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The Justice Department escalated its crackdown on Chinese influence within U.S. research institutions with the arrest of a Chinese American researcher at the Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. Qing Wang, a professor of molecular genetics at the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western University, was arrested Wednesday on charges of lying to investigators and wire fraud related to more than $3.6 million in funding that he and his research group at the Cleveland Clinic received from the National Institutes of Health under false pretenses. At the same time that he was receiving millions of dollars in U.S. government grants, court documents reveal he concealed how he was also the Dean of the College of Life Sciences and Technology at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China. He was also receiving grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and hid his participation in Chinas Thousand Talents Program, a Chinese Communist Party effort to recruit academics to gain access to foreign technology and intellectual property.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Sen. Rob Portman, released a 109-page bipartisan report in November, concluding that foreign countries seek to exploit Americas openness to advance their own national interests and that the most aggressive of them has been China. It found China used its Thousand Talents Program over the past two decades to exploit access to U.S. research labs and academic institutions. The FBI has deemed the Chinese effort to be a form of nontraditional espionage.

Wang, who was born in China but became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2005, accepted a research position with the Cleveland Clinic in 1997 with a focus on genetics and cardiovascular disease. He was selected by China for its Thousand Talents Program in 2008. He made his initial court appearance on Thursday.

FBI agent John Matthews authored the 26-page criminal complaint against Wang, unsealed Thursday, which said Wangs false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises led the NIH to approve and fund more than $3.6 million in grants via interstate wire transfer to him at the Cleveland Clinic. NIHs own rules say that overlap, whether scientific, budgetary, or commitment of an individual's effort greater than 100 percent, is not permitted.

The investigator said China increased its funding $3 million at HUST after he joined the Thousand Talents Program and that China paid for his trips there and provided him with a three-bedroom apartment on the Chinese campus. Wang admitted working to recruit people at Harvard Medical School, the University of California, and the University of Texas. He offered recruits between $200,000 and $300,000 in financial compensation on behalf of HUST.

Wang denied that he received any financial compensation from China for his participation in the Thousand Talents Program, which the FBI agent said was untrue.

Matthews said, The investigation determined that on at least four occasions, Dr. Wang had the opportunity and obligation to disclose his Chinese grants, his position as Dean at HUST, and the scientific, budgetary, and commitment of effort overlap between his NIH and CSNF grants, but knowingly and willfully failed to do so, in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017.

The Justice Departments China Initiative, launched in 2018, aims to combat both Chinese malign influence (ranging from cyberespionage to technology theft) and its Thousand Talents Program, which is aimed at stealing research. The department charged Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei in a global racketeering scheme earlier this year.

Portman said Thursday that he was pleased that our committee investigation and resulting report last year has spurred additional action by federal law enforcement to hold China accountable. The Ohio senator noted that for too long, China has exploited the lack of transparency in our education system to steal our taxpayer-funded research and innovation, and the federal government has done little or nothing to stop it.

Portman added: I will be introducing bipartisan legislation soon to safeguard American innovation, hold countries like China accountable for their actions, and ensure our world-class research enterprise is protected here in America. Chinas ongoing theft of Americas research and innovation must stop.

The arrest of Wang comes days after the Justice Department announced the arrest of Simon Saw-Teong Ang, an Arkansas professor who received millions of dollars of grant research money from the U.S. government, including $500,000 from NASA, on charges related to wire fraud. Angs research received $5 million in U.S. government contracts even as he allegedly failed to disclose his extensive financial connections to China and participated in Chinas Thousand Talents Program.

Dr. Xiao-Jiang Li, a former Emory University professor and Chinese Thousand Talents Program participant, pleaded guilty on Friday to filing false tax returns after he worked overseas at Chinese universities and did not report any of his foreign income on his federal tax returns.

In January, the Justice Department announced that Charles Lieber, the chairman of Harvards chemistry department, was charged with one count of making a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement about his connections to Chinas Thousand Talents Program.

Link:
DOJ escalates Chinese 'Thousand Talents' crackdown with arrest of Cleveland Clinic researcher - Washington Examiner

This entry was posted on May 19, 2020 at 5:47 pm and is filed under Molecular Genetics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |