Harvard scientist is arrested, accused of lying about ties to China
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Meanwhile:
>paid up to $50,000 a month, in addition to $150,000 per year
Seems pretty straightforward.
He must be a smart guy, I wonder how he thought he would get away with it?
Even if he could hide the money run of the mill espionage could find it.
He was supposed to do research at Wuhan University and even file for parents for and sort of promote that school. Hard to imagine nobody would notice that.
I wonder if he kept taking the money after he told investigators that he wasn't a part of the program? He had to suspect they were on to him?
While no one figures it out, China wins.
When some one figures it out, US loses a top researcher.
Win-win for China. Why wouldn't they play this game? It's a guaranteed win.
Yanqing Ye, 29, who is currently in China, is charged with one count each of "visa fraud, making false statements, acting as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy." She had been working at Boston University and is accused of lying about her position as a lieutenant in the Chinese military.
Zaosong Zheng, 30, was arrested last month at Boston's Logan International Airport and is charged with allegedly attempting to smuggle vials of biological materials and other research materials stolen from U.S labs. Zheng, who was a a Harvard-sponsored cancer researcher, has been indicted on that charge along with a count of making false statements.
Also makes it easier to poach info from multiple research streams...
Do they though? If China is hiring people who don't honestly fulfill their disclosure requirements, it may be the case that they're getting people who fake research results as well. They're actually selecting for low levels of integrity.
I think how much trouble he is in is going to come down to whether he notified the IRS of the Chinese bank accounts. There is nothing juries hate more than millionaires who cheat on their taxes and it will look terrible if he hid the money.
If you are a tenured/tenure-track professor at a tier-1 research university, your name is literally your career - you don't rent this out lightly on some whim. You also don't take money from another institution to create the 'X+Y University Collaborative Research Lab' without running this by legal.
Further, the affidavit outlines more involved collaboration (co-advising / hosting / advising students, $800k to build a joint-lab etc).
He could not predict the change of direction of the U.S. foreign policy. China is taking place of Russia as the No. 1 threat. How could he predict this in 2012?
BTW, I am curious to know did he pay tax for those income? If not, that will be another very serious problem.
This isn't really that relevant, all he had to do was disclose his connections. It's not the crime, it's the cover up. The US govt certainly understands hundreds if not thousands of academics have connections to China. It's not a crime to accept research money. It's lying about it that's the issue. If you're lying to the country about who you work for, what else are you lying about?
I don't think he would have remained undetected and the timing of all of this isn't that important. The recipients of the 1000 talents programs aren't some huge secret. It's actually very likely that the government knew all along and was seeing who would lie about it. If he had disclosed his connections, he wouldn't be facing charges.
It's not a crime to accept research money from China as an academic. It is a crime to accept money from China, lie to the government about it, then accept US govt defense dollars.
Imagine if you were working at AWS but moonlighting at Google Cloud. No one would bat an eye if you were fired and taken to court.
This is pretty black and white, assuming the evidence presented is legit, which he will have the opportunity to oppose in court.
The parent comment was just trying to make a suggestion, that if that scientist had stopped before the tide has turned against China in the past few years, then he probably would've gotten away with it. He did the calculations right for his chances of not being caught being pretty good back in 2012, he just simply didn't adjust them as the time passed and the situations changed. Or maybe he did the adjustment, but a lot of people tend lose their minds and get too greedy to stop before it is too late when it comes to big money.
Furthermore, juxtaposing the two statements implies a sort of grey area like that doesn’t make sense here. It’s hard to draw any conclusion other than greed and/or malice.
But then again, people can be smart in some areas and quite error prone in others. This was a really terrible miscalculation.
Whether those ambitions are worth pursuing is another matter entirely.
Of course the press (not to mention twitter mob) just toggled from the extreme on one side to the other.
If you're lying to them, maybe someone cares.
The fact that he hid it I think makes very clear that he was aware of the problematic nature of taking that money.
Maybe like a foolish US tourist taking some recreational drugs to China?
(I'm not comparing the two issues in a moral way, just to show how different crimes can be minor/serious in different countries.)
