U.S.-China Tensions Fuel Outflow of Chinese Scientists From U.S. Universities for China

[beijingwalker]

U.S.-China Tensions Fuel Outflow of Chinese Scientists From U.S. Universities for China​

Harvard, MIT lose experienced scholars as fear of government surveillance prompts 4 in 10 to consider leaving​

Among the Chinese and Chinese-American scientists who have recently left the U.S. are widely cited names from MIT, as well as Harvard and the University of Chicago.PHOTO: ADAM GLANZMAN/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Sept. 22, 2022 1:15 pm ET

—An increasing number of scientists and engineers of Chinese descent are giving up tenured positions at top-tier American universities to leave for China or elsewhere, in a sign of the U.S.’s fading appeal for a group that has been a driver of innovation.

The trend, driven in part by what many of the scholars describe as an increasingly hostile political and racial environment, has caused the Biden administration to work with scholars of Chinese descent to address concerns.

The trend, driven in part by what many of the scholars describe as an increasingly hostile political and racial environment, has caused the Biden administration to work with scholars of Chinese descent to address concerns.

More than 1,400 U.S.-trained Chinese scientists dropped their U.S. academic or corporate affiliation for a Chinese one in 2021, a 22% jump from the previous year, according to data gathered by researchers from Princeton University, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The data, to be published by the advocacy group Asian American Scholar Forum on Friday, is based on changes to the addresses listed under authors’ names in academic journals.

Chinese scientists trained in the U.S. have returned to China in increasing numbers over the past two decades as the country has grown more affluent and gained stature as a center of scientific research. In the past decade, China has tried to recruit top researchers through talent programs, but historically the majority elected to stay in the U.S.

Departures from the U.S. rose sharply starting in 2020, however, when the Covid-19 pandemic coincided with an increase in criminal cases filed against academics under the China Initiative, a Trump-era Justice Department program intended to counter national security threats from China.

President Biden’s Justice Department said it would stop pursuing new cases under the China Initiative in February, following a series of failed prosecutions and complaints of racial profiling, but some scientists of Chinese descent said they still feel as though suspicions are being directed toward them and fear that will continue as long as relations between the U.S. and China remain tense.

Among those Chinese and Chinese-American scientists who have left the U.S. during the past year are widely cited names from Harvard, MIT and the University of Chicago, including a winner of the Fields Medal, the highest honor in mathematics.

A poll in the summer of 2021 by researchers at the University of Arizona found that four out of 10 scientists of Chinese descent had recently considered leaving the U.S. out of fear of being subjected to U.S. government surveillance.

In interviews, nearly 20 ethnically Chinese scientists who have either left the U.S. or are contemplating leaving cited anxiety about government persecution and increasing violence against people of Asian heritage during the pandemic. Some said their thinking was also influenced by other factors, including better pay or proximity to loved ones.

The majority of those who spoke to The Wall Street Journal were tenured and naturalized U.S. citizens, and many were experts in aerospace and biology—strategically important fields that Beijing has singled out for increased investment and that were among the most scrutinized under the China Initiative.

One Chinese mechanical-engineering professor said he left a top American university this summer after more than two decades in the U.S. to join a university in Hong Kong, citing a desire to be closer to his aging parents and saying he was fed up with the political environment in the U.S. The scientist, whose children were born in the U.S., said the political atmosphere had grown so tense that he stopped seeking out collaborations with other scientists.

“I didn’t want my Chineseness to expose them to scrutiny from the federal authorities,” he said.

A winner of the Fields Medal, the highest honor in mathematics, left Harvard University for a position at Beijing’s Tsinghua University.PHOTO: FAN JIASHAN/ZUMA PRESS

Some Chinese scientists now say they feel trapped given restrictions on speech and academic freedom in China, where scholars often have to attend political education sessions and have to be careful not to cross the Communist Party’s political red lines. The country’s strict Covid-19 restrictions have also reduced its appeal.

A doctoral candidate in artificial intelligence at the University of California, Berkeley, said both factors damped his initial enthusiasm for returning to China. But he also worries about becoming a target of the U.S. government.

“It’s really a dilemma,” he said. “You can’t go to China for many reasons. You can’t stay in the U.S. happily.”

The disquiet among scientists of Chinese descent comes as Washington seeks to defend its edge in scientific and technological innovation, and as China quickly narrows the gap. Congress recently passed the Chips Act to boost American competitiveness in tech, with $80 billion in funding to improve research into core technologies like artificial intelligence.

