The China Initiative was an effort by the United States Department of Justice to prosecute perceived Chinese spies in American research and industry, in order to combat economic espionage. Launched in November 2018, it has been criticized as racially biased and ineffective. Some of the cases under the China Initiative were based on false evidence provided by the FBI. The Department of Justice announced the end of the program on February 23, 2022, amid criticism of racial profiling of Chinese American citizens and other residents of Chinese origin or ancestry.
Origin
The China Initiative was a program to prosecute certain science researchers and academics affiliated with China. It was begun by the Department of Justice (DOJ) under then–US President Donald Trump's first Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2018, with the goal of preventing industrial espionage. Trump and his administration believed that China was using researchers and students to steal American technological innovations.
The DOJ maintains that there is no strict definition of what a China Initiative case is, but most of the cases involve researchers who failed to disclose Chinese funding on grant applications and many involve professors at US institutions. Despite the initiative's goal of combating espionage, no one was convicted or even charged with spying in any China Initiative case.
End
On 23 February 2022, the DOJ announced that it was ending the China Initiative, largely due to "perceptions that it unfairly painted Chinese Americans and United States residents of Chinese origin as disloyal." Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew Olsen said the decision did not mean the DOJ was abandoning its response to the threat posed by China, but rather that it wanted to pursue that goal differently. According to Olsen, the DOJ will continue to combat threats posed by the Chinese government; it will also continue to pursue the cases begun under the program.
The China Initiative cases typically involved lying or omitting information on disclosure forms. Some cases resulted in convictions, like that of Charles Lieber (who was found guilty of making false statements to federal officials and filing false tax returns) and Meyya Meyyappan (a NASA scientist who pled guilty to making false statements to federal officials). Others have been reined in or abandoned, like that of Gang Chen, or defeated in trial like Anming Hu's. A review of existing cases was conducted and the DOJ is "comfortable with where those cases are."
Aftermath
Although the China Initiative has officially ended, the "climate of fear and anxiety" has not dissipated and scientists are being pressured in other ways according to sources reported by the scientific journal Nature in February 2023. Universities have become more active in "assisting investigations and pursuing potential wrongdoing". Gang Chen states that "The government has not done enough" to allay concerns and "It has only intensified". Jenny Lee, a social scientist at University of Arizona, states that end of the China Initiative provided the illusion that scientists of Chinese descent would receive a reprieve from scrutiny, but the "chilling effect" is still present and the US government has continued to adopt policies and positions perpetuating the narrative that scientists from China are spies. In a survey published in February 2023, a link was found between fear of racial profiling and a desire among scientists to return to China.
Chinese American scientists who have been caught up in cases such as Xiaoxing Xi and Gang Chen say that they are still afraid of doing research or applying for federal funding while Anming Hu has had trouble securing funding. Chen says that he fears the government would use the application forms against him as they did before. Xi sought damages for the harm he suffered due to his arrest but his claims were dismissed in March 2022. He spends much of his time raising awareness of anti-Asian sentiment as well as following cases of scientists in similar situations. Both Xi and Hu had their team sizes reduced from before their cases and Hu no longer takes on researchers and students from China to avoid risk. Chen also sought to avoid risk by switching research topics to one with less obvious commercial applications while avoiding contact with researchers and students from China. Hu claims that he would have progressed much further in his research level had he not been caught up in the China Initiative.