Espionage involving China

Jura said:

based on the press release
it appears they

(

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and

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from

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failed to report Chinese funding, oops

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manqiangrexue said:

That is correct; they don't like paperwork. Essentially, they failed to report the Chinese money that they took and used to fund Huntington's research, which benefits only America and not China. As I said, the Chinese should be closing them down, not the US.

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• Sackings come after investigation into researchers at dozens of colleges financed by the National Institutes of Health

Atlanta-based Emory University has sacked two US government-funded scientists for allegedly failing to disclose their sources of overseas funding and research ties in China.

The university said on Thursday that an investigation revealed that the two faculty members had “failed to fully disclose foreign sources of research funding and the extent of their work for research institutions and universities in China”.

“Emory has shared this information with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the faculty members are no longer employed at Emory,” the statement said without naming the former staff.

Chinese science website Zhishi Fenzi identified the scientists as Li Xiaojiang and his wife Li Shihua, both professors at the university’s department of human genetics.

Quoting unnamed members of Li Xiaojiang’s research team, the website said the university shut down his laboratory on May 16 while he was on leave in China, seizing computers and documents and questioning other staff about the professors’ ties with China.

The profiles of both professors have been removed from the university’s website along with the homepage for Emory’s Li Laboratory.

The action came after the NIH, the main funding agency for biomedical and public health research in the US, started investigating the foreign ties of NIH-funded researchers at more than 55 US institutions, including Emory University.

NIH director Francis Collins told a US Senate hearing in early April that the investigation found “egregious instances” of violation of rules for funding disclosure and alleged intellectual property theft.

Li Xiaojiang had worked at Emory for more than two decades and led the university’s research on gene-editing technology, establishing on a pig model for treating Huntington’s disease, a fatal genetic disorder that causes the progressive breakdown of nerve cells in the brain.

He had been selected as a member of the Thousand Talents Plan, a Chinese government-backed programme to encourage leading professionals to work in China. He previously worked for the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Reports on the website of Jinan University in Guangzhou indicate that Li Xiaojiang heads a research team at the university, where his wife is also a visiting scholar.

In Atlanta, Emory denied that Chinese researchers had been singled out.

“It is important to note that Emory remains committed to the free exchange of ideas and research and to our vital collaborations with researchers from around the world,” university spokesman Vince Dollard said.

“At the same time, Emory also takes very seriously its obligation to be a good steward of federal research dollars and to ensure compliance with all funding disclosure and other requirements.”

Chinese academics, engineers and companies have faced new challenges as tensions between China and the US have risen.

Washington denied the 10-year visas of a number of leading Chinese experts over allegations that they were spying for Chinese intelligence agencies. And, in addition to blacklisting Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies, the administration of US President Donald Trump is considering blocking more Chinese technology companies from the American market, according to US media reports.

On Thursday, Yale University president Peter Salovey urged US federal agencies to “clarify concerns they have about international academic exchanges”.

“In recent weeks, tensions in US-China relations and increased scrutiny of academic exchanges have added to a sense of unease among many international students and scholars here at Yale and at universities across the country,” Salovey said.

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manqiangrexue said:

That is correct; they don't like paperwork. Essentially, they failed to report the Chinese money that they took and used to fund Huntington's research, which benefits only America and not China. As I said, the Chinese should be closing them down, not the US.

Click to expand...

• Jinan University president says researchers ‘can contribute to social and economic development if they decide to come back’
• Li Xiaojiang and his wife, Li Shihua, were dismissed over alleged undisclosed funding ties to China after investigation

A college in southern China has offered to hire two Chinese-American neuroscientists who were

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in Atlanta, Georgia, this month.
Song Xianzhong, president of Jinan University in Guangzhou, told a symposium in Hong Kong on Saturday that the college would welcome Li Xiaojiang and his wife, Li Shihua, as well as their research team, if they wanted to return to China.

The Lis have served as visiting professors at Jinan University’s Guangdong-HongKong-Macau Institute for CNS Regeneration since 2017.

“The trade frictions between China and the US are bound to affect talent,” Song said. “We believe [Chinese] universities can hire [academics affected by the conflict] and they can contribute to social and economic development if they decide to come back.”

The Lis are US citizens and were professors with the school of medicine at Emory University, where they have worked for more than 20 years.

