"We know that the Chinese have a shopping list of intelligence and technology that they target every year," said Figliuzzi. 

"We know that the research he took from Duke University was on that collection list."

'IT SOUNDS LIKE THEFT'
Liu enrolled at Duke University in 2006. 

Students and professors knew him as likeable, directed and very smart. 

He was a "sweet kid basically. You'd almost describe him as bumbling a bit," said Dr. Smith.Dr. David Smith of Duke University.

He became Smith's protégé. 

In late 2007, Liu won Smith's permission to bring two of his old colleagues from China for a visit to Smith's lab. 

The two Chinese researchers, whose trip was fully funded by China, worked on a few projects during their three to six-month stay, including the invisibility cloak. 

During a trip to the lab one day when Dr. Smith was not present, they took pictures of the lab and its contents, focusing on the apparatus that allows scientists to measure the cloak. 

They brought photos and measurements of all the equipment used to fabricate the cloak back to China.
Much to Dr. Smith's surprise, an exact replica was built in Liu's old lab.
"It sounds like theft," said Dr. Smith. 

"If we were a company you might think so."
The FBI agreed with Dr. Smith when they opened a case on Liu in 2010.
Said Figliuzzi, "We know that certain government officials and operatives met with him while he was in the United States."
This case is one of many examples of what experts are saying is an increasing threat of academic espionage.
According to Dan Golden, author of "Spy Schools: How the CIA, FBI and Foreign Intelligence Secretly Exploit America's Universities," who first reported on Dr. Smith and Liu, there are now more than a million foreign students in the U.S.
"A significant percentage of those students," said Golden, "are here to siphon off research or recruit informants and gather intelligence."KuangChi Science Ltd Chairman and Executive Director Liu Ruopeng attends a demonstration of a Martin Jetpack, made by New Zealand-based Martin Aircraft, at a water park in Shenzhen, China, on Dec. 6, 2015.

Liu strongly denies any wrongdoing. 

When NBC's Cynthia McFadden went to Liu's company headquarters in Shenzhen and asked him if the Chinese government had sent him to Duke University to learn from Dr. Smith and bring his information back, Liu called the claim "ridiculous" and "far away from the truth."
During that same visit to Liu's headquarters, NBC News couldn't help but notice that an advanced version of Dr. Smith's invisibility cloak is proudly displayed in the lobby.

'EVERYTHING HE DID WAS EXPLAINED AWAY'
The FBI closed its case on Liu a few years ago, citing a shortage of evidence, much like Dr. Smith.
"I didn't have any evidence and everything he did was explained away," said Dr. Smith.
When Liu created a website about a metamaterials company that was Duke property, Liu told Smith that it was only to make him look good for an upcoming job interview. 

When Liu put Dr. Smith's name on scientific articles without his knowledge, Liu cried when confronted with the ethical breach and said it was a misunderstanding.
That is, until after Liu graduated in 2009 and an email he appeared to have sent to a classmate emerged — an email Dr. Smith says shows from the very beginning Liu intended the Chinese should profit from Dr. Smith's research. 

In the email, which was reviewed by NBC News, Liu admits that he had been withholding his intentions from Dr. Smith all along and says that he had simultaneously been working towards commercializing Dr. Smith's research in China while working in the Duke lab. 

Had the email emerged before Liu graduated, Dr. Smith says that he would not have gotten a degree from Duke University.
He does have a degree from Duke University, and he went home to China with that Ph.D and launched his tech company, now valued at $6 billion.
The current Chinese president made a bee-line for the tech company directly after his election, making it the first company he visited as president.
This relationship was a red flag for the FBI, despite the lack of evidence for a criminal case. 

"Was he handled, approached, compromised, recruited, and subsidized when he took it back to China? My theory says yes," said Figliuzzi. 

"This was more than just a grad student taking something that didn't belong to him."
This theory does not concern Liu, who views scientific invention as a necessary collaboration.
"I don't want to use the word copy," said Liu. 

"People can share the experience…and build something…different."