According to the affidavit, there was a paper trail, contracts on both countries with a suspected spy agency, er University research department, etc etc. Not sure he knew what he really got into. Maybe did it once and then he got used to the money
Simple. Most institutions simply do not CHECK. Think about how you'd detect that this is happening. You'd need to somehow gain evidence that they hold a bank account that is receiving funds originating from China.
Not easy. In fact, damn near impossible.
So let's look at this case...
> Lieber was also awarded more than $1.5 million by WUT and the Chinese government to establish a research lab and conduct research at Wuhan University of Technology.
> For a large part of the time frame in question, Lieber was also the principal investigator on at least six U.S. Defense Department research grants
...ah ha. So the DoD caught him because he was being so blatant.
Simply not true. FATCA is a thing, and the USG is comfortable hammering foreign banks for info. It's a lot harder with China, but they absolutely comply: https://www.china-briefing.com/news/china-agrees-fatca-compl...
This is also why that Chinese money goes to Canada (esp. Vancouver) -- the Canadian government doesn't dig as hard.
1. FACTS doesn't report domestic accounts that are funded by foreign sources.
2. Harvard didn't catch this - the DoD did.
The point is that other schools could not possibly detect this sort of behavior unless it becomes as wildly blatant as this guy did it.
If he had started a company on the side (legal) then the Chinese could have bought it (legal) for a fortune. Lesson is, get legal advice!
For Chinese citizens it isn't easy, but for govt and institutions it is.
...I mean, how blatant can you get?
Who were the people providing all that finding? The Chinese mostly.
Now we're in the middle of "sino-panic" and suddenly every cent (Renminbi?) is suspect.
I am happy to admit this guy was dishonest and deserves what he gets. But I worry this is the "thin end of the wedge". National security laws are draconian by design and aiming them at researchers continuing policies that were previously supported is both unfair and counterproductive.
To me, the whole China "thing" seems like a political witch hunt to avoid talking about real issues (impeachment, the 2020 elections, automation, the fact we have no idea what to do with all the people we can't find jobs for).
The weird claims about Huawei infrastructure falls into the same boat: picking a (cold) war to distract from other issues.
Beware where this goes.
We need to simultaneously be vigilant against the dangers of other countries exploiting our confident and open stance, and also always keep our empathy for the people being oppressed by their states. I don't think that it's a balancing act, but a matter of dismantling the neoconservative and bleeding-heart-liberal mindsets, and finding a more holistic treatment of immigration and ethnic management; namely, less treatment. Over and over again, we interfere when our interests are violated, but avoid giving everybody a seat at the table when we re-assign the land; instead, we need to communicate more and interfere less.
...I'm going to have to think about this more, though, because as stated, this is a BDS strategy, and I'm not sure whether I endorse BDS strategies.
https://bgr.com/2019/10/09/blizzard-hong-kong-ban-china-cens...
https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/china-censorship-nba-south...!
Over 20 companies: https://mashable.com/article/china-censorship-companies-hong...
Also, I'm sure it's not you're intent, but questioning me about why I don't dislike China for reasons other than the things being discussed is pretty Mccarthy-esque... Am I not loyal unless I support this arrest?
"You're accusing people of irrational fear of china and the poster is challenging you with evidence that the fear is rational. If you assumed good faith your "loyalty" is not relevant."
China's reputation for business and state espionage is not some racist or xenophobic trend; it comes from years of them performing said espionage.
Darknet Diaries source: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/21/
The whole China thing started even before Trump got elected. Trump has been critical of China for decade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jdIshuoRBQ , Trump repeated this message in Primary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy9iY6CvAHU
The trade war started in 2017: https://www.china-briefing.com/news/the-us-china-trade-war-a...
FBI director stated China is No.1 threat in 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPi2uD__Ga8 , also: https://www.businessinsider.com/china-threat-to-america-fbi-...
No. It has nothing to do with impeachment or the 2020 election.
Remember Stanford physics professor Shoucheng Zhang?
"The close timing of Zhang’s death with the USTR report’s release — as well as the same-day arrest of the CFO of Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications company now under fire for sanctions fraud — has fueled doubt within Chinese media that the scientist’s death occurred of his own accord."
https://www.stanforddaily.com/2018/12/30/following-stanford-...
This is pretty egregious, and it baffles me that he thought it would go undetected (or that his home institution wouldn’t object.)
