Posts Tagged ‘China’
Science Policy Around the Web July 22, 2021
By Ben Wolfson, PhD
With call for ‘raw data’ and lab audits, WHO chief pressures China on pandemic origin probe
In a press conference and statement last week, Tedros Adhanom Gebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), called for China to support new studies into the origins SARS-CoV-2 by releasing raw data and allowing access to research laboratories for biosafety audits, especially at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and Center for Disease Control and Prevention lab in Wuhan.
The statement is a change of pace from WHO actions earlier in the pandemic, when Tedros was accused of being deferential towards China, praising their pandemic response in January of 2020, and a WHO team reported that it was extremely unlikely SARS-CoV-2 had originated in a laboratory. While scientists who have called for further investigation into the “lab leak” hypothesis are praising this new stance, others believe it represents capitulation as a result of increased media coverage over the potential that SARS-CoV-2 could have originated in a lab.
Regardless of stance, few believe that Tedros’ call for cooperation will have much effect. Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated that China had shared large amounts of data with the WHO, stood behind the results of the team that determined a lab leak was unlikely, and that the WHO was politicizing the issue. However, members of the original mission team have stood behind Tedros’ request, noting that they had lacked the expertise to do a biosafety audit, and that requests for additional data had gone unfulfilled.
It remains to be seen if any new information will result from this latest push, and whether the origins of SARS-CoV-2 will ever truly be known.
(Jon Cohen, Science Magazine)
Science Policy Around the Web June 8, 2021
By Tam Vo, PhD
Biden’s new science adviser shares views on foreign influence, research budgets, and more
Eric Lander, the newly appointed scientific adviser of the current administration, shared his views on various science policy topics over a 30-minutes phone interview with ScienceInsider last week. After a lengthy confirmation process, Lander, who served on the White House’s panel of scientific advisers under the Obama administration, was sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) on June 2. Lander now faces several pressing policy issues, including the recent Senate’s bipartisan’s effort to withdraw federal support for scientists who fail to disclose any source of foreign funding. Landers believes that more scientists would be happy to comply with the requirement to disclose foreign aid if there is a streamline in the system, such as an electronic report of their daily research activities that can be sent to the government quarterly.
Lander declined to comment on the Chine Initiative, which the previous administration initiated to prevent Chinese authorities from stealing the intellectual property of federally-funded research. Many scientists think the Initiative carries anti-Asian sentiment and leverages racial profiling in selecting its targets. Instead, Lander believes that the government can improve the policy to make it easier for scientists and universities to comply with the reporting requirements.
Biden’s recent 2022 budget request to Congress, which aims to create new entities at the NIH, includes the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) proposal. ARPA-H will facilitate and bridge research at NIH and applied sciences in the biotech industry. Lander said ARPA-H would help the country prepare for the next pandemic in days instead of years with the right resources.
Lander also made some comments on open-access publishing. He is a strong supporter for shortening the 12-month paywall periods applied by many journals. When referring to OSTP staffing, Landers said it had been slowly restored to the size it maintained under the previous Democratic administration and promised to soon announce a list of members for the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
(By Jeffrey Mervis, Science)
Science Policy Around the Web May 20, 2021
By Ben Wolfson, PhD
Senate Weighs Investing $120 Billion in Science to Counter China
On Monday the Senate voted 86 to 11 to advance the Endless Frontier Act and allow floor debate to begin. The act was introduced last April and is co-sponsored by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Todd Young (R-IN). The bill would funnel $120 billion towards scientific research and innovation in new technologies such as robotics, artificial intelligence and semiconductors. $10 billion will be used for the creation of 10 technology hubs across the United States with the aims of connecting manufacturing and research universities. While the entire sum of funding was initially intended for National Science Foundation initiatives, including the creation of a technology directorate, an amendment introduced last week redirected approximately half towards labs run by the Energy Department, a change that is being contested by some Senators.
The goal of the Endless Frontier Act, aside from spurring research and innovation, is to directly compete with China in these realms. China’s research and development funding has been on a steady increase over the past several decades, and a recent 5-year plan announced in March aims to further this trend. China will increase research and development by 7% every year over the next five years, with the plan highlighting seven key new technologies: artificial intelligence, quantum, brain science, semiconductors, genetic research and biotechnology, clinical medicine and health and space, and sea and polar exploration. China’s latest 5-year plan will also increase their self-reliance in some industrial applications such as semiconductors, something that the Endless Frontier Act seeks to mimic for American industry.
