U.S.'s 5,025,817 Chinese Spies

FBI spied on Chinese students and scientists, new book reveals
By Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian


In 1967, at the height of the Cold War, the FBI began collecting information on thousands of Chinese "scientists and students" in cities across the U.S.
The Scientist and the Spy, a book publishing in February, reveals the existence of this former program for the first time.

Why it matters: Recent FBI indictments and investigations, targeting Chinese researchers in the U.S. and aimed at stemming the unauthorized flow of science and tech secrets to China, have raised American public's awareness of massive Chinese espionage efforts.
In The Scientist and the Spy, out Feb. 4, former China correspondent Mara Hvistendahl traces the history of China's theft of trade secrets through the case of a Chinese scientist imprisoned in 2016 for stealing corn seed from Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer.
In the process, Hvistendahal exposes a classified FBI program that tracked Chinese scientists and science students in the U.S. beginning in 1967 and at least through the 1970s.
A letter sent to FBI agents in 1967 "ordered agents to cull names of ethnically Chinese researchers, including U.S. citizens from the membership records of scientific organizations," Hvistendahl writes.


 
Chinese spy Mak Chi

The result: A "rolodex of an estimated four thousand ethnically Chinese scientists under surveillance."
Chinese science students were also targeted.
In New York City, 200 students were surveilled; in San Francisco, up to 75.
"In their haste to follow orders, some offices followed shaky leads," writes Hvistendahl.
Some scientists targeted by the program had only loose ties to China; others were repeatedly interrogated by the FBI.
Hvistendahl spoke with the family of one such Sino-American scientist, Harry Sheng, who was permanently shut out of his career.

Background: Chinese scientists in the U.S. have faced several extended periods of surveillance.
Some of their cases offer cautionary tales.
In the 1950s, Qian Xuesen, a Chinese scientist who helped the U.S. develop the world’s first atomic weapon, was accused of harboring communist sympathies and spent five years under house arrest. After he was released, he fled to China, eventually helping develop China’s nuclear weapons program.
In 1999, a Taiwanese-American nuclear scientist, Wen Ho Lee, was indicted on 59 counts for theft of state secrets and held in solitary confinement for 278 days.

Our thought bubble: The spate of investigations and indictments is a response to a real problem.
In recent years, a massive, unlawful transfer of intellectual property from the U.S. to China has unquestionably occurred.

The bottom line: “If China is shaped by systematic theft of Western technology,” Hvistendahl writes, “America is locked in its own internal struggle, between openness and security.”

Born to Spy

Many Chinese students at US colleges are Chinese spies

By Newt Gingrich

The Heritage Foundation trade economist Tori Whiting says the Trump administration needs to focus on technology transfer, intellectual property protection and structural reforms in China.
When most Americans think of espionage, we think of debonair foreign spies sneaking around military compounds – or bespectacled hackers hammering away at keyboards to steal top-secret information from foreign adversaries.
But there is an entire world of espionage happening right under our noses – at American colleges and universities.
China's intelligence services routinely probe computer systems at higher education institutions in the United States – and they also enlist and implant students and professors as assets to pass important research and findings to their spy agencies.
The main goal isn’t typically to learn any classified state secrets (not in academic espionage anyway). China wants to steal the important technological advancements, research, and innovations created by our nation's best and brightest researchers and scientists.
In 2013, the Commission on the Theft of Intellectual Property said that this academic espionage made up a significant part of the estimated $300 billion of intellectual property theft America endured that year.
According to the commission, "American scientific innovations and new technologies are tracked and stolen from American universities, national laboratories, private think tanks, and start-up companies, as well as from the major R&D centers of multinational companies."
This is a serious problem for the United States. 

If this level of academic espionage continues, our ability to lead the world in innovation and new technology could be severely hampered – and the future could be defined by the countries who are stealing our ideas.
One of the biggest offenders is China. 

