China used academic recruitment programs to steal U.S. research: Senate report

China-backed researchers deployed to American universities have been siphoning off taxpayer funding for their own research, giving their Chinese overseers first look at their work and stealing intellectual property from their U.S. employers, a bipartisan Senate report revealed Monday.

Beijing’s interest in stealing U.S. military and economic secrets has long been known, but the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations says American officials were slow to act — and in fact likely paid for the research operatives were conducting here, then taking back home with them.

Along the way researchers lied about their ties to China, the eight-month investigation concluded, but took advantage of the openness and transparency that characterizes American research.

“American taxpayers have been unwittingly funding the rise of China’s economy and military over the last two decades,” said Senator Rob Portman, Ohio Republican and chairman of the investigative subcommittee, adding that “our own federal agencies have done little to stop their actions despite being aware of China’s talent plans.”

In one case a professor at an American university working in a dual-use science field found a way to circumvent U.S. export rules.

Investigators said he was paid by federal agencies to do research while also running a China-based lab, and he sponsored visiting Chinese students to come to the U.S. He then used them to transfer his research back to China without himself ever having to travel.

The federal agency that investigated the case said many of the visiting students were “directly affiliated with research and development organizations involved in China’s military modernization efforts.”

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