A 2020 analysis by Chicago-based think tank MacroPolo found that China-born scientists account for nearly 30% of artificial-intelligence researchers working for U.S. institutions.

Chinese and other foreign-born scientists have been a source of national strength, Eric Schmidt, former executive chairman of Google parent company Alphabet Inc. and chairman of the U.S. government’s National Security Commission on AI, said in an interview. “We should never aim to cut ourselves off from a country that is home to 1.4 billion, with immense talent.”

In 2019, China-based scholars overtook U.S.-based scholars in producing the largest share of the top 1% most highly cited scientific papers—generally considered a key metric for scientific leadership—according to a study by scholars from the U.S., China and the Netherlands.

Increased global competition for scientific talent means the U.S. should be taking even more care to make top researchers feel welcome, said Ann Chih Lin, director of the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan. “Good people have the opportunity to leave, so why push them?” Ms. Lin said.

A survey of scientists of Chinese descent by the Asian American Scholar Forum last winter found that 89% said they wanted to contribute to U.S. scientific and technological leadership.


While the scientists who spoke to the Journal said they believed that it was important to go after Chinese espionage, they said that for many the China Initiative had changed their perception of America as a place where they would be free of potential persecution. As an example of the potential risk to the U.S., some pointed to the example of renowned rocket scientist Qian Xuesen, who moved to China from the U.S. during the McCarthy era and went on to help build China’s space and nuclear-weapons program.

Fields Medal winner Yau Shing-Tung, one of the highest-profile departees, left Harvard for a position at Beijing’s Tsinghua University in April. The mathematician, who didn’t respond to a request for comment, had previously expressed interest in helping China win its first Fields Medal. Mr. Yau also lamented what he described as an atmosphere of suspicion surrounding Chinese students and professors in the U.S.

“The U.S. government used to criticize the academic environment of the Soviet Union,” he said in a speech to Harvard freshmen in September 2021. “I didn’t expect that to be revived here.”

One of the architects of the China Initiative, Andrew Lelling, a former U.S. attorney in Massachusetts, said earlier this year that the program had succeeded in warning scientists to rethink their connections to China and in pushing universities and grant-making bodies to be more vigilant.

In a statement to the Journal, the Justice Department referred to comments made by Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew Olsen in February, in which he promised to take the concerns of Chinese scientists into consideration with future investigations and prosecutions.

“Safeguarding the integrity and transparency of research institutions is a matter of national security,” Mr. Olsen said, adding: “But so is ensuring that we continue to attract the best and the brightest researchers and scholars to our country from all around the world.”

A group of senior scholars of Chinese descent in the U.S. met several times with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in the first half of this year in an effort to address their concerns, according to Yiguang Ju, a mechanical- and aerospace-engineering professor at Princeton University who attended the meetings.

In response to complaints from the scholars that many of the China Initiative cases had stemmed from scientists incorrectly filling out complex forms for disclosing research ties to China, the White House technology office has been working to standardize the disclosure process across government agencies, Mr. Ju and other participants said.

Michigan’s Ms. Lin said such procedural changes are positive but fall short of resolving the chilling effect many Chinese scholars feel.

In a statement, the White House technology office said the standardization of disclosure requirements is intended to increase transparency and trust. “We also intend to continue working closely with diverse stakeholders across the U.S. research enterprise to create an open and welcoming research environment,” it said.

U.S.-China Tensions Fuel Outflow of Chinese Scientists From U.S. Universities

The trend is a sign of the U.S.’s fading appeal for a group that has been a driver of innovation.

www.wsj.com

 

[beijingwalker]

This chart shows the trend started from a decade ago, so it's not only about the tension between China and US. In the past 10 years China's average income level and standard of living had been fast catching up and China now somewhat overtook the west in research facilities, equipments and ample funds, all those factors combined make China a very attractive place for tech based ventures.
A decade ago many talents from the mainland tried very hard to land jobs in Taiwan and Hong kong, but now the opposite is true, Taiwan suffers a massive brain drain to the mainland China cause everything is better here for their careers. the same trend of reverse brain drain now had started to the Chinese talents in US.