Former National Counterintelligence Executive Michelle Van Cleave told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on June 9, 2016 that "hundreds of thousands of students and academicians" aid China’s spy operations.
These students, professors, and researchers (either willingly or through intense pressure and coercion from the Chinese Communist Party) help to "potentially extend the reach of Chinese intelligence into the core structures of our nation's security," Van Cleave told the commission.
Of particular concern are China’s Confucius Institutes that have been established on campuses in the U.S. and across the world. 

At first blush, these institutes appear to be legitimate academic foreign exchange programs promoting Chinese language and cultural studies. 

However, they are also used to spread Chinese Communist Party propaganda and soft power by promoting the party’s vision of China. 

Concerns have been raised that they could be used for espionage efforts.
On Feb. 13, 2018, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate Intelligence Committee that China is beginning to pull back on this effort, but the institutes are still "something that we're watching warily and in certain instances have developed ... appropriate investigative steps."
Luckily, there is an ongoing effort in Congress to curb this activity and protect American colleges and universities from being helpless targets of Chinese espionage. 

The "Stop Higher Education Espionage and Theft Act of 2019," or SHEET Act, was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. 

Rep. Francis Rooney, R-Fla., is carrying the proposal in the House.
This bill would create a new way for federal law enforcement to designate an entity suspected of spying in our colleges and universities as a "foreign intelligence threat to higher education." (The designation will be promptly appealable when warranted.)
Colleges and universities that accept gifts from or enter into contracts with designated threats will have more stringent reporting requirements under the Higher Education Act. 

If evidence of espionage is found, authorities will be able to quickly remove identified threats.
This is a critically important problem that we must solve. 

When foreign countries steal our research and ideas, American researchers, innovators, and thinkers lose the ability to lead our country into the future. 

Ultimately, this costs American jobs – and our security.
Congress should pass the SHEET Act as soon as possible.

Chinese Espionage

US lawmakers target Chinese student-spies
Restrictions planned on access to sensitive research and funding from China
Reuters

Chinese spies in American campus

Chinese students and scholars will find it harder to work in the United States if US lawmakers succeed in passing legislation aimed at securing sensitive information.
The members of Congress are writing bills that would require more reporting from colleges, universities and laboratories about funds from China, prohibit students or scholars with ties to the Chinese military from entering the United States, or set new limits on access to sensitive academic research.
Failure to comply could mean financial hardship.
The proposed bills add to growing pressure against Chinese students, researchers, companies and other organisations in the United States.
Amid an escalating trade war between China and the US, members of Congress have become increasingly concerned the thousands of Chinese students, professors and researchers in the US could pose a security threat by carrying sensitive information back to China.
Republican Senator John Cornyn said on Wednesday that he hoped to win bipartisan support for the Secure our Research Act, a bill he planned to introduce next week to prompt US institutions to do more to protect valuable research.

“We are under attack,” Cornyn said at a Senate Finance Committee hearing examining foreign threats to US research. “[China’s] goals are to dominate the United States military and economically.”
Cornyn, who is also a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called US academia “naive” about the threat from China. 

He warned that he would not vote for any plan to give taxpayer dollars to public institutions unless they improved security.

Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas is hoping to win bipartisan support for a bill aimed at prompting US institutions to do more to protect research. 

Many of the individual bills face little chance of passing despite growing bipartisan concern in Congress over security risks from China.
While President Trump and many other Republicans want stricter controls on immigration as well as a hard line on China, pro-China Democrats, who control the House of Representatives, warn about the risks of making Chinese feel unwelcome.
Lawmakers from both parties, as well as university officials, point to the multimillion-dollar contribution to the US economy from the 350,000 Chinese who come for undergraduate or graduate studies.
However, small pieces of the measures could make their way into broader, must-pass bills, like the massive annual National Defence Authorisation Act, which is making its way through Congress.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz and Republican Representative Francis Rooney marked the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on Tuesday by reintroducing the Stop Higher Education Espionage and Theft (SHEET) Act, intended to prevent Chinese espionage efforts at US universities.