The Endless Frontier Act also seeks to remedy supply chain issues made clear by the COVID-19 pandemic. The entanglement of the Chinese and American economies means each are progressively more reliant on the other, and the Act will attempt to bring some industries back to American soil.
While the Endless Frontier Act would represent one of the most significant investments in U.S. science and technology in decades, some believe it will not be as effective as desired in its current form. By focusing on key areas of research it risks eclipsing new critical technology that have not yet emerged. Furthermore, changes to the structure of the National Science Foundation may damage a highly effective agency.
It remains to be seen what form the Endless Frontier Act will take when (or if) it is made into law, however with (currently) strong bipartisan support and President Biden indicating he supports the bill, some form of it is likely to be enacted in coming months.
(Catie Edmondson, NYT)
Science Policy Around the Web May 18, 2021
By Maria Disotuar, PhD
China’s Mars Rover Mission Lands on the Red Planet
China’s space program may have started a new space race on Saturday morning when it landed the Zhurong rover on the surface of Mars. Although the China National Space Administration (CNSA) had said little about the mission, the news broke out via social media and news outlets. China launched the orbiter spacecraft, Tianwen-1, in July 2020 during the time when the distance between Mars and Earth is the shortest. The spacecraft began to orbit Mars in February and finally released the Zhurong in the Martian plain called Utopia Planitia. The rover is expected to spend 90 days on the planet and search for evidence of life.
Landing on Mars is not as easy as landing on the moon due to the heat encountered upon entering the atmosphere. Landing safely requires shields, parachutes, and retro-rockets – all of which have to be used at the right time to avoid a crash landing. China has now become only the second nation in history to land a rover on Mars – NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed successfully on Mars in 2004. This historic landing brings excitement to the global scientific community, particularly since China will openly share the data collected from the mission. The data may mark a new age for deep-space exploration.
Not surprisingly, China’s space program has big plans for the years to come. Next month they plan to send three astronauts into space. In the future, they hope to launch a Jupiter probe, collect samples from an asteroid, return samples from Mars in 2028, and launch spacecrafts to explore the edge of the solar system. It is evident that these future plans and Saturday’s successful landing makes China one of the top nations to watch as the space race continues. While these events highlight exciting advances they also highlight the growing concern of space debris. Earlier this spring, China received criticism from NASA Administrator, Bill Nelson, and the international community when Chinese rocket debris crashed into the Indian Ocean in March. Since the mid-1990s, experts have voiced concerns about the growing number of objects launched and left in space. As more nations join the space race it will be vital for agencies and governments to implement policies and mitigation plans to reduce the amount of junk orbiting the earth. The goal should be to reduce collisions which could spark chain reactions leading to disastrous events on Earth and the environment.
(Steven Lee Meyers and Kenneth Chang, NYT)
Science Policy Around the Web August 17th, 2020
By Maria Disotuar, PhD
Will TikTok Be Banned in the USA? It May Depend On Who Owns It
In 2017, the social media app Musical.ly was purchased by TikTok’s parent company, Beijing ByteDance Technology Co., for $1 billion. The acquisition and migration of users from Musical.ly to TikTok propelled the app to become one of the most downloaded and popular social media platforms in the world. Two years later, the U.S. government launched a national security investigation against ByteDance’s purchase of Musical.ly and raised concerns over TikTok’s political censorship and its usage/storage of users’ personal data. The seemingly innocent video-sharing app has now been underscruteny by U.S. officials for more than a year and last month White House officials and Congress expressed concerns that the app may be used by the Chinese Communist Party to spy on Americans. Due to the potential national security threat, the White House has now ordered ByteDance to sell it’s U.S. assets in 90 days or the app will be banned indefinitely from the U.S.
On Thursday, the US Senate unanimously approved a bill banning all federal employees from using TikTok on government-issued devices. This bill reinforces previous concerns which advised federal employees not to use TikTok on government-issued devices and recommended federal employees use caution when using the app on personal devices. The concern is not necessarily TikTok’s data collection practices as these are not unusual and mirror data collection practices of other social media platforms. The real concern is that within its user agreement and privacy policy TikTok states they “may share your information with a parent, subsidiary, or other affiliate” of their corporate group.