Their work has involved using gene-editing technology CRISPR to create genetically engineered pigs and monkeys for the study of neurodegenerative diseases. A paper they co-authored in the journal Cell describing how a genetically modified pig could be used to study Huntington’s disease – which causes the progressive breakdown of nerve cells in the brain – drew media attention last year.

In a statement on the decision to dismiss the couple last week, Emory University said an investigation showed the two US government-funded scientists had “failed to fully disclose foreign sources of research funding and the extent of their work for research institutions and universities in China”.

Emory fired the couple on May 16 when Li Xiaojiang was in China.

The university also closed a laboratory jointly led by the Lis and told four Chinese postdoctoral students who worked at the lab to leave the US within 30 days, according to a report on Science magazine’s website on Friday, citing a statement from Li Xiaojiang.

The university said the investigation had been prompted by a letter from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – the main funding agency for biomedical and public health research in the US – asking whether specific grant recipients had adhered to its disclosure rules on foreign funding and affiliations, the Science report said.

In August, the NIH began investigating the foreign ties of researchers at more than 55 US institutions, including Emory.

Li Xiaojiang has

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, saying he disclosed his Chinese research activities to Emory every year since 2012, and had provided all documents requested during the investigation since November, the Science report said.
He told Chinese science website Zhishi Fenzi that Emory University’s decision was “extreme” and had been taken “regardless of the consequences”.

Li was selected as a member of the controversial Thousand Talents Programme to encourage leading professionals to work in China, working for the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences for five years from 2012.

He said he signed up for the scheme because it was easier to get approval in China to use bigger animals, non-human primates, to study neurodegenerative diseases than it was in the West.

For the study published in Cell last year, Li said US funds were used for some of the research, and it was also partly financed by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

He said he had obtained written consent from the human genetics department head and the school dean at Emory before he worked for six months of the year over a two-year period from 2012 at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, according to the Zhishi Fenzi report.

He also had written approval to spend an additional nine months of the year, in 2015 and 2016, at the Chinese academy, using academic and annual leave, Li said.

Li said he was considering whether to take legal action over his dismissal.

When contacted, Li Xiaojiang and Jinan University declined to comment.

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A researcher terminated by Emory University in Atlanta for

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is forcefully disputing the charges. And neuroscientist Li Xiao-Jiang says the university dismissed him and neuroscientist Li Shihua, his wife and lab co-leader, “simultaneously without any notice or opportunity for us to respond to unverified accusations.”

The two researchers, known for their studies of Huntington disease in mouse and pig models, are both U.S. citizens and have worked at Emory for 23 years. Li Xiao-Jiang says he was traveling in China on 16 May when both researchers were informed they had been terminated. The university has also closed their joint laboratory, which is part of the medical school, and their websites are no longer accessible. Four postdoctoral students working in the lab, who are Chinese nationals, have been told to leave the United States within 30 days, he told ScienceInsider today. None, he says, was given reasons for their terminations.

“I was shocked that Emory University would terminate a tenured professor in such an unusual and abrupt fashion and close our combined lab consisting of a number of graduates and postdoctoral trainees without giving me specific details for the reasons behind my termination,” he said in a statement.

Emory has said its action came after an internal investigation prompted by a letter from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. For at least the past 8 months, NIH has been contacting U.S. universities with concerns about whether specific grantees have adhered to agency rules regarding the disclosure of foreign funding and affiliations. Earlier this year, NIH told Congress that it had identified at least 190 NIH grantees with potentially problematic foreign relationships and that at least 55 institutions have begun investigations as a result of its inquiries.

Li Xiao-Jiang disputed Emory’s claim, made in a university statement yesterday, that the two researchers “had failed to fully disclose foreign sources of research funding and the extent of their work for research institutions and universities in China.” (Papers they have published in many high-profile journals, as well as biographical information posted online, have disclosed funding and affiliations with Chinese institutions.)

An Emory spokesperson told ScienceInsider today that it would not provide any more information other than what is in its statement.

“I have disclosed my Chinese research activity to Emory University each year since 2012,” Li Xiao-Jiang said. “I have provided documents requested by Emory University during the investigation of my research activity in China since early November 2018.” He also stated that he has not received “any copy of investigation that was sent to NIH by Emory, though I have requested Emory to give it to me.”