 

[beijingwalker]

Nearly 90% of all Chinese students return home after studying abroad: MOE
By Global Times
Published: Dec 15, 2020 08:39 PM

Some Chinese students celebrate graduation in New York. Photo: IC

The number of Chinese students returning home reached 580,300 in 2019, up 11.73 percent year-on-year, the latest data released by Ministry of Education of China (MOE) showed, while the number of students studying abroad also increased by 6.25 percent to 703,500.

Studying abroad has become a very common occurrence for Chinese students. Since China's reform and opening-up in 1978, over 6.56 million Chinese students had studied overseas, and among them, about 1.6 million Chinese students are still studying or completing research abroad, according to data released by MOE on Monday.

From 1978-2019, among the 6.56 million Chinese students, 4.9 million of them have completed their study, and 86 percent returned to China after graduating, according to MOE.

Besides, the tide of students studying internationally fell hard due to the coronavirus as well as China-US tensions this year.

Tang Qitao, an 18-year-old freshman from Wenzhou-based Wenzhou-Kean University, received offers in July from seven US universities before finally giving up due to the severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US.

"I would like to widen my horizons by studying abroad," Tang told the Global Times, but instead he chose a Sino-foreign cooperative education mechanism as he found the study mode and campus environment to be quite good despite the school being located within China.

Another Chinese student surnamed Gu, studying at the London College of Communication, majoring in MA photojournalism and documentary photography, went back to China in August also due to the UK's deteriorating pandemic situation.

Wang Li, president of Wenzhou-Kean University, told the Global Times that this year's pandemic most certainly "increased the difficulties" for Chinese students studying abroad as well as Chinese-foreign cooperative universities because international communication came to a halt amid the virus, adding that other study modes could become more popular among students.

Nearly 90% of all Chinese students return home after studying abroad: MOE - Global Times

www.globaltimes.cn

 

[beijingwalker]

As attitudes to the West sour, China’s students turn home​

They think China is best served by picking aspects of Western culture that suit it​

The economist

Jan 21st 2021

Bai shuang stayed overseas longer than most. After a degree in Paris, Ms Bai worked for a French company, then went to London for a Master’s and got another job. By 2017 two forces pulled her home. First was her salary, which Ms Bai thought too low; she heard she could earn more in Shanghai’s startup scene. The second was her parents, who were aghast at the terrorist attacks that rocked both her adoptive cities. China was safe, they said, and Ms Bai could “shine” here. “If there is a place where you can have it all, then why not?” Ms Bai reasoned. She bought a ticket home.

Ms Bai is a “sea turtle”, a play on the Chinese homonym haigui, meaning “to return from abroad”. Of the 6.2m Chinese who left to study overseas between 2000 and 2019, more than 4m have returned, says the education ministry. The rate of return has picked up. In 2001 just 14% went home. But in every year since 2013, China has welcomed back at least four in five overseas graduates. Amid the unusual stresses of covid-19, it is thought that 800,000 came home in the first nine months of 2020, up from 580,000 in 2019.

The pandemic has cut short stints abroad. When it is over, educational flows should pick up again. But a new confluence of factors had already been turning well-educated Chinese away from the West, and America in particular. More than just covid-19 and terrorist incidents are making the West seem unsafe and hostile. Trips to America by Chinese students fell by 70% in the first nine months of 2020 over a year earlier. But only 50% fewer Taiwanese and 56% fewer South Korean students went to America, despite the fact that both places beat back covid-19 as effectively as China.

As attitudes to the West sour, China’s students turn home

They think China is best served by picking aspects of Western culture that suit it

www.economist.com

 

[casual]

4 out of 10 are willing to speak out about going back to China. There's more who aren't willing to speak out and move back.

 

[beijingwalker]

US had massively lost its appeal to the young Chinese, more people are coming back to China year on year, less people choose to go there to study in the first place as well.

 

[etylo]

It's not surprising giving the fervent anti-chinese atmosphere that is prevailing in the US now.

 

[beijingwalker]

Chinese universities are becoming the best of the best in the worls, US colleges are degrading into hotbeds for drug addicts and mass shooters.

 

[beijingwalker]

The U.S. Is Losing Scientists to China. How to Stem the Flow.​

Oct. 3, 2022 3:35 pm ET

Scientists and engineers of Chinese descent are relinquishing their corporate positions or tenured positions at top-tier U.S. institutions such as Harvard, MIT, and Princeton at an unprecedented rate. To make matters worse, many of them are leaving for China to compete against the United States. More than 1,400 Chinese scientists left the United States for China in 2021.

