Justice Department’s China Initiative is working

OPINION:

As federal prosecutors begin their case against former Harvard chemistry Chair Charles M. Lieber, some experts believe the trial could have a lasting and even fatal impact on the Justice Department’s China Initiative. 

Mr. Lieber, who was charged in January 2020 with making false statements to U.S. officials about his alleged involvement in China’s Thousand Talent Plan, also stands accused of failing to report income he received from the Wuhan University of Technology and failure to file reports of foreign bank accounts with the IRS.

Established in 2008, the Thousand Talent Plan’s purported objective is to attract academics who want to help contribute to development in China. According to charging documents, Mr. Lieber signed a three-year contract with the initiative in 2012 as a “high-level expert.” 

The case has drawn national attention since some experts believe the verdict may be a referendum on the Justice Department’s China Initiative, which the Trump administration launched to identify and prosecute Chinese agents engaged in economic espionage, hacking and trade secret theft.

On its website, the DOJ says the initiative “focuses on protecting our critical infrastructure against external threats through foreign direct investment and supply chain compromises, as well as combatting covert efforts to influence the American public and policymakers without proper transparency.” The program also aims to halt Chinese espionage and influence over U.S. researchers and scientists.

The DOJ also says nearly 80% of its economic espionage prosecutions allege activity that would benefit China and there is a nexus to the communist state in 60% of all trade secret cases. Despite this, a coalition of Congressional lawmakers is aiming to potentially dismantle the program because it asserts the program is unfairly targeting those of Asian or Chinese descent. 

The effort is being led by California Democrat and Trump critic Rep. Ted Lieu, who is working with the Committee of 100, a Chinese-American leadership organization to raise public awareness about the program. He has made efforts to meet with top DOJ officials including Attorney General Merrick Garland and other members of Congress about their concerns. 

“Through oversight and hearings and letters and other actions we’ve taken in Congress, we’re trying to put pressure on the Department of Justice to really take a look at the China initiative and make some fundamental changes or eliminate it,” he told a Committee of 100 supporters during a September webinar. “Understand your power to help shape public sentiments,” the Congressman told the group, adding that “public sentiment is everything.”

That same week, the organization published a report asserting there was a “new red scare” resulting in Asian Americans being unfairly targeted on economic espionage cases, and alleged the Justice Department has been publicizing those cases and giving allocutions for higher prison sentences against those defendants with Chinese sounding names.

Rep. Judy Chu, who also participated in the Committee of 100 webinar, argued the government’s specific focus on China could distract federal agents from espionage from other countries.

“This initiative stands out as one of the only Department of Justice efforts name for a specific country and so as a result, simply doing research while [being] Chinese could be enough to have your life and career ruined by a criminal conviction,” she told the group. “This is more commonly known as racial profiling.”

Still, the report makes a notable concession, asserting that, “Although there could be legitimate explanations for these disparities, the fact that the DOJ publicizes alleged espionage by ‘spies’ with Chinese names more than ‘spies’ with Western names can only reinforce the false stereotype that Americans of Chinese descent have less ‘loyalty’ than Americans of other races.”

Simply put, the problem isn’t necessarily with the program or prosecutions themselves, but rather the way the DOJ chooses to convey them to the public. If true, that’s an easily fixable problem. But it is no reason to “make some fundamental changes or eliminate” the program as Mr. Liu has pledged. 

The facts of the Lieber trial will undoubtedly shed more light on China’s Thousand Talent Plan, and potentially, the DOJ China Initiative. However, no single case should be a judgment for or against the government’s much-needed efforts to hamper Chinese espionage since the government statistics on the issue prove they are significant.