Source: Global Times
On February 23, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the termination of the controversial China Action Plan. Some analysts believe that this shows that the Biden administration's attitude toward Beijing has softened and compromised, and some public opinion has interpreted it as a positive signal for the loosening of the US science and technology policy toward China. Is this really the case?
First of all, there are roughly three reasons for the suspension of the "China Action Plan". First, the deterrent purpose of curbing scientific and technological exchanges with China has been achieved. In the more than three years since the implementation of the plan, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and others have set off a large-scale China-related inventory frenzy in universities and scientific research institutions. The U.S. Department of Justice has also continued to generalize the concept of national security, conflating violations of the disclosure and declaration system with serious crimes such as economic espionage and theft of trade secrets, resulting in severe sentences for scientific researchers at every turn, and even if the evidence is insufficient, it will be far-fetched to charge false tax declarations and other crimes, so that the careers, academic prospects and family life of scientific researchers will be destroyed, just like the "anti-China red panic" during the rampant Period of McCarthyism. Normal people-to-people and scientific and technological exchanges between China and the United States have been hit hard, and many Chinese scientists have been forced to terminate cooperation and contact with China. Andrew Lylin, a federal prosecutor in charge of the Harvard Lieber and MIT Chen Gang cases, one of the initiators of the China Action Plan, said his thinking about the plan had changed and he no longer worried about researchers working with China because "deterrence has been successfully achieved."
Second, racial labeling qualitatively challenges the legitimacy of the program's existence. In September 2021, the 100 Association, an elite Chinese organization, released a white paper entitled "Ethnic Inequality in Economic Espionage Law Litigation: A Window to the New Red Panic," revealing the apparent unequal treatment of Ethnic Chinese in economic espionage litigation cases. Data released by MIT Technology Review shows that 90 percent of the defendants involved in the program are Scientists of Chinese descent, and the proportion of convictions is less than 1/4. Recently, many cases such as Hu Anming and Chen Gang have ended in acquittal or withdrawal of prosecution due to insufficient evidence. Matthew Olson, the assistant secretary who oversees the program, argues that it "fuels prejudice and hatred against Asians, erodes the credibility of the judiciary, and may even harm national security."
Third, the Needs and Considerations of the United States to Maintain Its Own Scientific Research Advantages. America's leadership in science, technology, and innovation depends on the open exchange of basic research and the recruitment of the world's best and brightest minds, including a large number of the most talented scientists from China. The American Physical Society (APS) sent consecutive letters in 2021 to Eric Rand, then president's science adviser and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Attorney General Merrick Garland, saying the China Action Plan weakened U.S. attractiveness to international students and scientists and limited U.S. participation in productive international cooperation. Restricting legitimate international scientific cooperation and the exchange of international talent is weakening, not strengthening, America's scientific cause.
In fact, the termination of the "China Action Plan" is not a change of course, but a new bottle of old wine.
First, it is called termination, which is actually an update and upgrade. The head of the national security department of the US Department of Justice said on the 23rd that the implementation of the "China Action Plan" is for real national security considerations, but all cases are included in the name of the "China Action Plan", which will promote a harmful view, that is, the Ministry of Justice lowered the threshold of criminalization when investigating and prosecuting Crimes related to China, or to some extent to distinguish between people who have racial, ethnic or family relations with China. It can be seen that the so-called termination plan of the Ministry of Justice only cancels the name that has aroused criticism and doubt, and does not change its target and substance.
Second, the "strategy to counter the threat of nation-states" was launched. The U.S. Department of Justice has clearly stated that the current national security threat situation requires a broader response, and its national security services are launching a new "strategy to counter the nation-state threat." The strategic objective is to adopt a comprehensive and comprehensive approach, using all the legal weapons of the Ministry of Justice, to organize the actions of the whole society and the whole government to combat the security threats of hostile countries. The new strategy is security threat-oriented and focuses on combating areas that pose the greatest threat to national security, including but not limited to prosecuting economic espionage and technology theft, cyber hacking, foreign investment censorship, and influence infiltration. Among them, prosecutors in charge of national security affairs will more closely monitor cases involving federal appropriations fraud and seek more civil or administrative sanctions to replace previous criminal prosecutions. The China Action Plan has previously been implicated in most of the charges involved in the cases related to false declarations and telecommunications fraud of federal appropriation projects. All of the above is no different from the original China Action Plan.
What's more, the case of Chinese-related talents is still advancing. According to CBS, there are still 6 "China Action Plan" cases against researchers still pending, three of whom are of Chinese American descent. The most watched is Tao Feng, a chemical engineering professor who will be tried in Kansas City next month, who is also accused of failing to disclose his partnership with China. Despite similarities with Chen Gang's case, and the dismissal of two of the ten felony charges last week, the U.S. Department of Justice has not relaxed its efforts to advance the trial process for the remaining charges, and the verdict is difficult to be optimistic about.
In the future, the U.S. Department of Justice will mainly improve procedures to "crack down on scholars who lie or conceal cooperation with China." According to the guidance for the implementation of the national science and technology council's new National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM-33) issued by the National Science and Technology Council in January 2022, examine whether the researchers concerned "fully disclose the affiliation of their foreign institutions." The Department of Justice's National Security Unit will play an active oversight role in investigations and criminal prosecutions and will work with investigative agencies such as the FBI to assess the intent and significant evidence in the case, as well as the relationship with national or economic security. This is the basis for deciding whether criminal proceedings are required or whether civil or administrative remedies are more appropriate.
U.S. universities and scientific research institutions are tightening their cooperation with foreign countries and are stepping up the implementation of the memorandum measures announced by the Biden administration last month to ensure that scientists applying for federal funding are not controlled by foreign governments or interest groups. The National Science Foundation and other funding agencies are turning to AI projects and big data analytics, feeding federal grant applications and details of individual researchers into tools, examining the existence of undisclosed affiliations with foreign institutions through text analytics by searching vast databases of citations and funding sources, including web of Science and Scopus.
It is conceivable that although the "China Action Plan" was announced to be terminated, we must still maintain a clear understanding of the determination of the United States to suppress and contain China and avoid falling into blind optimism. (The writer is Director, Research Center for Intellectual Property and Scientific and Technological Security, Faculty of International Relations)