‘In the End, You’re Treated Like a Spy,’ Says MIT Scientist
nytimes.comThis is a really painful article to read. It paints a very clear picture of a new Cold War that was being launched under the guise of preventing espionage.
Of course, this much has been suspected since the initial indictment (from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/us/mit-scientist-charges.... )
> There were two counts of wire fraud related to disclosure. In 2017, prosecutors said, when applying for a $2.7 million grant from the Energy Department, Dr. Chen had failed to disclose five affiliations — he served as a “review expert” for China’s National Science Foundation and a “fourth overseas expert consultant” to the Chinese government, for instance. Then, in a progress report in 2019, he failed to list those and three new Chinese affiliations, including one that pledged to pay him $355,715, the indictment says.
> A third and fourth charge were more straightforward: Dr. Chen had failed in 2018 tax filings, the indictment says, to declare a Chinese bank account containing more than $10,000, as required by law.
> [the prosecutor] acknowledged that Dr. Chen was not accused of passing any sensitive information to China
Serving as a review expert? A consultant? Not reporting a Chinese bank account in his taxes? The prosecutor went so far as to paint him as loyal to China based on these! From the above article:
> At a news conference that morning, [the prosecutor] said he believed that Dr. Chen, 56, who became a naturalized U.S. citizen two decades ago, had remained loyal to the country of his birth.
> “The allegations of the complaint imply that this was not just about greed, but about loyalty to China,” he said.
This was a case of guilt by association. Dr Chen did nothing wrong but by god, he’s a Chinese immigrant with a Chinese bank account, and scientific colleagues who are Chinese, so he must be a Chinese spy
What a heartbreaking waste of talent. Trust takes a lifetime to build. But can be demolished in an instant.
I think what happens is more funding comes from the private sector. It's just where the money and momentum are. MIT feels more "industry" oriented every term. That old spirit of intellectual tinkering for its own sake seems to be fading away.
It is stated in the piece, but not emphasized enough: the charges were dropped on the basis of legal technicality regarding mandatory disclosure, not because he wasn't actually hiding associations with known state or state-affiliated actors in mainland China. He was. Expect mandatory disclosure laws to change as a result of this case. Based on his PRC affiliations supported by mountains of evidence in the criminal complaint, I will also not be surprised if espionage specific charges are filed in the future.
A naturalized US citizen doing research with federal funding, especially from DoD and DARPA, has no business participating in conversations with PRC officials while using "we" and "our" to refer to China and its ambitions in the technology sectors for which they have received federal funding.
The complete obfuscation of the facts by NYT is farcical.
https://www.wwlp.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/2021/01/Che...
> the charges were dropped on the basis of legal technicality
Charges can only exist on the basis of legal technicality. That’s how law works.
What you are describing is guilt by association with China. It is not illegal to work to promote scientific collaboration with China. It is not illegal to participate in advancing Chinese scientific interests. Some people might consider these things immoral. Some people might not.
Clearly the prosecutor felt as you do, that because Dr Chen’s work involved advancing Chinese scientific interests, he must be some kind of spy or traitor. If you remove the preconception of guilt by association with China, you might realize it’s possible to want to do science, even science funded by a foreign country and advancing that countries interests, and not automatically be some kind of traitor or spy.
>Charges can only exist on the basis of legal technicality. That’s how law works.
Don't be coy, you know exactly what I mean. If you get away with, for example, sexual crimes like Cosby due to legal technicalities, it doesn't mean you aren't guilty or weren't malicious.
The NYT piece tries to pretend that Chen was not doing anything at all worth scrutinizing. He clearly was, just in a way different than the initial charges cover - mandatory disclosure.
>What you are describing is guilt by association with China
No, what I'm describing is secretive collaboration with an adversarial government on research funded by the US federal government for the express purpose of advancing the interests of that adversarial government, which is exactly what happened. Read the quotes from his communications in the criminal complaint.
Like I said, time will tell if further charges are brought.
I’ve skimmed the original filing including the quote from his emails on bullet 19.
It’s clear Dr. Chen does not consider China to be an adversarial government. Believe it or not, many idealistic people believe in a collaborative future, and unless Dr Chen’s work is classified or military in nature I don’t see a reason to assume anything but the best.
Similarly, he may have committed a crime like espionage but I don’t see any reason to assume this is true unless the government can bring forth evidence supporting that. Such evidence has not materialized yet.
If I study forestry and collaborate with the Canadian government, am I betraying the United States by helping a competing economic power get ahead in forestry? Ultimately, these sort of arguments always rely on moral absolutionism that China is Bad Always. Not everyone agrees with this.
>It’s clear Dr. Chen does not consider China to be an adversarial government
Then he shouldn't be doing research funded by DoD and DARPA, and certainly shouldn't be sharing it with the CCP. You've literally made my point for me.
>Dr Chen’s work is classified or military
DoD and DARPA research are military in nature by definition. Most DoE research, along with the former two, are ITAR restricted as well.
>If I study forestry and collaborate with the Canadian government, am I betraying the United States by helping a competing economic power get ahead in forestry?
