> The son of two mathematics teachers who were sent to teach on farms during China’s Cultural Revolution, Dr. Chen grew up without any hope of becoming a scientist. His parents, the descendants of landowners, had a “bad classification” from the Chinese government, and were viewed suspiciously. His father warned him he would probably spend his life as a farmer. But then Mao Zedong died.
Chen moved to the US to experience the American equivalent of this.
This case went beyond false accusations. According to the professor's lawyers [0], the government possessed exculpatory evidence and knowingly withheld it from the defense -- a theoretically-illegal Brady violation [1].
>" As my team of lawyers argued, Bonavolonta and his agents ignored basic exculpatory evidence, failed to interview critical witnesses until after I was arrested, and dramatically embellished facts in various official documents. Exculpatory information that, under the Constitution, the prosecution was required to turn over — such as a witness saying that I never was in a talent program, a Chinese government initiative to provide funding to researchers and scientists, which was one of the government’s key allegations — was withheld for months until demanded by my lawyers. While I am relieved that my case has been dropped “in the interests of justice,” I respectfully request a thorough review of this matter by Congress and the US Department of Justice to hold individuals accountable for this glaring misconduct."
They are also accusations of nothing specific. "Association with China" doesn't seem like it's specific enough to warrant sanction, all it can do it make people suspicious, which it does regardless of whether you've even done anything with China.
I accept the US is having a power struggle with China at the moment, but this is not the way to win it. People who aren't actually in favor of freedom will welcome this "record who associates with China" thing, but it goes against the high ideals of the US and makes it look like many unsavory countries.
The worst part is he spirit has been crushed; he can no longer work for fear of irrational and frankly random political views and actions detrimental to his health, his research, and his family. If he is to continue and regain an amount of his former life, I wager it can only occur after leaving the USA permanently.
This is just such a sad situation. The scientist's reputation has taken a big beating and he will now be looked through the lease of these accusations for rest of his career, if not more.
The last paragraph stood out for me.
“My love is science. I did not want politics, right? I saw that, and I got away from it. I do my devotion to science. I help people, I support. But I learned that you can’t get away. Politics impacts everybody. So if there are things that are not right, we all need to speak out.”
Lot of times most of us, including me, don't speak out against wrong policies. We all think "let's just focus on our own thing" it won't affect us. But we are all wrong, "Politics impacts everybody".
> The scientist's reputation has taken a big beating
While this really sucked, this is an exaggeration. No charges. Still has his job. He can still file for government grants. The article starts with his colleagues offering up opportunities for him and celebrating that he is back.
Yeah, the feds screwed the pooch and messed things up, but I don't see where his reputation was actually harmed.
This reminds me of the case of Tsien Hsue-Shen, who in the 1950s was deported from the US and subsequently more or less became the father of the Chinese space program. Iris Chang wrote a good book about it called 'Thread of the Silkworm.'
Last week, the government dismissed the case against Dr. Chen, which alleged that he had concealed seven Chinese affiliations in applications for $2.7 million in grants from the U.S. Energy Department. Prosecutors announced that they had received new information indicating that Dr. Chen had not been obliged to disclose those affiliations, undercutting the basis of the case.
I feel like this part could use more details. The charges were for not disclosing his affiliations, but those affiliations existed nonetheless?
Edit: I'm not implying there's anything shady he did or that he wasn't falsely accused, just trying to parse this.
Survivorship bias, perhaps? That is, all the stories you hear about like this are the kind that turn into stories you hear about -- you don't hear about anyone whose life is just quietly ruined, so it seems like they all work out fine. And of course nothing "works itself out" -- it's people who work them out. It doesn't have to be you -- it's OK to just read the article and move on with your own life -- but whenever things "just work out" it's because someone stepped in and made a positive difference.
"The dismissal is a setback to the China Initiative, an effort started in 2018 to crack down on economic and scientific espionage by China."
No, it is not. Why would it be a setback if somebody who is innocent has their case dismissed. I mean who writes such lines? Doesnt this line imply that this dismissal was a bad thing (since nobody endorses espionage).
