BY HANK REICHMAN
A group of 177 Stanford University professors from more than 40 departments, most in the physical and natural sciences, today made public a September 8 letter they sent to US Attorney General Merrick Garland calling for an end to a Trump administration program that sought to uncover alleged Chinese spies in American universities. The “China Initiative,” launched in late 2018, aimed to prevent U.S. technology theft by China but has since “deviated significantly from its claimed mission,” according to the letter. The program “is harming the United States’ research and technology competitiveness and it is fueling biases that, in turn, raise concerns about racial profiling,” the letter said.
According to UC Berkeley Nobel Prize-winning cell biologist Randy Schekman, an additional 140 faculty members at his institution have also signed the letter. Last month, more than 20 Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) groups also signed a joint letter urging the Biden administration to pause the China Initiative and conduct an independent review of the program.
The Justice Department has published details of at least 27 cases related to the initiative, with results including some guilty pleas, some cases dropped and some ongoing. Professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University were among those charged, as were five Chinese scientists who were visiting scholars last year – although those charges were dropped in July. Last week a federal judge in Tennessee acquitted a professor accused of hiding Chinese ties in his NASA research grant application, saying prosecutors failed to provide evidence he intended to defraud the government. (I wrote about this latter case in June.)
The following is the full text of the Stanford letter:
The Honorable Merrick B. Garland
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001Dear Mr. Garland,
We, faculty members at Stanford University, are writing this open letter to express our concerns about the U.S. Department of Justice’s China Initiative. We acknowledge the importance to the United States of protecting both intellectual property and information that is essential to our national and economic security. We understand that concerns about Chinese government sanctioned activities including intellectual property theft and economic espionage are important to address. We believe, however, that the China Initiative has deviated significantly from its claimed mission: it is harming the United States’ research and technology competitiveness and it is fueling biases that, in turn, raise concerns about racial profiling. As the President’s Science Advisor, Dr. Eric Lander, stated on August 10, 2021: “We have to assiduously avoid basing policies or processes on prejudice – including those that could fuel anti-Asian sentiments or xenophobia.” We believe that the China Initiative is one such policy. We therefore would like to suggest that you terminate the China Initiative and replace it with an appropriate response that avoids the flaws of this initiative.
More specifically, we believe the China Initiative suffers from the following fundamental flaws:
First, the China Initiative disproportionally targets researchers of Chinese origin. Publicly available information indicates that investigations are often triggered not by any evidence of wrongdoing, but just because of a researcher’s connections with China. (For example, see recent article and the research by Prof. Jenny Lee quoted therein. ref: Has the Hunt for Chinese Spies Become a Witch Hunt?, Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 11, 2021). In many cases the federal response seems disproportionate and inappropriate. In some cases, federal agents associated with the China Initiative have prosecuted researchers without solid evidence. Moreover, racial profiling – even when undertaken in pursuit of justice – is both inconsistent with U.S. law and with the principles underlying our society. Moreover, these actions do not just affect the prosecuted faculty but affect the many more university researchers who are targeted, investigated, and feel threatened by inquires initiated without prior evidence of significant wrongdoing. Universities and research institutions are often pressured to investigate researchers who are singled out only because of their personal or professional connections with China. (For example, see the description by Prof. Randy Katz, the Vice Chancellor for Research of the University of California Berkeley during a recent Congressional Roundtable available at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G24w7d2_owo)Second, in most of the China Initiative cases involving academics, the alleged crime has nothing to do with scientific espionage or intellectual property theft. Most prosecutions are for misconduct such as failure to disclose foreign appointments or funding. While such problems should be addressed, they should not be confused with national security concerns. Due to the openness of scientific research in academia, it is not surprising that the China Initiative has not led to more espionage-related prosecutions. It is misleading to the public that such prosecutions on unrelated crimes are presented as efforts combating national security threats.
Third, the China Initiative is harming the U.S. science and technology enterprise and the future of the U.S. STEM workforce. Since World War II, the U.S. has benefited from an influx of many of the most talented scientists from around the world, including a large number from China. They have played a significant role in our success as a society. For example, a 2018 study by the American Society for Engineering Education reports that 28.4% of engineering faculty (and 31.5% of Assistant Professors) in the U.S. are Asian. In recent years, the China Initiative (and some other actions of the federal government) have created an increasingly hostile atmosphere for Chinese Americans, visitors, and immigrants of Chinese origin, which has already discouraged many scholars from coming to or staying in the U.S. This seriously hampers our efforts to recruit the best Chinese students and postdoctoral scholars.
The difference between the open fundamental research carried out at universities and more applied and proprietary industrial or military research in the commercial sector must be recognized. Many of our most challenging global problems, including climate change & sustainability and current & future pandemics, require international engagement. Without an open and inclusive environment that attracts the best talents in all areas, the United States cannot retain its world leading position in science and technology. In some China Initiative cases, normal academic activities that we all do, such as serving as referees and writing recommendation letters, are adduced as evidence of “extensive dealings with the PRC” (ref: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20452311-gang-chen-federal-affidavit). Such
actions are based on a significant misunderstanding of how scientific research works. They are detrimental to international collaboration. Instead of protecting the national security of the U.S., we believe such actions harm the U.S.’s ability to innovate.We strongly urge you to terminate the China Initiative and develop an alternative response to the challenges posed by our relations with the People’s Republic of China, one that avoids racial profiling and discouraging beneficial and important collaborations and influx of talented personnel.
Sincerely yours,
Concerned faculty members (signatory names may be found here)
The AAUP has been concerned about this issue and its potential threat to academic freedom for some time. 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. In 2019, the AAUP joined 21 other organizations in a statement released by PEN America in response to reports that the FBI had urged universities to develop protocols for monitoring students and scholars from Chinese state-affiliated research institutions.
For more background and helpful links provided by the Stanford signatories go here.
Contributing editor Hank Reichman is professor emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay; former AAUP vice-president and president of the AAUP Foundation; and from 2012-2021 Chair of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. His book, The Future of Academic Freedom, based in part on posts to this blog, was published in 2019. His Understanding Academic Freedom will be published in October.