Massive false equivalence between China and Canada. China is not merely a "competing economic power". It is not up to Chen to decide who is an approved cooperative partner based on his personal feelings.
>Not everyone agrees with this.
You can disagree with an objective fact all you want, it doesn't make it any less of an objective fact. The CCP is evil and malicious.
You obviously know government agencies better than I do, and I’m not trying to defend the CCP so I won’t claim they aren’t evil or malicious.
My point is just that in this situation, the point of the law is to disambiguate where your personal liberties as someone who might feel positive towards China end, and your collective responsibility towards your country begin.
Feeling friendly to China isn’t illegal or immoral. Helping China in a way that your government forbids, be it for national security or otherwise, is illegal and probably immoral.
If Chen did not break the law, then he did not betray the moral guidelines outlined through law. Unless you want to claim that the spirit of the law was that he should disclose more than legally required to disclose.
Claiming anything more than this just sounds like virtue signaling.
Not being guilty of breaking specific mandatory disclosure laws doesn't mean he didn't break the law or participate in grossly inappropriate and dangerous behavior, especially given the sources and nature of his federally funded research.
As I've said, time will tell whether or not there is sufficient evidence to file criminal charges on the basis of actual espionage, but just looking at his communications is enough to illustrate he should not be trusted with federal funding or research in the primary domains in which he works.
> What you are describing is guilt by association with China. It is not illegal to work to promote scientific collaboration with China
Perhaps it should be.
The FBI did not present any evidence that Gang Chen had anything other than normal scientific collaborations in China, of the type that are not only common, but actually actively encouraged by scientific organizations around the world.
The goal of the FBI (and the goal that you appear to be advocating here and later in this thread) is to criminalize normal, open scientific exchange between American and Chinese scientists. They hoped that by going after one of the most high-profile ethnically Chinese scientists in the US, they could make an example that would scare everyone else away from normal scientific collaboration with Chinese scientists.
> A naturalized US citizen doing research with federal funding, especially from DoD and DARPA, has no business participating in conversations with PRC officials while using "we" and "our" to refer to China and its ambitions
First of all, anyone can express themselves however they want, and even if we believe what the FBI wrote in the complaint, there's no evidence of espionage or other wrongdoing here.
Second of all, it came out that the FBI had truncated and fundamentally misrepresented this email. This email contains Prof. Chen's notes on a talk he saw by a Chinese scientist. The "we" and "our" in the email are part of Prof. Chen's paraphrase of what the Chinese scientist said.
The US already went through one paranoid period in the 1950s in which it targeted scientists based on their ethnicity and perceived political views. One of the people the US government went after was the co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Qian Xuesen. They stripped him of his security clearance, which effectively ended his scientific career in the US. When he tried to leave the US, they arrested him and held him for years. When he was released, he went to the People's Republic of China and founded their rocketry program. The US' persecution of Qian Xuesen was not only immoral, but stupid. Not much has been learned in the last 70 years, it seems.
>open scientific exchange between American and Chinese scientists
There is no such thing. The disparity in open, original research output of US vs China is massive, and virtually all research done "in collaboration" with Chinese scientists is for malicious purposes of the CCP.
I 100% have no problem plainly stating that US (or any really) researchers should not collaborate with Chinese researchers that have familial, geographic, financial, or political ties to mainland China. The CCP's tactics for espionage and IP theft are too pervasive and far reaching to risk it. Chinese researchers should not be allowed to participate in scientific research in foreign host countries if they intend to ever return to mainland China for any reason.
People have no problem conceptualizing why it would have been a bad idea to have Nazi scientists, even before WWII broke out, collaborating on military endeavors elsewhere, but it's all of the sudden some insane logical and ethical leap to state the same thing about a nation whose government is just as evil.
There are plenty of good natured and good intentioned Chinese scientists with genuine desires to pursue scientific inquiry for science's sake in positions where their family is held in China with a gun to their head, forcing the scientist abroad to make dubious ethical decisions any one of us would make for the sake of our family. It sucks, but it's reality. The extent the CCP will go to in order to lie, cheat, steal, genocide, and con their way to the top is limitless. They have no problem threatening and harming their own citizens.
>First of all, anyone can express themselves however they want, and even if we believe what the FBI wrote in the complaint, there's no evidence of espionage or other wrongdoing here.
No, you literally can't when working with DoD or DARPA funding. We'll see regarding wrongdoing different from violating mandatory disclosure laws.
>Second of all, it came out that the FBI had truncated and fundamentally misrepresented this email. This email contains Prof. Chen's notes on a talk he saw by a Chinese scientist. The "we" and "our" in the email are part of Prof. Chen's paraphrase of what the Chinese scientist said.
Did you just make this up? I'd love to see the complete logs if they're available.
>Qian Xuesen
It is highly likely this was his plan all along. He explicitly stated in a deposition his allegiance was to communist China and that he would not alter this based on pressure from the US if armed conflict broke out between the two nations. He also repeatedly stated in various ways to various people that his loyalties were to his homeland.
> The disparity in open, original research output of US vs China is massive, and virtually all research done "in collaboration" with Chinese scientists is for malicious purposes of the CCP.
