Justice Department Halts China Initiative Prosecutions
WASHINGTON – An assistant U.S. attorney general announced Wednesday the Justice Department is ending its Trump-era China Initiative intended to halt Chinese economic spying after a series of embarrassing court failures.
The China Initiative also drew criticism from civil rights advocates who say it fueled hatred against Asians.
National Security Division Chief Matthew Olsen said the Justice Department would switch to a “broader approach” to protect the U.S. economy and security, rather than directing litigation specifically at China.
He mentioned Russia, North Korea and Iran as additional potential adversaries. He also said the broader approach would seek to counter their espionage and cyber threats.
“I want to emphasize my belief that the department’s actions have been driven by genuine national security concerns,” Olsen said during a George Mason University National Security Institute presentation. “But by grouping cases under the China Initiative rubric, we helped give rise to a harmful perception that the department applies a lower standard to investigate and prosecute criminal conduct related to that country or that we in some way view people with racial, ethnic or familial ties to China differently.”
Many of the prosecutions were directed at academics from university scientific or engineering departments. The Chinese government would hire them to collaborate on research and development projects.
The Chinese government described the contracts as academic collaborations. The Justice Department called the arrangements an attempt to steal economic and technological information, some of which was used by the Chinese military.
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the China Initiative in 2018.
American companies were complaining they sometimes would spend millions of dollars to develop new products only to have them produced and sold by Chinese firms months later.
The Chinese competitors would sell the products at reduced prices, sometimes while operating with government subsidies. The American companies said they could then be driven out of the markets they were trying to create without any royalties paid to them by the Chinese.
Sessions said when announcing the China Initiative the Chinese were “notorious around the world for intellectual property theft.” One of the first targets of the initiative was Chinese electronics company Huawei Technologies.
The China Initiative also resulted in the conviction of Harvard University chemist Charles Lieber in December 2021. He was accused of making false statements to the FBI about his supposedly academic collaboration with the Chinese as well as filing false tax returns to hide payments he received from them.
However, Justice Department records show more China Initiative prosecutions against academics ended in dismissals than convictions.
Olsen acknowledged the setbacks when he said, “We’ve had cases that have not turned out well for the Justice Department.”
Prosecutors dropped cases last summer against a half-dozen visiting Chinese researchers after the evidence demonstrated gaps in proving their intent to commit crimes.
The criticism from universities was heightened by the indictment of Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Gang Chen in January 2021 on charges he tried to conceal his connections with the Chinese government in a grant application. MIT pledged to pay his legal fees.
Dozens of college professors condemned the prosecution in an open letter. They said it could criminalize scientific collaboration. The Justice Department dropped the case last month.
The program’s critics expressed satisfaction this week to hear it was ending.
Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., said, “The China Initiative engaged in blatant racial profiling, it reinforced harmful stereotypes that Asian Americans are the perpetual ‘others’ and it ruined numerous lives in the process.”
Gisela Kusakawa, assistant director of the Anti-Racial Profiling Project at Asian Americans Advancing Justice, said in a statement, “How do we remedy the unjust charges against those who have been arrested, lost their jobs and had their lives destroyed? There will be no quick remedy. Undoing the damage done by the China Initiative will take some time.”
Tom can be reached at [email protected].