Private research institutes, like corporations, don't own people who work for them.
Faculty are required to report outside jobs, see: https://provost.harvard.edu/statement-outside-activities-hol...
Do you know when you accept big grant you also must follow similar rules?
Yes, you can collaborate in science, but you do not live in a vacuum, scientists also need to follow the rules of a society.
If the goal is for science, there shouldn't be restriction on working with other country in order to accept grant.
I don’t think anyone is saying “don’t establish a lab” but if someone asks you whether you’re being paid by foreign interests you can’t just say “I don’t know who the organization is that had been paying me for years.”
This has nothing to do with conflict of interest, outside of the conflicts between DoD and whether clearances / grants are released to those that are being paid by other nation states.
God knows why he wanted to lie, perhaps the DoD grants are really important for the lab. Giving how sensitive things are with China, I think it's fair to say that it would have had a large impact on those grants.
I do know some professor with 40+ graduates/post-graduates. It feels like academia have became mini feudal fiefdoms but instead of farming land it farm grants, with papers.
If the allegations are true then he probably began by overstepping his authority at Harvard for his personal financial gain. He may have been reluctant to disclose the relationship as required for the US grants because doing so would have simultaneously disclosed to Harvard his egregious violation its policy, possibly resulting in termination of his employment.
Maybe he was hiding the money from the IRS as well, giving him further motive to conceal and deny.
Had he entered into the agreement strictly personally then he almost certainly would have told Harvard which would have disclosed it to the government. Maybe the Chinese sponsors wouldn't have offered as much money for that. Alternatively, he could have asked Harvard to enter into the agreement through the proper channels, but then in that case surely the university would be getting the money and not the professor personally.
Original charge: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/harvard-university-profes...
This one is safe at home: https://www.masslive.com/boston/2020/01/chinese-peoples-libe...
If the moral principle here is that countries shouldn't try to draw scientific talent from other countries, well, the United States is by far the greatest perpetrator of brain drain in the world. A lot of countries have been sucked dry by it, including China itself in the past!
If people are actually this worried about scientific knowledge crossing national borders, it won't stop with Prof. Lieber. They'll continue by banning textbook exports, taking down lecture videos, and raiding the Wikipedia servers. While they're at it, they can put up a Great Firewall of their own. That's the only direction I see this going.
> criminally charged with making "false, fictitious and fraudulent statements"...
> In interviews with Defense Department investigators in 2018 and 2019, Lieber said that while he had heard of the Thousand Talents Plan, he had never been asked to be part of it...
The charge is not promiscuous collaboration, it's lying about it when asked.
If he indeed lied to DoD investigators following up on a possible conflict of interest, that would be a huge problem, on top of (we could guess) an original failure to disclose.
If you wanted to have a conversation about maintaining scientific collaboration in the midst of great power competition, this seems like the wrong case to build off of.
Finally, I do agree that conversations about China on HN often do go south due to US nationalism.
Real IP theft would look like, say, abducting thousands of German scientists at gunpoint [0], not giving scientists grants to set up labs.
As always, the actual issue is the failure to disclose the possible CoI -- as in the present case.
It sucks, BTW. Turns out the guy was the PhD advisor of my neighbor up the street.
Suppose a professor slacked off on their job by taking a long vacation in France. That would be wrong and deserving of punishment -- but it wouldn't have set off panic over him "selling out" the country. Yet that is what is happening.
The Wen Ho Lee case is a point of reference here - he was accused of the worst kind of espionage and "convicted" after leaks in the NYT - but then the case dissolved and Lee got a big settlement.
All I see is people going "he was dumb to lie about it".
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22176877
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22176830
Of course I found them at the bottom where they belong, so I think knzhou is misreading the prevailing sentiment.
All this guy had to do was email the department chair and fill out a form, no big deal. It's common to have international affiliations.
Why do you think the DoD funds grants?
So.... espionage.
> It says the deal called for Lieber to be paid up to $50,000 a month, in addition to $150,000 per year "for living and personal expenses."
"Lieber was also awarded more than $1.5 million by WUT and the Chinese government to establish a research lab and conduct research at WUT," the document states.