>The dismissal is a setback to the China Initiative, an effort started in 2018 to crack down on economic and scientific espionage by China. Many of the prosecutions, like the case against Dr. Chen, do not allege espionage or theft of information, but something narrower: failing to disclose Chinese affiliations in grant applications to U.S. agencies. Critics say it has instilled a pervasive atmosphere of fear among scientists of Chinese descent.
While I can agree with and see the value of the overall agenda, it seems a matter of bad application. I won't pretend to be an expert on the matter who can say exactly what needs to be done, but I wonder about how necessary it really is to drag people through the mud in such cases. It certainly can have a chilling effect on scientists with affiliations to Chinese entities, many of which are plenty secular. I understand the impetus to investigate all affiliations when a foreign state is involved, but at the same time it becomes self destructive if it goes too far all too quickly. The solution, to me, seems to fall on those doing the investigating; that the investigating parties must hold to a higher and better informed standard before bringing forth charges that could hurt American scientists, and by extention, American science
The problem with law enforcement today is that they want their work cut out for them. Instead of doing the old school investigation stuff and THEN getting a subpoena, they instead want to have blanket access to all of our communications.
Instead of proving real espionage, they want to merely assert "suspect" links and then you're the one who have to prove you're innocent.
Instead of finding drug dealers and terrorists the old fashioned way, they want all of your bank transactions reported automatically for them, so they can sit on their chairs and deep learn their way into your data towards some flimsy accusation that they will use to pressure you into pledging your guilty to something.
Really, it is about time we raise our voices agains that. It is about time we say enough is enough. It is about time for us to say, the State serve its Citizens, and not the other way around.
Fuck this bureaucratic neo-feudalism.
Let us say no for this shit!
---
BASTILLE DAY
Music: Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson
Lyrics: Neil Peart
There’s no bread let them eat cake \
There’s no end to what they’ll take \
Flaunt the fruits of noble birth \
Wash the salt into the earth \
But they’re marching to Bastille Day \
La guillotine will claim her bloody prize \
Free the dungeons of the innocent \
The king will kneel, and let his kingdom rise \
Bloodstained velvet, dirty lace \
Naked fear on every face \
See them bow their heads to die \
As we would bow as they rode by \
And we’re marching to Bastille Day \
La guillotine will claim her bloody prize \
Sing, o choirs of cacophony \
The king has kneeled, to let his kingdom rise. \
Lessons taught, but never learned \
All around us anger burns \
Guide the future by the past \
Long ago the mould was cast \
For they marched up to Bastille Day \
La guillotine – claimed her bloody prize \
Hear the echoes of the centuries \
Power isn’t all that money buys \
The problem is also that it targets a specific group for the (alleged!) actions of a tiny fraction of that group. That sort of thing creates an unwarranted atmosphere of distrust that hurts everyone.
A broad-based initiative to stop economic and scientific espionage? Sure, that could be a good idea. A targeted initiative that obviously will end up demonizing a particular race/nationality/ancestry of people? No, not good at all.
I absolutely agree that the investigating parties need to have higher standards of investigation. But the entire framing of it as the "China Initiative", literally an intent to target people for persecution based on their national origin, is a huge problem.
People wrongly charged with crimes should be able to sue for damages. That's the case in come jurisdictions, but often requires significant evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, a high bar to clear.
To at least attempt to think about this critically, and to try to ignore the amount of frankly shocking things people are saying here, can I ask, maybe from people in the field, is this level of industrial/scientific espionage even a critical factor in our current world? We live in a global world where scientists in various institutions are constantly trading papers, findings. Why are we so worried that the U.S. might be doing something so different from China, that this level espionage would even be viable? Surely, everyone is working on different things here and there, but this idea that there is such critical intellectual property the US that needs to be guarded so intensely in this like James Bond scenario, just feels a little wacky.
Are you all really here in 2022, being like "we can't risk a Chinese national from even seeing our American semiconductor research, they will steal it and use it against us?" Are actual scientists concerned? Or just the state, and apparently most of the fellow commenters?
> Are you all really here in 2022, being like "we can't risk a Chinese national from even seeing our American semiconductor research, they will steal it and use it against us?"
There are a number of issues at play here and I can speak to several of them, having either helped the federal government directly or having knowledge of industrial espionage in my industry at the time (semiconductors).
