After the longtime Harvard chemistry professor Charles Lieber was convicted on Tuesday of lying to federal authorities about his ties with China, Beijing was prompted on Wednesday to defend its education exchange programs.
The federal jury in Boston found Lieber, a renowned nanoscientist and the former chairman of Harvard’s chemistry department, guilty on six counts relating to his failure to disclose his connections and financial earnings from China, including making false statements to authorities, filing false tax returns and failing to report a Chinese bank account.
Professor Lieber faces significant jail time as well as hefty fines.
Refusing to comment specifically on Lieber’s case, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian stressed that the US government institutions and politicians should not stigmatize China’s people-to-people exchange and cooperation with other countries, which are essentially no different from the common practice of other countries, including the US.
He reiterated Beijing’s objection to the repression of scientists and the damage inflicted to the normal China-US scientific and technological exchange, underscoring that Washington should do more that benefits people-to-people exchange and scientific and technological cooperation between China and the US.
During the trial, the Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged that, in his quest for a Nobel Prize, Lieber agreed in 2011 to participate in China’s Thousand Talents Plan – Chinese recruitment drive- and to become a “Strategic Scientist” at the Wuhan University of Technology.
Although the participation in that program – that Beijing uses that program to recruit foreign researchers to share their knowledge with China – is not a crime, Lieber to the US authorities inquiring about his involvement and he also failed to report to the IRS, as is required for foreign financial accounts, the bank account he opened while in China, through which he was paid at least $10,000.
The Harvard professor was arrested and charged in January 2020 as part of the DOJ’s “China Initiative,” which was launched in 2018 during former President Donald Trump’s administration to seek and counter individuals suspected of Chinese economic espionage and research theft.
The directive was repeatedly criticized for disproportionately targeting Asian university professors without sufficient evidence and Biden administration was urged by numerous groups and individuals to terminate the program.
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