For a large part of the time frame in question, Lieber was also the principal investigator on at least six U.S. Defense Department research grants, with a cumulative value of more than $8 million, according to the affidavit. It also says he was the principal investigator on more than $10 million in grants funded by the National Institutes of Health.
"These grants require the disclosure of significant foreign financial conflicts of interest, including financial support from foreign governments or foreign entities," the U.S. Attorney's Office in Massachusetts said in a statement announcing the charges against Lieber.
In interviews with Defense Department investigators in 2018 and 2019, Lieber said that while he had heard of the Thousand Talents Plan, he had never been asked to be part of it, according to the affidavit. Lieber's email correspondence suggests he signed a three-year agreement and employment contract with WUT in 2012.
"Lieber was obligated to work for WUT 'not less than nine months a year' by 'declaring international cooperation projects, cultivating young teachers and Ph.D. students, organizing international conference[s], applying for patents and publishing articles in the name of' WUT," the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
If you work in science, and don't get it, I suggest that you talk to your university ethics office.
Grants usually specific the "percent effort" of key personnel. This not only determines the budget, but also factors into funding decisions. A proposal might be rejected as 'infeasible' if the PI isn't going to spend much time training the students or managing the work.
These numbers usually aren't exact--people certainly spend 19 (or fewer) hours per week on things that are nominally 50% effort--but having giant off-the-books projects, like running a whole separate lab--make them completely fictional.
However most people I’ve dealt with just use the easy route and disclose all sources of funding.
He isn’t accused of any crimes for having a joint appointment. He is accused of lying about the fact that he had a joint appointment.
Obviously this behaviour is absolutely mad, and until you meet one of these huge ego guys is seems unlikely, but so many of them have a huge sense of their own importance.
One hopes that other prominent researchers will understand the lesson.
I think even the most nationalist and hawkish members of the elite/gov/administration fully understand the value of research and that it's international. The US missile and nuclear program were built by foreign, often formerly 'baddy' scientist after all.
At the same time, anything of strategic importance in China is tied to the state and therefore tied to all their other shifty activities.
The 'Red Scare' of the Cold War was based on very legitimate concerns, unfortunately, there were people who shouldn't have been dragged into the net caught up in it - and so this is the issue: how to act, where to draw the line, legal and moral legitimacy etc..
China speaks with one voice, the West speaks with a thousand voices (heads of state, research, government, military, NGO etc.) and they're playing a very aggressive game of 'divide and conquer' which warrants a ton of scrutiny.
Our job is to figure out how to counter the threat and to make tough decisions ... whilst minimizing damage, goodwill, and keeping an eye on some future where we all get along.
Unfortunately, I feel this tension may last a long time.
It's a subtle bias, but an insidious one. It has led to people reading my comments and thinking "His tone doesn't match up with the hysteria of the news article... so he must be a Communist party shill!" I wouldn't fare well in a second red scare; this is not a future to which I want to go.
The term wasn't generally applied to the USSR either, although it's 'truthy' as their Politburo had immense central control over not just the USSR but Satelite states like Poland and E. Germany would could be given de-facto direct orders on many issues.
But Xi Jinping is firmly in control: the depth and scope of information control, 7/24/375 monitoring of every citizen, absolute control over the political organs, military, finance, currency, finance - I think it's very rational to say there is 'one voice' in China.
Xi Jinping may very well easily be the most powerful person in history.
He has very long term ambitions for China, and his tactics are evidence of a pretty hardcore Realpolitik. Though most of it is non-threatening, much of it is, and there's obviously going to be a response.
He knew that he was lying about his associations and went to incredible depths to cover up this lie. No reasonable person would consider that collaboration. What’s with your pro-China bias?
These countries aren't geopolitical threats to each other in any sense. China is. That's basically it.
* Famous professor accepted money from China, then lied to authorities
* Famous professor also had DoD contracts which prohibit such connections without disclosure
* China is known for its IP transfer, strategic threats to both US power and democracy, and use of non-traditional intelligence sources, which is why such regulations about disclosure are required
Seems pretty reasonable. I'd imagine any government would want to know who they're working with before cutting them a check. If someone at AWS was moonlighting for Google Cloud, no one would bat an eye if they were fired, taken to court, and sued for everything they were worth.