Some technology is export-controlled in the United States, full stop. Semiconductor research may absolutely be export-controlled and thus may not leave the United States or be shown to foreign nationals. Any researcher's talk, paper, research, materials, etc. must undergo an export controls review first before it leaves the United States or is shown to a foreign national. This is SOP at every research lab in the United States.
If you do not disclose information when asked by the federal government as part of an investigation impacting national security, then woe be unto you. I don't know what else to say there. It appears that this may be what caused this gentleman the issues outlined by the NY Times.
Industrial espionage is absolutely a thing in the semiconductor industry. I was once told how Hynix pilfered fab designs from Samsung. The loss was estimated to be $1 billion. I am personally aware of other lesser IP loss through the hands of careless engineers.
I hope this helps answer your question. It is absolutely a thing in 2022.
I've personally witnessed Chinese national students attempting to acquire access to sensitive lab equipment and documentation their research wouldn't require (this is physics, here, not CS).
I've been on the defensive end of attacks by employees (all Chinese citizens, living in China) in our Chinese organization attempting to breach data and infrastructure firewalls.
Once upon a time my work touched some sensitive, classified areas. I was more or less constantly harassed by rather hilarious and obvious attempts by Chinese individuals to gain access to the classified bits for a time.
We don't live in a world where scientific and technological advances are all to the good for humanity. There are politically powerful people who would see these things used to ends that hurt others for their own gain. It happens all the time, and likely will as long as humans are what we are.
is this level of industrial/scientific espionage even a critical factor in our current world
Yes. It completely bankrupted and destroyed the Canadian company Nortel [1]. Sure there were other problems that led to the downfall of Nortel, but this was a major contributing factor and has had a big impact on the Canadian tech ecosystem.
> Are you all really here in 2022, being like "we can't risk a Chinese national from even seeing our American semiconductor research, they will steal it and use it against us?" Are actual scientists concerned? Or just the state, and apparently most of the fellow commenters?
It’s intellectual property. The majority of the worlds cutting edge research are designed, developed, tested, and eventually marketed in the United States. That’s the advantage of free markets and gives the US first mover advantage.
Yes, it’s exceedingly important that is maintained (to the United States). If that stops occurring... manufacturing is gone, mining and energy sectors are regulated to oblivion. There’s not much left. Food and services? Healthcare? None of those produce enough wealth to maintain the nation, only information and advanced / advancing technology can support US growth.
A friend of mine is a scientist in a relevant field, and has caught Chinese PhD students photographing documents in one case, and taking a video recording of a sensitive part of a laboratory in another case. In both cases, what they were recording was not related to their own work.
Not everything is published openly. Some research is kept quiet until the economic value has been realized, and sometimes the "what" is published but not so much the "how".
>Surely, everyone is working on different things here and there, but this idea that there is such critical intellectual property the US that needs to be guarded so intensely in this like James Bond scenario, just feels a little wacky
lots of technology that took billions of dollars and decades to develop? Why would you give that away for free?
Protecting IP isn't some new thing, humans have done it for thousands of years
>As Constantine Porphyrogennetos' warnings show, the ingredients and the processes of manufacture and deployment of Greek fire were carefully guarded military secrets.
>The technological advantage it provided was responsible for many key Byzantine military victories, most notably the salvation of Constantinople from the first and second Arab sieges, thus securing the Empire's survival
Scientists do not necessarily see the global picture here -- if anything, they'll be inclined to downplay geopolitical and nat-security issues (or at look the other way) if it produces more and better science. This is excluding any consideration of funding -- just what a scientist is supposed to care about.
Some people need to take science more seriously, but there's a kind of crowd that needs to stop worshipping scientists.
Two sides of the sword: The reason China got nuclear weapon so fast is that USA pushed the top nuclear scientist back to China. This could happen to semiconductor or other fields.
I don't see any solution though, if you don't control, you will lose valuables faster, if you do, you will overdo it sometimes.
Nothing is perfect, if things went too far in the process, let's trust the legal system to sort it out.
Industrial espionage can be an existential matter for companies. They rarely make the headlines but there's plenty of court cases like AMSC vs Sinovel, where Sinovel (China) stole the control software AMSC had developed and pretty much ruined them as a company.