The inflow of Chinese students is also on the decline.

A significant percentage of STEM researchers, workers and students in the U.S. are of Chinese descent. Should this trend continue, it could create a major challenge for the U.S. as it tries to compete, especially since China is already leading in several key scientific metrics such as the number of patents filed each year.

President Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 into law in August to revitalize domestic manufacturing of semiconductors and to compete with China in science and technology. To implement this multibillion dollar bill, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology recommended the establishment of a national microelectronics training network for semiconductor workforce development across academic institutions.

This recommendation is sound, but the implementation is likely to hit a snag as a result of the significant loss of talent.

It’s imperative to curb the outflow of U.S.-trained scientists of Chinese descent and to restore the inflow of Chinese students. To help do so, consider three major underlying causes of this trend.

First, the heightened geopolitical tension between the U.S. and China since the Trump era has stoked suspicion and fear. Under a program called the China Initiative developed by the Department of Justice in 2018 to combat Chinese espionage, some scientists of Chinese descent have been accused of spying for China. Many have been interrogated by FBI agents, and some have been falsely accused.

The witch hunt has created a chilling effect, causing some fearful Chinese scientists to leave the United States for China.

Second, putting political risk aside, Chinese scientists in the United States may feel least included at work, like other Asian Americans. Despite having a strong presence in corporate America, Asian Americans are virtually absent in the executive suites. They represent 12% of the country’s professional workforce, yet in recent years less than 1% of S&P 500 CEOs were of East Asian descent. Also, Asian-Americans are the least likely group to be promoted to management—less likely than Black and Hispanic workers.

Like other Asian Americans, Chinese professionals, athletes and scientists in the U.S. are often portrayed as well-educated, hard-working, successful, “over-represented,” and “white-adjacent.” As such, they are regularly left out of discussions about discrimination in the workplace and overlooked for promotion. In fact, Asians are often excluded in diversity and inclusion plans entirely.

Worse, in the face of rising animosity towards China and people of Chinese descent, some diversity and inclusion efforts that encourage workers to advertise their ethnic or cultural heritage at work could easily backfire, turning these employees into targets for mistreatment.

While the future prospects for Chinese scientists and professionals in the United States look dim at best and hostile at worst, universities and companies in China are wooing scientists and professionals of Chinese descent by offering senior positions with higher compensation. Weighing these two options, many are opting to return to China.

Third, since the outbreak of coronavirus in Wuhan in late 2019, many people of Chinese descent had been mistreated at work in the United States due to prejudice associated with the virus. This negative sentiment has manifested into hatred, triggering a staggering increase of hate crimes against Asians in the United States by 339% in 2021.

Some U.S.-trained Chinese scientists and Chinese students may feel unwelcome in the United States. Worse, the killing of Chinese student Shaoxiong Zheng on the University of Chicago’s campus in broad daylight in 2021 sent a shock wave through the community of Chinese scholars and students in the United States.

The heightened safety concerns over hate crimes against Asians in the United States have nudged more Chinese scholars to leave the United States for China. At the same time, many Chinese students prefer to study in China or somewhere that is safer than the United States.

The increasing outflow of Chinese scientists and the decreasing inflow of Chinese students may hurt the United States while benefiting China. It is reminiscent of an unfortunate incident when the U.S. trained Chinese scientist Qian Xuesen of Caltech was under house arrest for 5 years after being accused of Communist sympathies in the 50s. Upon returning to China, Qian helped establish China’s ballistic missile and aerospace programs. Former undersecretary of the Navy Dan Kimball lamented that Qian’s treatment was unjust for Qian and unwise for the United States.

To enrich the research and development in science and technology, the United States should retain and attract all people of talent. We can prevent these kinds of mishaps from happening again by treating everyone, including people of Chinese descent, fairly without preconceived prejudice. At the same time, the U.S. must improve basic and essential public safety. America must uphold the spirit that keeps this nation strong.

The U.S. Is Losing Scientists to China. How to Stem the Flow.

The loss of scientists and engineers of Chinese descent will create a major challenge for the U.S. as it tries to compete, writes Christopher S. Tang.

www.barrons.com

 

[James David]

OMG what are we gonna do!!! We're doomed!!