Li Xiao-Jiang declined to provide more specific information about the charges against him and his wife. But he said the termination came after Emory officials recently inspected material in his university email account. “I do not know what triggered Emory University’s examination of my emails in May 2019, which led to terminating my wife Dr. Shihua Li and me simultaneously without any notice or opportunity for us to respond to unverified accusations,” he stated. But he believes Emory’s action is related to “unverified information” in those emails, including unsigned or incomplete contracts, grant proposals, draft patents, and discussions about establishing biotechnology companies.

Li Xiao-Jiang said he is concerned about his lab workers, especially one who is pregnant and due to give birth in the next few weeks. He is also worried about the fate of his lab’s 500 cages of research mice, which include many unique models that his group created with NIH funding. The Lis currently have six NIH grants.

On 17 March, the Lis and seven other Emory faculty members of Chinese origin wrote a letter to Emory President Claire Sterk applauding “the courage and commitment” of the president of the University of California, Berkeley, and the provost of Stanford University for publicly reaffirming their support “for all faculty regardless of country of origin, and international collaborations despite the current polarized political climate.”

The researchers noted that “disturbing views and activities” at those schools “also exist on the Emory campus, which negatively derides Emory faculty members and international visitors, especially those of Chinese origin.” They asked Sterk to similarly support them. “[W]e feel that a statement is urgently needed to recognize the contributions of Emory’s diverse global community, and the enumerable benefit to science, research and education locally and globally.”

Sterk’s chief of staff, Daniel Gordon, replied 2 days later, saying that “a statement is already in the works,” which the university planned to issue “in the near future.” (No statement has yet been issued.) Gordon concluded: “Thank you for your thoughtful email, and for being such an important part of the Emory Family.”

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manqiangrexue said:

That is correct; they don't like paperwork. Essentially, they failed to report the Chinese money that they took and used to fund Huntington's research, which benefits only America and not China. As I said, the Chinese should be closing them down, not the US.

Click to expand...

For the past four years, Chinese businessman Guo Wengui has lived in an 18th-floor apartment at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel in New York, where

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that purport to expose corruption at the highest levels of the Chinese government.

He said his efforts have rattled Beijing and that

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to protect himself. China hard-liners in the U.S., including President Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon, have rallied to his side.

But Washington-area research firm Strategic Vision US LLC, in a commercial dispute with Mr. Guo, alleged in a federal court counterclaim Friday that he is a spy for the Chinese government.

“Strategic Vision’s claims that Mr. Guo is a Beijing-backed spy utterly lack credibility,” Daniel Podhaskie, an attorney for Mr. Guo, said in a written statement.

The origins of the commercial dispute, pending in a Manhattan federal court, go back to January 2018, when Mr. Guo hired the firm with a contract valued at $9 million, according to court filings by both sides.

Mr. Guo asked the company to investigate the financial history, social-media presence and travel details of a list of Chinese nationals he claimed were linked to top Chinese Communist Party officials, according to a court document filed by Strategic Vision. He wired the company $1 million to start the project, according to filings from both sides in the dispute.

Strategic Vision, based in Virginia, is owned by French Wallop, who was married to now-deceased Wyoming Sen. Malcolm Wallop, a Republican. The company said in Friday’s court filing that Mr. Guo’s representation that he wanted to destabilize the Chinese Communist Party was “in alignment with Strategic Vision’s worldview.”

Mr. Guo’s lawyer said in a statement Sunday to The Wall Street Journal that Strategic Vision was abusing litigation privilege to slander Mr. Guo.

A lawyer for Strategic Vision, Eddie Greim, said: “Our goal is not only to hold Guo Wengui and his network accountable but also to protect supporters of a free China from further injury.”

Strategic Vision enlisted investigators who are former intelligence or law-enforcement personnel to perform the research, according to Friday’s filing. The filing said investigators determined the first 15 names provided by Mr. Guo had been designated by the U.S. as “Records Protected” individuals, for whom certain information wasn’t subject to disclosure. Such a designation is used in highly classified and access-restricted government databases, former intelligence officials said. The immigration status about such designees is often blocked in restricted government databases, and can suggest the person may be a foreigner who is assisting the U.S. government, experts said.

Strategic Vision said it concluded Mr. Guo was seeking information on Chinese nationals who may have been helping the U.S. government in national-security investigations or who were involved in other sensitive matters, according to the filing.