I worked in cyber security at a major industrial company for 5 years. Yes “insider threat” is a very real concern and people get busted exfiltrating company data all the time.
The only critical approach is to begin with the beginning and the trigger event, refusal to provide the passwords requested to his devices. In the UK it's a crime to refuse law enforcement request for your passwords. If the similar is true in the USA, or there's critical details involved - which frankly only CCTV footage could possibly reveal - about this incident, then there's your cause and effect from whence forward everything looks like semantic disassembly to me on the academics part and a desperate need to show substantive accusations on the governments part.
A history of espionage and theft of trade secrets demonstrates the necessity of concern.
"Xiaoqing Zheng who holds dual-citizenship in the United States and China, used elaborate and sophisticated methods to steal countless digital files containing trade secrets from General Electric regarding their wind turbine technology"
https://blog.twinstate.com/news/ge-trade-secrets-theft
"According to today’s conviction, Xu attempted to steal technology related to GE Aviation’s exclusive composite aircraft engine fan – which no other company in the world has been able to duplicate – to benefit the Chinese state."
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdoh/pr/jury-convicts-chinese-o...
" A notable example is the 2014 lawsuit by T-Mobile, in which Huawei was accused of, among other conduct, sending an engineer to a T-Mobile facility to see "Tappy," the company's computer driven robot with a mechanical arm used to test smartphone screens to improve the reliability of its handsets. The engineer slipped one of the robot's fingertips into his laptop bag but was caught on camera"
https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/trade-secrets/1052104/th...
"A former associate scientist was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison in federal court today for stealing proprietary information worth more than $1 billion from his employer, a U.S. petroleum company."
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-national-sentenced-st...
There are dozens of such visible cases. The vast majority of trade-secret theft is uncaught.
The opposite of 'wacky' - key R&D and especially know-how is critical to the development of specific industries and in some cases, it should be guarded.
It can take decades of effort, R&D, product development to develop the key understanding towards making for example, jet turbines, high speed trains, chip fabs etc..
Economic espionage is real and part of China's industrial strategy.
It should be noted that 'everyone else' will also steal R&D to the extent that it's related to weapons, but generally not industrial information.
That said - probably most research isn't that important, and this kind of thing can easily turn into 'Witch Hunt'. Paradoxically, the CPP will also use an overbearing posture by the US on this issue as part of propaganda efforts.
The CCP right now is fighting a 'narrative war' with all the touchy issues: they are circulating information indicating that COVID started in Europe, and in response to stern words by Canada PM Trudeau, China is telling it's citizens the a recent outbreak is due to 'frozen food from China'. Controlling information means being able to tell their citizens whatever they want and having them believe it for the most part. That a few independent thinkers want to 'VPN out' and form their own opinions isn't that important if you can tell 99% of people what the truth is.
CCP is playing 'full court press competition' - they are engaging and comprising students on campus [1] , seeking information from well placed ex-patriots [2], planting spies everywhere [3], grabbing people and re-patriating Chinese citizens abroad by force [4], running disinformation campaigns [5], compromising state officials [6] and more.
So it's important that our 'values' of true justice, equality, transparency etc. are not compromised, and we don't want to regress to early 20th century racism, but at the same time, it's a 'war' of sorts and it's incredibly naive to operate on the basis that this is not happening and affecting everyone.
Probably it will take more than just a simple plan, but a major new way of thinking about China, and a whole series of changes in that regard.
Even things such as governments new 'Trustless' IT policy published here yesterday, are a step in the right direction.
Like McCarthyism it’s a noble cause, but I can’t help but wonder if these initiatives rather tend to be outsmarted by the real spies. People who are accidentally incriminated by clerical errors and misunderstandings are much lower hanging fruit.
This is a troubling story in so many ways, I don't know what the answer to the problem is but feel something needs to change within the government when people are subjected to what can only be described as a witch trial bordering on McCarthyism.
The fact the state and his own lawyer were pressing him to take a deal is also very troubling as it echoes the plight of many impoverished young men who lost their families, careers, reputations and futures by pleading down trumped up charges laid against them.
These are the stories the RWM doesn't cover as it does not fit their narrative.