 

[beijingwalker]

Chinese Academics in US Increasingly Going Home Out of Fear​

Trump-era spying probe a major cause as ‘yellow peril’ recurs​

John Berthelsen
Oct. 3 2022

The United States is paying a heavy price for the China Initiative, the 2018 probe of academic and economic spying begun by then-President Donald Trump which has driven up the number of Chinese-born academics departing back to China by 40 percent, according to a new study by the Asian American Forum.

The investigation was ordered ended last February by President Joe Biden. But, according to the 46-page report, titled Caught in the Crossfire: Fears of Chinese-American Scientists, “The China Initiative caused panic and an exodus of senior academic researchers of Chinese descent in the US.” The number who dropped their American academic or corporate affiliation in 2021 in favor of a move back to a Chinese institution jumped by 23 percent over 2020. In 2021, 1,500 Chinese scholars who were educated in the United States left to go back to China.

The US loss has been China’s gain. The returning academicians have steadily moved into top positions in academia and industry, “lured to return to China by a combination of factors: large and fast-growing investments in science, high social prestige and attractive financial rewards tied to positions in Chinese institutions, and capable research collaborators and assistants.”

Nor can the US afford it. American students themselves are opting for, in order: majors in business, social sciences and history, biological and biomedical sciences, communication and journalism and computer and information sciences, with the result that, according to a 2007 report by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine quoted in the AAF report: “American science may be in decline and soon lose its long-held leadership in the world. Evidence cited in support of this claim included inadequate US investments in science education at all levels and in scientific research, in an era when competing countries, China in particular, had been increasing science-related investments and narrowing gaps with the US.”

That difference was made up in US academia by foreign students, particularly Asians and particularly Chinese. Of 34,000 PhD recipients of degrees in science and engineering fields awarded by US institutions in 2020, 46 percent, or 15,000 held temporary visas, most of them foreign students.

“Among these 15,000 recipients with temporary visas, the largest portion came from China, at 37 percent. In other words, 17 percent of all 2020 US doctoral degrees in S/E went to foreign students from China.”

Most foreign-born noncitizen recipients of US S/E doctorates remain in the US for subsequent employment. “For those from China, about 87 percent have stayed in the US, constituting a significant part of the American S/E labor force.”

It should be noted that China’s thousands of Confucius Institutes across the world have been accused of creating a false picture of China, buying their way onto campuses, and using economic coercion to push the China story. But that doesn’t equate to espionage.

The sad part, according to the report, is that in reality, the Initiative, after targeting roughly 150 academics, didn’t catch any important spies. It “mostly targeted US-based academic scientists of Chinese origin for ‘research integrity’ issues, the most prominent being failure to disclose relationships with Chinese institutions on federal grant applications, particularly those to the National Institutes of Health.”

Of the 50 indictments announced or unsealed since the start of the program and posted on the Justice Department’s China Initiative web page, according to a 2021 Bloomberg report, 38 percent were academic researchers and professors with fraud for failing to disclose affiliations with Chinese universities. None has been accused of spying, and almost half of those cases were dropped. Only 20 percent allege economic espionage, and most of those are unresolved. Just three claim that secrets were handed over to Chinese agents, Bloomberg said.

One high-profile case was against Gang Chen, former head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, the report noted. “After his arrest on January 14, 2021, his lab was closed, and his research group dispersed. A year later, all charges were dropped. The chilling effect of the Gang Chen case was significant and consequential; it resulted in greater community awareness among Chinese-American scientists and heralded nationwide discussions in the community as to how to protect oneself.”

The result has been almost incalculable. ‘”While mainland China’s contribution to the world’s science and technology was minor only three decades ago, it is now a major contributor of science and technology,” the report notes. “In terms of the total number of science and technology publications in scientific journals, China has now surpassed the US as the world leader. In terms of patent applications by residents, China outperforms the US by a factor of five.”

At least part of the reason for that is the return of Chinese scholar-scientists from the United States back to China. It isn’t just in universities and colleges, and it isn’t just because of Trump’s initiative. The public attitude toward Asians has grown increasingly hostile as xenophobic commentators on cable television, radio and social media have railed against them, particularly after the onset of the Covid-19 coronavirus, which was found to have originated in Wuhan.

Some 32 percent of Asian adults say they have feared someone might threaten or physically attack them – a greater share than other racial or ethnic groups, according to an April 2022 survey by Pew Research. “The vast majority of Asian adults (81 percent) also say violence against them is increasing, far surpassing the share of all U.S. adults (56 percent) who say the same.”

