BY HANK REICHMAN
In November 2017 the AAUP released a report on National Security, the Assault on Science, and Academic Freedom, which decried “increasing restrictions on and threats to the global exchange of scientific research and the academic freedom of American scientists to interact with foreign colleagues,” especially those from China. Now the Trump administration is considering new restrictions on Chinese scientists’ ability to carry out research in U.S. universities and institutes, a move that could directly affect 300 000 researchers
According to the New York Times, “The White House is discussing whether to limit the access of Chinese citizens to the United States, including restricting certain types of visas available to them and greatly expanding rules pertaining to Chinese researchers who work on projects with military or intelligence value at American companies and universities. The exact types of projects that would be subject to restrictions are unclear, but the measures could clamp down on collaboration in advanced materials, software and other technologies.”
The new restrictions, the Times reports, “would probably fall most heavily on graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and employees of technology companies in the United States on temporary visas. More than one million foreign students study in the United States each year, with roughly one-third coming from China. The restrictions would cover Chinese nationals, but with two exceptions: those with green cards, which give them the right to permanent residency in the United States, and those who have been granted asylum because of persecution in their home country. Also exempt would be former Chinese nationals who renounce their citizenship and become naturalized Americans.”
As the AAUP report documented, national security agencies have for some time sounded exaggerated alarms over threats of academic espionage even as the need for greater international scientific exchange continues to grow. As the AAUP report noted, an April 2011 report prepared by the Counterintelligence Strategic Partnership Unit of the FBI argued that while “most foreign students, researchers, or professors studying or working in the United States are here for legitimate and proper reasons,” some are “actively working at the behest of another government or organization.” The FBI added that “some foreign governments pressure legitimate students to report information to intelligence officials.”
“The open environment of a university,” the FBI claimed, “is an ideal place to find recruits, propose and nurture ideas, learn, and even steal research data, or place trainees who need to be exposed to our language and culture—a sort of on-the-job-training for future intelligence officers. Foreign intelligence services have been taking advantage of higher education institutions and personnel for many years, either through deliberate stratagems or by capitalizing on information obtained through other parties.”
In Senate testimony earlier this year, FBI director Christopher Wray claimed that Chinese “professors, scientists, students [in] basically every discipline” working in the US may be covertly gathering intelligence for the Chinese government. Speaking to a House of Representatives panel last month, former national counterintelligence executive Michelle Van Cleave called the U.S. “a spy’s paradise,” declaring that U.S. R&D is “systematically targeted by foreign collectors to fuel their business and industry and military programs at our expense.” China, she added, “easily tops the threat list.”
“There is good reason to question such reasoning,” the AAUP noted, “because it often exaggerates the security threat without providing the kind of evidence that makes that concern credible.”
Scientists quickly took issue with the new administration proposals. “We are concerned that the US administration is considering further restrictions on visas that could limit the travel of Chinese students and scholars from China to the United States,” declared Rush Holt, the former physicist and congressman who heads the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in a statement. “Where specific and confirmed espionage is occurring, action must be taken, but obstructing scientific exchange based on non-specific concerns that could be applied to broad swaths of people is ill-conceived and damaging to American interests.”
Jef Boeke of New York University, who collaborates with Chinese researchers on synthesizing yeast genomes, told STAT News that far from protecting that research, the proposed restrictions would be “devastating” for the project. Kevin Esvelt, an MIT professor well-known for his work on “gene drives,” special genetic technologies that can spread modifications quickly through a population, said “preventing brilliant young Chinese scientists from coming to top American universities would certainly impede scientific progress, which flourishes when talent is geographically concentrated.”
“I imagine such restrictions would be particularly harmful in the long-term if it caused promising Chinese students to return to (or stay in) China rather than coming here and becoming permanent residents and citizens after finishing their training, which many currently do,” added Esvelt.
“It just seems odd that you would again try to restrict by nationality rather than on the basis of any one individual security threat,” said Dr. Atul Grover, executive vice president of the Association of American Medical Colleges. “That’s why we have a security process.”
According to the president of the National Committee on US-China Relations, Stephen A. Orlins, the proposed restrictions would be “tragic” for American universities. “It’s important that we don’t let the security fears overwhelm what has made America great,” he said.
“If the administration imposes restrictions that will further prohibit students and scholars from choosing the United States as their destination, we will suffer devastating impacts for decades to come,” said Esther Brimmer, executive director and CEO of NAFSA: Association for International Educators. “The U.S. is already losing overall market share of internationally mobile students”.