You don't know what you're talking about here. The quality of scientific research in China has been rapidly improving, and China has world-leading research groups in many areas now. There is plenty of productive collaboration between Chinese and American scientists. This sort of international collaboration has historically been encouraged. The ethos of science is international and open.
> Did you just make this up?
It came out during the pre-trial motions. The government did not dispute the fact that Prof. Chen was paraphrasing someone else, because that was plainly the case.
As for the rest of your comments, I can only shake my head and wonder what gives rise to such irrational hatred.
>You don't know what you're talking about here
I do, it's my career.
>It came out during the pre-trial motions. The government did not dispute the fact that Prof. Chen was paraphrasing someone else, because that was plainly the case.
Please provide evidence.
>irrational hatred
There's nothing irrational about valuing the sanctity of human life and liberty, and holding disdain for a totalitarian, genocidal, evil government that enslaves and manipulates its people for nefarious purposes. Again, you would never question opposition to sharing research with Nazis in the 30s.
Every company with more than 50 employees must be boarded by a CCP official. Every research endeavor is required to report directly to the CCP. If you genuinely don't understand how dangerous international collaboration is, then you're beyond naive.
> I do, it's my career.
I can only guess at what your career is, but your claim about China not having anything meaningful to contribute to scientific collaborations is absolutely wrong, and indicates a basic unfamiliarity with the state of scientific research in China. China is very quickly becoming a scientific powerhouse. The quality and quantity of research coming out of China is rapidly getting better, and the country already leads in some important fields.
> Please provide evidence.
Read the pre-trial motions. Anyone who followed the case is aware of the FBI's misrepresentation of the email. In the end, the FBI did not even dispute that Prof. Chen was paraphrasing someone else's words.
> Again, you would never question opposition to sharing research with Nazis in the 30s.
China is not, in any way, even remotely like Nazi Germany.
> There's nothing irrational about valuing the sanctity of human life and liberty, and holding disdain for a totalitarian, genocidal, evil government that enslaves and manipulates its people for nefarious purposes.
No, but it is extremely irrational about characterizing China in that way. Most irrational hatred springs from ignorance. If you go to China and tell people they live in an evil country that oppresses them, most people will have no idea what you're on about. It's very hard to overstate just how much life has improved in China over the course of just one generation, and as a result, most Chinese people are extremely positive and hopeful about their country. The view that China is some nightmarish hellhole is really just an outside perception, almost exclusively held by people with virtually no actual knowledge of the country. China is an extremely complicated country, and the simplistic demonization of it in American and European media is cartoonish and uninformed.
Also I found the motions regarding the emails. You're lying that the government truncated was dishonest as the response to motion makes clear, and the fact that the motions were denied.
The entire email and follow up are available. If you're going to lie, you should do it about less easy to verify things.
The fact that you don't think China is even close to Nazi Germany tells everyone everything they need to know. The urban Germans loved the Nazis too.
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/30386048/united-states-...
> You're lying that the government truncated was dishonest as the response to motion makes clear
The government's response to the motion does not dispute that the words are a paraphrase of someone else. The government tries to rationalize its original decision to leave that information out.
"The government argues in opposition that this argument fails because it never claimed that the excerpted portion of the email reflected the defendant’s personal thoughts. Rather, regardless of whether the email reflected the defendant’s own thoughts or were notes from a lecture, it intended to demonstrate that the defendant had an interest in promoting China’s scientific and economic development, which went to his motive for committing the charged offenses. As between the two, the government has the better argument here. Even assuming the excerpted portion of the email reflected nothing more than notes from a lecture the defendant attended, it was included in the publicly filed complaint and thus could be disclosed, the government noted for what it was worth that the defendant wrote and sent the notes to himself, and the email did at some level reflect the defendant’s interest in Chinese scientific and economic development."
>China is not, in any way, even remotely like Nazi Germany.
Yes it absolutely is. I checked your comment history. I'm not interested in endless discussions with propagandists that have zero objective views regarding China.
Weird how my colleagues that immigrated from rural China state that it's exactly like you say it isn't.
> Yes it absolutely is.
Well, if you say so. I just think it's an absurd and offensive comparison to draw.
China hasn't waged any wars in decades, isn't carrying out any mass killing and doesn't espouse racist ideology. It's not a democracy, but it is a country in which living standards have been improving at a rapid pace for the vast majority of people over the last generation
>Well, if you say so. I just think it's an absurd and offensive comparison to draw
It's absurd and offensive that you don't recognize the ongoing atrocities of the CCP and the pure evil behind their political ideology and ambitions.
> hasn't waged any wars in decades
There are different types of warfare besides physical combat. They regularly wage war on the world through IP theft, espionage, cyber, etc. They also wage war against their own people who dare speak out, have practically enslaved the majority of the population, and violently suppress dissent of any kind.
> isn't carrying out any mass killing and doesn't espouse racist ideology
Uyghurs would disagree, and the CCP is an ethnocentric political entity. China is a de facto ethnostate. Official commentary on their ventures in Africa would disagree as well. China regularly espouses racism against other east asian ethnicities as well.
You are maliciously ignorant.