Some of these espionage cases are so egregious as to be embarrassing to US investigators. Perhaps the most famous, or infamous, involves Lee Wen Ho, a Taiwanese-born scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, creating simulations of nuclear explosions to improve the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Lee was arrested and indicted on 59 charges of stealing secrets for China, ignoring the fact that he was Taiwanese. He was held in solitary confinement and interrogated for weeks. Eventually, the government was only able to charge Lee with improper handling of restricted data, one of the original 59 counts.

In June 2006, according to media reports, Lee received US$1.6 million from the federal government and five media organizations as part of a settlement of a civil suit he had filed against them for leaking his name to the press before any formal charges had been filed. “Federal Judge James A. Parker eventually apologized to Lee for denying him bail and putting him in solitary confinement and excoriated the government for misconduct and misrepresentations to the court.”

Nor is Lee Wen Ho alone. The government has taken on numerous cases of spying against Asian with widespread publicity, only to drop them later. When Song-Chun Zhu, an accomplished computer scientist and the director of the Center for Vision, Cognition, Learning and Autonomy at UCLA, announced his intention to return to China in 2019, according to the report, “an article was widely circulated on Chinese social media, publicly thanking Donald Trump and his China Initiative for sending top Chinese-American scientists like Zhu back to China.”

Chinese Academics in US Increasingly Going Home Out of Fear

Trump-era spying probe a major cause as ‘yellow peril’ recurs

www.asiasentinel.com

 

[beijingwalker]

Scientists at top US nuclear lab returned to China to develop hypersonic missiles technology​

More than 160 Chinese scientists who worked at Los Alamos returned home
Some 162 Chinese scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the US birthplace of the atomic bomb, went back to China as late as last year to work on futuristic programmes with potential military applications, according to a new report.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Scientists at top US nuclear lab returned to China to develop hypersonic missiles technology​

More than 160 Chinese scientists who worked at Los Alamos returned home
Some 162 Chinese scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the US birthplace of the atomic bomb, went back to China as late as last year to work on futuristic programmes with potential military applications, according to a new report.

Again always a Western source of knowledge behind every Chinese advance.

Not tension...more like $1 million salaries to leave.

Scientists at top US nuclear lab poached by China to develop hypersonic missiles technology

More than 160 Chinese scientists who worked at Los Alamos returned home, including one given grants worth $20 million by the US for research

www.telegraph.co.uk

Scores of Chinese scientists who worked at one of America's most advanced weapons labs have been recruited by Beijing to help develop hypersonic technology, deep-penetrating warheads, drones, stealth camouflage and quiet submarines.

Some 162 Chinese scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the US birthplace of the atomic bomb, went back to China as late as last year to work on futuristic programmes with potential military applications, according to a new report.
Republicans demanded an end to the "espionage" as party members called on the Biden administration to launch an investigation into Beijing's "malign" efforts.
The report came on the eve of the Chinese Community Party's National Congress, at which Xi Jinping is expected to cement power by receiving an unprecedented third term as president.

It also reflected intensifying concerns in Washington about the scale of China's long-term campaign to steal US research to boost its own military capabilities.
The White House said on Monday that President Xi Jinping was leading China in a more "aggressive" direction.

"We've seen a very different China emerge in recent years under Xi Jinping's leadership," Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, warned.

Details of the movements of scientists from Los Alamos to China were set out in an exhaustive report by Strider Technologies, a private intelligence firm.
The Chinese scientists who worked at Los Alamos between 1987 and 2021 went back to China to work on "domestic research and development programmes", including "dual-use" technology which could have civilian or military applications.
It says the scientists were paid up to $1 million in salaries and research subsidies by the Chinese Communist Party for joining its talent programmes.

Eighty per cent of those who came back to China were recruited into government-sponsored talent systems, including 59 who joined the high-profile "Thousand Talents Programme" (TTP).

So many Chinese scientists, postdoctoral researchers and visiting scholars passed through the laboratory that they have been dubbed the "Los Alamos Club".
Los Alamos was at the heart of the Manhattan Project, which developed and tested the first nuclear bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
While much of the work done there today is not classified its role still includes designing nuclear warheads, and ensuring the safety and effectiveness of the US nuclear stockpile.

That includes B61 gravity bombs, the W78 thermonuclear warheads carried by Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, and the W76 and W88 nuclear warheads positioned on the US Navy’s Trident missile submarines.

