US security officials are concerned that China "withdraws brainpower" from its universities, while blocking it is difficult.

US prosecutors from last year suspected three Asian researchers at the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas to engage in the disclosure of sensitive information to China and participating in recruitment programs. Talented work for this country. The MD Anderson Center fired these three researchers, but so far no one has been indicted.

US national security officials say this is a case in point of US universities being targeted in China's plan to covertly collect scientific "gray matter" and fill the technological gap. with the West. It also points to the significant challenges that US prosecutors face when proving that brain drain.

According to security officials in Washington, Beijing has paid thousands of scientists around the world to collaborate overtime with Chinese organizations. Through these agreements, they will usually spend several months working in China without disclosing the work they do to their parent company.

This situation has led some US federal agencies such as the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health to issue a regulation requiring scientists to declare all sources of support from abroad, after recognizing the the source of these secret funding.

A US intelligence report in 2018 said that China recruited 2,629 scientific experts from the United States through the "One Thousand Talents Plan" program. This is just one of more than 200 similar programs of the Chinese government. However, Beijing denied accusing it of building a systematic plan to steal Washington's technology.

Meanwhile, US security officials have a lot of difficulties in clearly identifying acts of intellectual property theft in the university environment. Studies are often shared by scientists and many universities say that because academic research is inherently published, there is nothing to steal.

However, US authorities still consider this a real existential threat. "Participating in a talent recruitment program is not illegal, but it could create an incentive to steal intellectual property, or at least conflict of interest," said John Demers, director of the Department of Homeland Security. of the Justice Department, speaking at a recent conference in Washington.

The prosecution of intellectual property theft through talent programs is also very difficult. In the MD Anderson case, prosecutors presented evidence to a jury and accessed email from the server of the center, but no suspects have been prosecuted yet.

In August, the US Department of Justice tested a new approach. They accuse Professor Franklin Feng Tao from the University of Kansas of deceiving universities and the US government for not reporting his taking an official position at Fuzhou University through a Chinese government program.

Prosecutors said the failure to disclose the information helped Professor Tao keep his job at the University of Kansas and receive research grants from the US government.

US officials see the indictment with Tao as a "model" to prosecute people participating in Chinese talent recruitment programs without having to prove they have committed intellectual property theft. or violating export control regulations.

Professor Tao denied the allegations. On November 17, Tao's lawyer filed a request to dismiss the indictment, confirming that the charges against him were fabricated by Chinese researcher Huimin Liu. According to them, Ms. Liu is seeking to take advantage of US fears of espionage to fight Tao.

A Kansas prosecutor spokesman said they were evaluating an application from Tao's lawyer and would respond in court.

Tao, who was born in China but has been legally residing in the United States since 2002, says Liu thinks he did not include her full name in a study they conducted, so he asked Tao to compensate 2 million people. currency (285,000 USD).

"You ruined my future," Liu wrote in an email to Tao, which he presented to the court. "Don't think that money is too much. That's your future too."

Ms. Liu denied Tao's allegations, saying that the University of Kansas had learned about Tao's work for Fuzhou University before she reported the incident.

From April 30, Liu began to file a complaint against Tao to the University of Kansas and the FBI, even sending the FBI a job offer from Fuzhou University to Tao. She obtained the letter by unauthorized access to Tao's email.

Liu also continued to email Tao, giving an implicit threat on June 4 with the Chinese translation as follows: "It seems that the concept of 'technology espionage' is very popular. careful".

A few days later, Liu contacted the FBI again, accusing Tao of establishing a secret research laboratory in Fuzhou and "carrying out scientific espionage activities".

A Chinese government website shows that Tao was selected by the Changjiang Scholar Program in January 2018 and accepted an offer to work at Fuzhou University through the program.

In an article published in the American Chemical Society Journal in April 2019, Tao said he worked at both Kansas University and Fuzhou University. Prosecutors also accused him of traveling back and forth between the United States and China 23 times in the past three years.

In his appeal, Tao's lawyer said he had never accepted a position at Chinese university and spent the fall semester of 2018 teaching in Kansas. The application also cited testimony from an FBI agent before the jury that he had no evidence Tao had signed a contract with Fuzhou University.

Peter Zeidenberg, the lawyer representing Tao, said his client "rejected the offer to teach at Fuzhou University and told this to the school".

According to Zeidenberg, Tao did not receive a salary from Fuzhou University, but was reimbursed for business trips for attending the seminar. He collaborates with scientists in Fuzhou and helps a former postdoctoral graduate student set up a lab here. However, Zeidenberg did not answer the question why in the article published in April, Tao mentioned both universities in the profile.

Tao's lawyer said the formula for prosecuting people involved in the talent recruitment program offered by the US Department of Justice "will set a dangerous precedent".

John Demers, the Director of the National Security Department of the US Department of Justice, acknowledged that the US government "has a tough look" for talent programs funded by the Chinese government, but the agency wants to avoid any ideas. about a "witch hunt" aimed directly at a certain ethnic group.

"When talking about China, obviously we refer to the Chinese government, we focus on behavior, not ethnicity," he emphasized. "We cannot let the actions of a government make all their citizens suspicious."