Amidst the growing backlash, TikTok is trying to distance itself from its parent company, and has claimed that all data on Americans is stored in the U.S. and the data has never been requested or given to ByteDance or any Chinese official. Despite these efforts, last week president Trump signed an executive order which could effectively stop the app from advertising for American companies and could be completely removed from the Google and Apple app stores. These latest measures have led to a series of protests by TikTok fans as many claim the ban would be personally devastating.
Although several American companies, including Microsoft, are currently looking to alleviate the situation by potentially purchasing TikTok from ByteDance, officials claim this may not be enough to resolve the U.S. government’s national security concerns. For now, the merger may be the only solution to keeping the platform in the U.S.
(Bobby Allyn, NPR )
The good, the bad or the ugly? – The relationship between the U.S. and China prior and during Covid-19
By Julia Lederhofer, PhD
From a trade war to an increasingly adversarial pandemic response, the U.S. and China find themselves in an increasingly strained diplomatic relationship. With every hurdle — either naturally arising or self-inflicted — both nations’ instinct is to blame the other. Can both countries leave their pride and nationalism behind and foster a spirit of cooperation, or is the world fated for another cold war?
Since the Maoist revolution and China’s embrace of communism in 1949, the two nations have pursued antithetical world orders. Ensuing diplomatic relations ranged from tense standoffs to a complex mix of antagonistic diplomacy, growing rivalry, and economic interdependence. After over half a century, the U.S.-China relationship has evolved into a normalized trade relation – punctuated by then president Bill Clinton signing the U.S.-China Relations Act in October 2000. In 2001, China joined the World Trade Organization. By 2010, China was the world’s second largest economy. It trailed only the US, and economic forecasts predicted even the unequaled American economy would be surpassed by 2027. Unsurprisingly, tensions between China and the West arose.
In 2012 the U.S., EU and Japan filed a request for consultations with China at the World Trade Organization because of their restrictions on exporting earth metals. They stated that China violated international trade norms. In the following years, then U.S. President Barack Obama and the Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed on establishing a new type of relationship for the U.S. and China. Their aim was to ease the U.S./China tense relationship by solving bilateral, regional and global issues in a friendly manner. In 2017, the U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross unveiled a ten-part agreement between Beijing and Washington, which contained the expansion of trade products like beef, poultry and electronic payments. However, the countries did not address other trade issues that were still unresolved from the Barack Obama era, like aluminum, steel or car parts. In 2018, President Donald Trump changed course from his predecessor by announcing extensive tariffs on Chinese imports, which lead to a U.S.-China Trade War escalation. Fast forward to May 2019, the Trump administration continued to sweep tariffs from 10 to 25 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. China reciprocated by increasing tariffs on $60 billion worth of American goods. Days after the heated discussion, the Trump administration banned U.S. companies from using foreign-made telecommunications equipment, as they believe that they could threaten national security. Many think that this was a move to target Huawei. Moreover, Huawei was added to the foreign entity blacklist by the U.S. Commerce Department. Tensions between the U.S. and China continued, but early in January 2020, President Trump and the Chinese Vice Premier Liu He signed the ‘Phase One’ Trade Deal agreement, a final breakthrough in the almost two year trade war between the two big fish. The deal lowered, amongst other things, some of the U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports and commits China to buying an additional $200 billion worth of American goods over the next two years. The years-long trade war that threatened the entire global economy finally had an end in sight. The positive undercurrent of two once again friendly superpowers, however, would be short lived. The world quickly entered a new economic, and health, crisis – the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Beginning in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, the novel coronavirus quickly spread, leading the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a global pandemic in March (11th, 2020). China and the U.S. were quick to blame each other as the pandemic worsened. China leveled the claim that the U.S. military brought the virus to China, while President Trump accused China of not reporting the “Chinese virus” earlier, therefore failing to prevent the pandemic. The Trump administration turned its ire towards the WHO. The Trump administration cut funding and alleged the international organization showed bias towards China. By April, the drama ventured into the absurd. The Trump administration reported that they have evidence that the Coronavirus was human made in a Chinese laboratory and purposely released. In response, Beijing published an article denying everything from claims that they under-reported case numbers, to allegations the virus spread from eating bats. In China’s eyes, they were merely the first to suffer from the virus. China portrays itself as a model in how to combat the virus and offers the world a source of medical equipment. Whether any of the political grandstanding by either side has convinced their own citizens, let alone the outside world, remains to be seen. Outside of their respective homelands both countries’ claims fall on deaf ears. The general consensus holds China responsible for mishandling the early stages of the outbreak, as well as outright denials, withholdings and cover-ups. The U.S.’s claim that the virus was produced in a lab has been repeatedly debunked, and the move to cut WHO funding has been met with widespread criticism.