“Guo never intended to use the fruits of Strategic Vision’s research against the Chinese Communist Party,” the court filing said. “That is because Guo was not the dissident he claimed to be. Instead, Guo Wengui was, and is, a dissident-hunter, propagandist, and agent in the service of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party.”

Mr. Guo’s lawyer, Mr. Podhaskie, denied the allegations. “Mr. Guo is the most-wanted dissident worldwide by the Chinese Communist Party and has been their most outspoken and vitriolic critic since his arrival in the United States,” he said in his statement.

The Chinese embassy didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Through a company he controlled, Mr. Guo in his own, earlier lawsuit unsealed in August 2018 claimed breach of contract against Strategic Vision, alleging it didn’t provide the information he was seeking, according to the lawsuit.

Strategic Vision, to bolster its allegation that Mr. Guo is a Chinese spy, said in Friday’s court filing that his financial standing doesn’t comport with his self-portrayal as a dissident threatened by Beijing.

Mr. Guo, who built a real estate empire in Beijing, has said he fled China in 2014 after hearing that a state security official to whom he was close would soon be arrested, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Since then,

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and threatened his family, according to Mr. Guo. Still, he settled at the Sherry-Netherland in 2015, paying $67.5 million for the apartment overlooking Central Park. He has continued to travel frequently and got a membership at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla.

In 2017, after saying he had applied for U.S. asylum, Mr. Guo told the Journal

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for legal fees to continue his fight against Beijing.

Mr. Podhaskie said in his statement that “certain of Mr. Guo’s assets in China valued at approximately USD$30 billion have been sold for pennies on the dollar” by Chinese Communist Party officials and that Mr. Guo “has never taken a penny out of China or Hong Kong since he began speaking out” against them.

Mr. Guo also has tried to use his money and allies such as Mr. Bannon to influence two interlinked groups in Washington that favor a tough stance toward China, Strategic Vision alleged in the filing. The company said this is further evidence that Mr. Guo is working for the Chinese Communist Party—not against it.

According to the filing,

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allegedly discussed ways to provide “large amounts” of money to the Center for Security Policy—a conservative Washington think tank—and the newly formed “Committee on the Present Danger: China” that the center backs. Some people at the think tank viewed it as an attempt by Mr. Guo to take over the anti-China committee, the filing said.

Frank Gaffney, who leads the Center for Security Policy, didn’t respond to requests for comment. Brian Kennedy, chairman of the China committee, said Mr. Guo didn’t offer any donation to it.

Mr. Podhaskie denied the allegations and said Messrs. Guo and Bannon “have a joint mission in regards to China,” which is to “get rid of the radical cadre inside the Communist Party.”

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localizer said:

Chinese Tycoon Holed Up in Manhattan Hotel Is Accused of Spying for Beijing
U.S. research firm in commercial dispute alleges exiled businessman Guo Wengui, a frequent critic of China’s Communist Party, is a spy for Beijing

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Gordon Chang should lay low for a while.

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Equation said:

Just from watching Chinese dramas, I kinda suspected this although I didn't really think it would happen. In these dramas, there is always an elite CCP spy who puts on a facade that is as nasty and anti-communist as possible. This incredibly detestable character blends in with the KMT top rung and sounds like Bannon, always saying that he loves money and wealth and that the wretched communists must all be exterminated! Then in the end, we find out that the critical battle was won because he was able to supply crucial intelligence to Mao's forces. In the final episodes, he usually dies as his cover is blown in his final successful mission and his lone wish for his sacrifice is that his children be protected by the CCP and given a chance to become scholars instead of fighters.

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Equation said:

Just from watching Chinese dramas, I kinda suspected this although I didn't really think it would happen. In these dramas, there is always an elite CCP spy who puts on a facade that is as nasty and anti-communist as possible. This incredibly detestable character blends in with the KMT top rung and sounds like Bannon, always saying that he loves money and wealth and that the wretched communists must all be exterminated! Then in the end, we find out that the critical battle was won because he was able to supply crucial intelligence to Mao's forces. In the final episodes, he usually dies as his cover is blown in his final successful mission and his lone wish for his sacrifice is that his children be protected by the CCP and given a chance to become scholars instead of fighters.

Click to expand...