International enrollments at U.S. universities declined by 2.2 percent at the undergraduate level and 5.5 percent at the graduate level from fall 2016 to fall 2017, according to an analysis of student visa data by the National Science Foundation. Students from China accounted for 38 percent of new international students at the master’s level and 33 percent at the doctoral level at U.S. graduate schools in fall 2017. As Elizabeth Redden reported at Inside Higher Ed, Chinese citizens on temporary visas earned about 10 percent of all doctoral degrees awarded by American universities in 2016, and the vast majority of Chinese doctoral graduates earned degrees in science and engineering fields. Just over 80 percent of Chinese citizens on temporary visas say they plan to stay in the U.S. after earning their doctorates.
The Chinese-American community has also voiced concern about the proposals. Charlie Woo, a former physicist and policy committee chair of the Committee of 100, an organization of leading Chinese Americans in business, government, academia, and the arts, acknowledged that “there are bad apples” among Chinese scientists and students who visit the U.S. “But if you single out only scientists from China, that’s a slippery slope,” he said. “I think this kind of policy can lead to racial profiling that in the long run will not be good for the country.”
Temple University physicist Xioaxing Xi, who helped prepare the November AAUP report, told Physics World, “If Chinese students are to be restricted from participating in open research, it will hurt scientific and technological advances in the U.S.” In 2015, Xi was indicted for sharing sensitive information with a Chinese colleague about a commercial product called a “pocket heater” that was made by US-based Superconductor Technologies Inc. However, the case was dropped later that year after prosecutors realized they had misinterpreted the blueprints that they used as evidence. Professor Xi and the ACLU have filed a lawsuit against government agents alleging malicious prosecution and invasion of privacy.
Terry Hartle, senior vice president for government and public affairs at the American Council on Education, said that several things have made the U.S. appear to be a less desirable destination for foreign students and scholars. including the Trump administration’s travel ban and “the occasional acts of violence against foreigners that get widely publicized abroad.”
“What’s happened over the last year: first, we’ve seen a decline in the number of international students admitted, second, as The Wall Street Journal just reported, we’ve seen a significant decline in the number of student visas that have been issued, and third, there are now these stories that the administration is at least thinking about the more restrictive use of student visas pursuant to concerns about trade,” Hartle told Inside Higher Ed.
“Obviously the issue there is less [about] foreign students than it’s a reaction to the administration’s views about the way other countries treat us, but the bottom line is international students have benefited this country enormously over the last 25 years. We believe it’s in America’s interest to be the destination of choice for the world’s best students and scholars, and it would be a very sad day if we undermine that perception.”
“Whether the president imposes new quotas on Chinese students, the goal of some of his advisers seems clear: to make ‘designated’ foreigners unwelcome on U.S. campuses. That’s not only un-American, but also self-defeating,” concluded a Bloomberg News editorial.
According to the Times report,
The United States already restricts who can work on sensitive technology. Researchers on projects deemed classified are carefully vetted and must obtain security clearances. T he next level down are research projects that are subject to so-called export controls — including many with potential military applications, such as computer programs and hardware that might be used to model nuclear explosions. Universities and companies working on this material need to obtain a special license from the government to employ foreign researchers.
These products do not need to leave the United States to fall under export rules. All it takes to trigger export controls is for citizens from certain countries — including China, Russia and many former Soviet republics — to be involved in almost any way. That ranges from physical possession of the product to written descriptions and even verbal discussions of it. The administration is considering broadening the range of goods and services traded with China that would be subject to these so-called deemed export rules.
If the proposal is approved by the Commerce Department, and ultimately by Mr. Trump, American companies and universities would be required to obtain special licenses for Chinese nationals who have any contact whatsoever with a much wider range of goods — making it harder for Chinese citizens to work on a range of scientific research and product development programs.
Meanwhile, another case of purported spying for China mentioned in the AAUP report ended earlier this month when Judge Michelle Schroeder ordered the National Weather Service (NWS) to reinstate Chinese-American hydrologist Xiafen Chen. FBI agents arrested Chen in 2014, accusing her of using a stolen password to obtain information about US dams and of lying about a meeting with a Chinese official. As with Xi Xiaoxing, the case against Chen collapsed before it reached trial stage. Nevertheless, the Weather Service fired Chen for “conduct demonstrating unworthiness” and “misrepresentation.” Voiding the dismissal, Judge Schroeder saw “no reason why [Chen] cannot continue to be a productive employee and continue to contribute to NWS’s mission.”