The coronavirus has pushed the U.S.-China relationship, the most important world’s powerful economic relationship, to a precipice, with the ‘Phase One’ Trade Deal agreement dangling over the edge. The mudslinging over the origins of the coronavirus will not help and will only distract from the challenging health crisis, which is coupled with the biggest hit to the global economy since the Great Depression. Both China and the U.S. cannot risk any further destabilization of their economies and must look to rebuild trust. The first major test could come as early as December 2022. Under the Phase One agreement, China is committed to buying $200 billion additional goods and services on agriculture, energy and manufacturing. Due to the pandemic, China will almost certainly miss this target by December 2022. The U.S.’s response will dictate the future. Time will tell if both countries’ leaders are willing to end the blame game and begin to restore trust. The truth of the early days of the pandemic outbreak may never be known, but one can only hope that both political leaders will be able to forget their conflicts for the name of peace and prosperity for the whole world.
Science Policy Around the Web May 7th 2020
By Kellsye Fabian, PhD
‘Murder Hornets’ have arrived in the U.S. – here’s what you should know
Two Asian giant hornets, also called “murder hornets”, were spotted near Blaine, Washington, in late 2019. The arrival of these insects, which are native to East Asia and Japan, poses a great risk to the already declining U.S. bee populations and to humans. Researchers are now on a full-scale hunt for these insects before colonies take a foothold in the continent.
Also in late 2019, a hive of murder hornets was found and destroyed in Nanaimo, Canada, a city approximately 80 miles across the strait from Blaine. Genetic tests indicate that the nest in Nanaimo and the hornet found near Blaine were not connected, and it is still unknown how the hornets arrived in this region. Chris Looney, an entomologist at the Washington State Department of Agriculture, said that it’s likely that they got accidentally introduced via shipping containers from one of the countries where they’re native.
Murder hornets are the largest hornets in the world and may grow to a length of almost 2 inches. They have distinct orange and black stripes on the body and a stinger long enough to pierce the standard beekeeper protective gear. Their stinger delivers a toxic venom. Hornet stings kill an average of 30-50 people annually in Japan and in 2013, 42 individuals in a province in China died from the hornets’ stings. They form colonies, comprising of one queen and many workers, that can travel several miles in search for food. Murder hornets eat a variety of insects but seem to prefer feasting on honeybees.
When a worker hornet encounters a honeybee colony, it marks it with a pheromone then recruits a crew of 2 to 50 hornets to attack the bees. During the “slaughter phase,” the murder hornets serially decapitate the bees with their large mandibles, with one hornet killing up to 40 bees a minute. The hornets then occupy the hive to feed on the honeybee pupae and larvae.
Some bee species have developed a survival strategy against these predators. Japanese honeybees, which have co-evolved with the giant hornets, form a ball around a hornet and beat their wings to raise the temperature around the hornet to over 115 degrees Fahrenheit. The bees can survive this temperature while the hornet is cooked to death. On the other hand, European honeybees, which are the most common commercial pollinator in the US, don’t have the same instinct. Native bee species are also vulnerable to Asian giant hornet attack.
According to Looney, if the hornets are not stemmed in the next few years, it will probably too late to stop their spread in the US. He and other researchers have several strategies to track down Asian giant hornet colonies. In the summer, hundreds of traps will be set up to look for queens and workers. Hornets caught in the traps could be attached with radio-transmitting collars to track them back to their nests and destroy them. Asian giant hornets make underground hives that generates heat. Researchers are also looking into using heat-sensitive imaging technologies to find these hives.