The Strider report described how one Chinese scientist was given grants of nearly $20 million by the US government to pursue sensitive research at Los Alamos.
He worked on "Nanostructured Superhard Noses for Deep-Penetrating Warheads".
The scientist had "Q" security clearance, giving access to Top Secret Restricted Data, but later returned to China and joined the TTP.

Another worked at Los Alamos before returning to China and filing a patent there for an "ultra-thick penetrating warhead".

Report author Greg Levesque told the Telegraph: "Nothing about it is ad hoc. What the Chinese government has set up is a system. That system is built to incentivise folks to make those decisions to go to the US, go to the UK, study, learn, and then there are financial and reputational benefits to actually going back [to China].
"They have a name for the system, it's the talent superpower strategy. That system includes not only recruiting talent, but also sending emerging talent overseas."
Mr Levesque said he was "blown away" by how many Los Alamos scientists returning to China were recruited.

"It was not a couple, it was the vast majority," he said. "What we have on our hands here is a nation state that is literally targeting national labs, and they're sending people and recruiting people from those institutions. That's a national security threat.

"If this is happening at Los Alamos what's happening at university research institutions, what's happening at facilities of our allies?"
According to the report, at least seven Los Alamos returnees have links to the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP), which is the "primary research and development, and production, facility for the PRC’s [Peoples Republic of China's] nuclear weapons programme".

One researcher received $1.8 million from the US military while, at the same time, doing work for the Chinese Army.

The report also described how more than a dozen Chinese scientists from Los Alamos later went to the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in Shenzhen, known as "China’s Stanford".

"For a relatively new institution, it employs a disproportionately high number of world-class scholars, most of whom were recruited via PRC government talent programmes," the report noted.


Mike Waltz, a Republican congressman, who represents Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's former seat, called for an investigation into the "Los Alamos Club".
Mr Waltz, the first Green Beret to serve in Congress, said: "The Chinese Communist Party has been stealing our research and technology for decades through its foreign talents programmess and it’s critical to our national security that we put an immediate stop to their espionage efforts."

In a letter signed by other Republicans, Mr Waltz said: "These malign talent recruitment programmes have now resulted in a tangible national security threat to the United States."

In 2019, the US Department of Energy, which has responsibility for Los Alamos, banned its personnel from engaging with Chinese talent recruitment programmes.
But a US Senate homeland security report later that year suggested damage had already been done.

It warned that China had spent the previous 20 years "recruiting US-based researchers, scientists, and experts in the public and private sector to provide China with knowledge and intellectual capital in exchange for monetary gain and other benefits".

In a speech the following year, Christopher Wray, the FBI Director, said: "We cannot close our eyes and ears to what China is doing. To put it bluntly, American taxpayers are effectively footing the bill for China’s own technological development."
According to the FBI, the Thousand Talents and other recruitment programmes "incentivise members to steal foreign technologies" including nuclear energy, wind tunnel design, and advanced lasers.


As the US cracked down, in 2020, Turab Lookman, 68, a Los Alamos scientist for two decades, was sentenced to five years probation.


He pleaded guilty to making a false statement to a counterintelligence officer about his involvement with Thousand Talents.


Mr Levesque, the report author, said China benefited from the West's "collaborative" view over decades.


"Since the 70s the whole manta has been collaborative. That was very one-sided. The Chinese view was it's an open door so let's just go grab it," he said.


"We view it as open scientific collaboration, they view it as a talent war, how do we train up and build our talent base so we can then dominate in the industries we've targeted for our country's advancements."


That meant in programmes which took the US decades, and billions of dollars, to build China had somehow been able to "leapfrog".


The incentives Beijing was offering to returning scientists could be much more than $1 million, he said.


"You can get that just by being inducted into the talent programme, then you get a lab set up, then your lab will get funding.


"What we're seeing across the board is that this whole life cycle isn't really being evaluated or monitored in any kind of way.


"So a lot of those people still have contacts back to Los Alamos, their colleagues, and creating those additional channels for information flow that creates a lot of national security risks."


A US Department of Energy statement said: "In response to growing research security threats, the Department of Energy has taken significant steps in recent years, including the adoption of rigorous vetting, counterintelligence reviews, and restrictions on participation in foreign talent programmes."

 

[Chat SAMOSA]

Less stealing.

 

[etylo]

Less stealing.

At least their country is not a shithole like too many Indian students are just dying to stay in America and the West.