Researchers Working With China Face Scrutiny by Officials Who Don’t Grasp Science, Lawyer Says

Several researchers at American universities have lost their jobs this year after being accused of sharing sensitive information with foreign governments, such as China. A lawyer representing some of the scientists said that part of the problem is that the government officials investigating those cases don’t have science backgrounds.

Peter B. Zeidenberg, the lawyer, said on Thursday he has about three dozen clients who are Chinese or Chinese-American and have worked in the United States. He was speaking at the China Institute on a panel about the challenges Chinese scientists here face in this era of increased tension between the two countries.

Worried about the theft of intellectual property and national-security secrets, law enforcement and government agencies have stepped up their scrutiny of research collaborations with China. In doing so, they have complicated what has become the closest research relationship shared by two countries anywhere in the world, according to the Nature Index, which tracks collaborations in papers published in 82 top science journals.

Researchers were ousted this spring from the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas and from Emory University after investigations prompted by letters from the National Institutes of Health. The funding agency has urged universities to pay closer attention to their researchers’ relationships with foreign governments.

Zeidenberg said he represents the scientists at Emory, who lost their jobs in May. He warned scholars in the audience who have participated in talent-recruitment programs sponsored by the Chinese government, such as the Thousand Talents Program, that they may have already drawn the attention of U.S. government officials.

“If you’re a scientist and you have had any interaction with the Thousand Talents Program, you have a target on your back,” he said. “There is a very high degree of likelihood that your emails are being reviewed just like they were down at M.D. Anderson and at Emory University.”

Zeidenberg said that the officials conducting investigations of U.S.-based scientists often don’t understand that it’s appropriate and sometimes essential for researchers to share their work with colleagues who may be abroad. Even though the researchers lost their positions after NIH letters, Zeidenberg said he believes it’s the FBI pushing for investigations. He said officials should consult with area experts in the field of the scientist they are investigating to learn whether the collaborations they find suspicious are actually commonplace.

“The notion that they can’t share — it’s a bizarre notion to scientists,” Zeidenberg said.

The FBI declined to comment on Zeidenberg’s remarks.

One of Zeidenberg’s clients was in the audience. Xiaoxing Xi, a physics professor at Temple University, was charged with sharing sensitive information with China in 2015. All the charges were later dropped, and he is suing the FBI agent who brought the case, saying he had falsified information.

Xi described being woken up early one morning four years ago by armed FBI agents, who came into his home and arrested him in front of his wife and two children. He was accused of sharing technology with Chinese colleagues — technology that he said was not restricted at all.

“One day I was a respected researcher and the chair of the department, and overnight I was painted as a Chinese spy,” he said. “Even though the charges were dropped, our life was wrecked.”

Other scientists at the event said they were confused and frustrated by a lack of clarity about what they can and can’t do. They’re used to collaborating, they said, but they don’t want to run afoul of U.S. agencies.

“You don’t know where to draw the lines and when you cross the lines,” said Yiguang Ju, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University.

Ruth Jin, a securities lawyer who advises on compliance issues, said her clients in the private sector who are doing deals in China undergo extreme levels of scrutiny to ensure they’re not violating any U.S. laws. She said universities would need to adopt the policies that the private sector has been using in order to comply with government agencies that are worried about competition with China.

“I don’t think they want you to make your competitors smart,” she said.

Some audience members and panelists objected to her solution, saying that more-stringent rules for collaboration would threaten the free flow of information that is essential to scientific progress.

Nell Gluckman writes about faculty issues and other topics in higher education. You can follow her on Twitter @nellgluckman, or email her at nell.gluckman@chronicle.com.