On the other hand, Floyd Shockley, the entomology collections manager at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, says that these isolated cases don’t constitute a full-scale invasion that could endanger US crops, especially the honeybee industry, anytime soon. Moreover, according to Shockley, more people die of honeybee sting in the US (60-80 individuals) than die annually, globally from the Asian giant hornets (40 individuals, mostly in Japan).
(Douglas Main, National Geographic)
Pressure grows on China for independent investigation into pandemic’s origins
National governments and international organizations are urging China to open its door to an independent, international investigation into the origins SARS-CoV-2 virus and into China’s early response to COVID-19. The Chinese government claims that it has launched its own investigation into the origins and early response to the pandemic but has not disclosed any details or data.
Calls for an independent probe come as several government officials, like US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have asserted that the virus escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. There’s no evidence backing the assertions, and scientists say that it is most likely that the virus naturally emerged elsewhere. Still, world leaders demand for transparency and want China to clarify the origin of the coronavirus.
On Friday, the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Emergency Committee recommended a probe with the goal to “identify the zoonotic source of the virus and the route of introduction to the human population, including the possible role of intermediate hosts.” The WHO is currently not involved in studies in China and would need China’s invitation in order to carry out an investigation.
So far, the Chinese government has not given any indication that it is interested in cooperating. The government has responded with anger to allegations that it bears responsibility for allowing the virus to spread globally. Evidence also show that China has promoted disinformation campaigns that suggest that the virus originated elsewhere, such as the US.
(Science News Staff, ScienceInsider)
Science Policy Around the Web March 17th, 2020
By Hannah King PhD
How China is planning to go to Mars amid the coronavirus outbreak
China will continue its first trip to Mars despite the coronavirus outbreak that has shut down large sections of the country.
The launch is planned for July, with the next possible launch window not occurring for two years. NASA and the UAE both also plan to launch Mars probes this July, while the European and Russian space agencies have announced they will delay their launches by two years – to finish testing needed for the mission, but also influenced by the current coronavirus pandemic.
In order to continue to achieve their planned launch during the coronavirus outbreak, the Chinese team is implementing social distancing measures while still pressing forward. The number of people physically working in the facility building the rover has been reduced, with alternating shifts of different workers to reduce the impact if a scientist were to test positive for SARS-CoV-2. Also helping the team continue working is the waiving of the requirement (currently in place in China) to self-quarantine for two weeks following travel, as some scientists performing necessary tasks on this project need to travel across the country to do so.
The launch is an important political event in China. With 2021 marking the centenary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party a successful launch will be viewed as an “100-year anniversary gift”, according to Wang Chi, the director general of the National Space Science Center (NSSC) in Beijing. Unfortunately, due to the COVID outbreak no guests will be allowed to attend the launch – although there are nearby sites from which interested observers can still watch.
Smriti Mallapaty, Nature
Bee-saving practices sometimes are more marketing than real help
Many businesses like to advertise their “bee-friendly” credentials – either touting their bee friendly farming techniques or selling products advertised as “bee hotels” providing habitat for bees. This support for bees is important, with higher than average decline in bee numbers seen over the winter months (40% in winter 2018/2019).
Unfortunately, however, many of these advertised strategies may be more “hype” than “help” for many American native bee species. Most bees in America, including honeybees, are introduced species. While honeybees face threats, such as Colony Collapse Disorder, which could impact agriculture, their population numbers are largely stable. In contrast, native bees are also impacted by disease and habitat loss – with 50% of species declining and 24% threatened with extinction, according to a study by the Center for Biological Diversity.
Many of these “bee-friendly” strategies that focus on honeybees may actually harm American native bees – such as “bee hotels” encouraging the spread of disease while not providing homes for native bees which nest in the ground. While native bees do not produce honey, and are not commercially managed, they are actually responsible for fertilizing 80% of plants.
Erin Blakemore, Washington Post
Science Policy Around the Web March 12th, 2020
By Ben Wolfson PhD
Fired cancer scientist says ‘good people are being crushed’ by overzealous probes into possible Chinese ties
Recent months have seen major developments in the FBI and NIH’s investigation into ties between U.S. research labs and China, with the highest profile case to date alleging that the head of the Harvard Chemistry Department misled Harvard, the DoD, and the NIH about his financial and scientific ties with China.