And yeah, yeah. The US isn't perfect either, but I'm not afraid of the US using their influence to take away or undermine democracy in Germany.
https://qz.com/1225347/xi-jinping-says-chinas-one-party-auth...
This new link doesn't support that statement either.
Moreover, I've checked one quotation and it turned out to be taken completely out of context.
I invite you to provide specific facts that support the statement you are defending.
A low rating could just mwan high corruption covered by effective propaganda directed at the masses that lack the means to meaningfully engage in corruption.
"The phenomenon has also been studied by the Australian National University, which produced a report called Perceptions of Corruption and Ethical Conduct (2012), which concluded: "there is a widespread perception that corruption in Australia has increased" and that "the media, trade unions and political parties were seen as Australia's most corrupt institutions."
We’re talking several hundred thousand.
That’s not enough?
My interpretation of the argument is that labor markets are heavily driven by economic incentive. I can’t say I’ve seen much data to the contrary.
the point as I see it is that if scientists are of strategic importance, they should be compensated accordingly to prevent the risk of bribery/defection - the same reason companies justify high pay to these other jobs to 'retain their talent'.
I'm sure he could go lead a lab at Exxon for millions but the moment he doesn't deliver he's fired.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2019/12/18/moffitt-canc...
It will be interesting to study the difference between that case and this one. So far the tone I'm seeing here is markedly different, and most people seem to be justifying the position of the DOJ.
But more broadly: how is humanity helped by not spreading around the knowledge of basic science and the interconnection between scientists? This is all relating to work that will be published in journals after all.
Literally espionage.
I did not see the FBI alleging this publicly. It is not in their affidavit. He did lie on his forms to the DoD and that is legitimately a (non-espionage) crime.
DoD funding does not in itself make something a national secret. I did plenty of work funded by DARPA in my youth (during the cold war!) all of which could be publicly talked about and no classification or really any constraints were involved. I did later do cryptographic work but that was controlled by the Department of Commerce and was certainly more constrained than anything I worked on paid for by DoD.
I don't know Harvard's policy but at MIT since problems in the 60s, all classified work is supposed to be segregated into separate MIT-affiliated operations like Lincoln Labs, MITRE, Draper etc. It looked like distribution his work was controlled at most by the publishing cartel of Elsevier et al.
> The arrangement between Lieber and the Chinese institution spanned "significant" periods of time between at least 2012 and 2017, according to the affidavit. It says the deal called for Lieber to be paid up to $50,000 a month, in addition to $150,000 per year "for living and personal expenses."
> "Lieber was also awarded more than $1.5 million by WUT and the Chinese government to establish a research lab and conduct research at WUT," the document states.
> For a large part of the time frame in question, Lieber was also the principal investigator on at least six U.S. Defense Department research grants, with a cumulative value of more than $8 million, according to the affidavit. It also says he was the principal investigator on more than $10 million in grants funded by the National Institutes of Health.
It seems like Lieber took his actions for money. If you are going to look at everyone potentially willing to sell out for money, you'll be doing a lot of looking.
Of course, my inner cynic is leaning pretty heavily towards Occam's razor for this one.
Chinese and American scientists have more in common with each other than we do with the elites that run the government and corporations to the detriment of the population.
We should loudly denounce the government interfering with free scientific exchange and funding. Science isn't a competition; it's meant to benefit all of us regardless of nationality.
Edit: Last time they were messing with a researcher that was working on cancer treatments. They were worried he'd "steal" cancer treatments and give them to Chinese people! The nerve!
edit: sorry got the scientist's nationality wrong.
?
“Charles M. Lieber (born 1959) is an American chemist and pioneer in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology.”
That is called fraud. That's not an excuse, and is in fact a reason for him to continue to be in trouble.
Are they going to send a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier loaded with soldiers to invade the shores of Seattle and Los Angeles? And then claim the mainland United States as their own property?
This is Charles Lieber's latest paper: http://cml.harvard.edu/assets/Nanowire-probes-could-drive-hi...
It's a review article on nanowires, and in the acknowledgements an Air Force is listed, obviously because a student's salary is funded by the Air Force. The guy is stupider than the FBI permits but there is no reason to drift into xenophobia.
> xenophobia
Really? So stating that China steals IP is now "xenophobia"?