NIH has contacted over 60 institutions concerning funding received by 180 different researchers from China, leading to the ouster of multiple researchers accused of violating NIH rules. Of the 180 different investigations, 24 have progressed to criminal inquiries. These investigations have been prompted by congressional interest into whether China is taking advantage of the open American research system, resulting in what adds up to scientific and economic espionage.
One such researcher, Pearlie Epling-Burnette was instructed to resign alongside 5 other senior researchers by the Moffit Cancer Center. She believes that the NIH campaign has been overly zealous, and that scientists who have done nothing wrong are being ousted by research institutions afraid of crossing the NIH.
Many of the accusations involve participation in China’s 1000 Talents program, which recruits top scientists from around the world to bring their expertise to Chinese research institutions. However Epling-Brunette asserts that while she applied for 1000 Talents, she was never accepted and never held any position in China. Importantly, neither Epling-Burnette nor other scientist ousted by Moffit have been accused of intellectual property theft or of violating NIH reporting rules.
In February, House Representatives Jame Raskin and Judy Chu launched an investigation into the NIH and FBI’s probes, questioning whether they were specifically targeting Chinese-American scientists as potential spies. However, others have pointed to the Moffit firings as evidence that this is not the case. It is clear that more transparency into the investigations is necessary to determine the full extent of Chinese scientific relationships.
(Jeffrey Mervis, Science)
Science Policy Around the Web January 31st, 2020
By Kellsye Fabian, MS, PhD
Acclaimed Harvard Scientist Is Arrested, Accused Of Lying About Ties To China
Dr. Charles Lieber, the chair of Harvard University’s Department of Chemisty and Chemical biology, was arrested and criminally charged on January 28, 2020 for making a false statement to federal investigators about his financial relationship with the Chinese government. The prominent nanoscience researcher is one of the highest-profile scientists to be caught up in a string of investigations on China’s alleged scheme to abuse the open and collaborative research environment in the US to their economic and military advantage.
According to a press release from the Department of Justice (DOJ), Dr. Lieber has received more than $15M in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Department of Defense (DOD) since 2008. Recipients of federal grants are required to disclose financial conflicts of interest including financial support from foreign governments. In 2011, Dr. Lieber became a “Strategic Scientist” at Wuhan University of Technology (WUT), and from 2012-2017 he was a contractual participant in China’s Thousand Talents Plan. Through this program, he was entitled to a $50,000 monthly salary, $150,000 in annual living expenses and $1.5M to establish a second lab at WUT. Dr. Lieber’s work for WUT included “declaring international cooperation projects, cultivating young teachers and PhD students, organizing international conferences, applying for patents and publishing articles in the name of WUT.”
The criminal complaint against Dr. Lieber alleges that he lied about his participation in the Thousands Talents Plan and his affiliation with WUT. In April 2018, he told DOD investigators that while he was aware of the Thousand Talents Plan, he was never asked to participate in it.
The Thousand Talents Plan is one China’s most prominent recruitment plans that aims to attract and employ high-level scientific talents from other countries to advance China’s scientific and economice development and national security. FBI investigations have shown that participants of China’s Thousand Talents Plan and other similar recruitment programs have often been incentivized to transfer research and proprietary information that they have generated or accessed in the United States to China. In some cases, this practice is in violation of US laws, including economic espionage, theft of trade secrets, and grant fraud.
Harvard, which was unaware of Dr. Lieber’s participation in the Thousand Talents Plan, said that it is cooperating with federal authorites and initiating its own review of the alleged misconduct. Harvard placed Dr. Lieber on indefinite leave.
Separately, the DOJ has also charged two other researchers involved in Chinese economic espionage.
Yanqing Ye, a student at Boston University, was charged with lying on her visa application and failing to disclose that she was a lieutenant in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). While studying in the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering, Ye allegedly performed numerous assignments for PLA such as conducting research, assessing U.S. military websites and sending U.S. documents and information to China. Ye is currently in China.
Zaosong Zheng, a cancer researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, was arrested last month on charges of smuggling and making false statements. It is alleged that he stole 21 vials of biological research materials and was caught with the vials at the Boston Logan Airport on his way to China. Zheng stated that he intended to use the materials to conduct research in China in his own laboratory.
These three charges are part of the continuing crackdown on researchers working with the Chinese government.
(Bill Chappell, NPR)
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