There was a case at Caltech with an Israeli national and I don’t recall that receiving nearly the same level of scrutiny. Instead the supervisor who got her work stolen got disciplined for putting a cat as a coauthor on one of her papers as a joke.
In US you end up being free, but treated like a spy by some funding agency. In Russia you end up in prison having no hope of getting back. Arrested in April 2021, 69 year old professor Golubkin is still in remand prison. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2021/04/13/another-treason-case accused for governmental treason.
As bad as this is, it could have been so much worse for him. The government does not usually correct itself like this, preferring instead to continue with prosecution, notch up another corrupt win, and call it a day. And in fact, for this reason, the (current) government needs to get major kudos! And Dr. Chen should get more hugs, and more support - as many as he needs to help him forget this nightmare and get back to doing what he loves.
[+] [-] webmaven|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VictorPath|4 years ago|reply
Chen moved to the US to experience the American equivalent of this.
[+] [-] throwawayarnty|4 years ago|reply
This instilled a sense of fear in every person even if they are innocent because you can still be targeted and your career ruined.
If this scientist was just stating out, rather than already established, he would likely have had to quit science.
There should be some penalty for false accusations that can compensate for these people.
[+] [-] perihelions|4 years ago|reply
>" As my team of lawyers argued, Bonavolonta and his agents ignored basic exculpatory evidence, failed to interview critical witnesses until after I was arrested, and dramatically embellished facts in various official documents. Exculpatory information that, under the Constitution, the prosecution was required to turn over — such as a witness saying that I never was in a talent program, a Chinese government initiative to provide funding to researchers and scientists, which was one of the government’s key allegations — was withheld for months until demanded by my lawyers. While I am relieved that my case has been dropped “in the interests of justice,” I respectfully request a thorough review of this matter by Congress and the US Department of Justice to hold individuals accountable for this glaring misconduct."
[0] https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/01/21/opinion/i-was-arreste...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_disclosure
[+] [-] lordnacho|4 years ago|reply
I accept the US is having a power struggle with China at the moment, but this is not the way to win it. People who aren't actually in favor of freedom will welcome this "record who associates with China" thing, but it goes against the high ideals of the US and makes it look like many unsavory countries.
[+] [-] Schiendelman|4 years ago|reply
Now, it's not exactly affordable for him to do so. But that's a separate problem we should solve.
[+] [-] bsenftner|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vishnugupta|4 years ago|reply
The last paragraph stood out for me.
“My love is science. I did not want politics, right? I saw that, and I got away from it. I do my devotion to science. I help people, I support. But I learned that you can’t get away. Politics impacts everybody. So if there are things that are not right, we all need to speak out.”
Lot of times most of us, including me, don't speak out against wrong policies. We all think "let's just focus on our own thing" it won't affect us. But we are all wrong, "Politics impacts everybody".
[+] [-] tasha0663|4 years ago|reply
While this really sucked, this is an exaggeration. No charges. Still has his job. He can still file for government grants. The article starts with his colleagues offering up opportunities for him and celebrating that he is back.
Yeah, the feds screwed the pooch and messed things up, but I don't see where his reputation was actually harmed.
[+] [-] shantnutiwari|4 years ago|reply
I vaguely remember this case when it first came out. At the time, the impression I got was: Dr Chen was passing info to Chinese agents.
And now the impression is: He had some affiliations with Chinese groups that were fully legal, and he was not required to disclose.
Which begs the question: Why was he arrested in the first place?
[+] [-] lbs4|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neither_color|4 years ago|reply
I feel like this part could use more details. The charges were for not disclosing his affiliations, but those affiliations existed nonetheless? Edit: I'm not implying there's anything shady he did or that he wasn't falsely accused, just trying to parse this.
[+] [-] greesil|4 years ago|reply
"Father of Chinese Rocketry" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen
Except for the 5 years under house arrest part. Wow.
[+] [-] feoren|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tejohnso|4 years ago|reply
This statement seems like a completely backward mindset to have, especially after watching this classic advice piece on youtube [1].
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
[+] [-] andi999|4 years ago|reply
No, it is not. Why would it be a setback if somebody who is innocent has their case dismissed. I mean who writes such lines? Doesnt this line imply that this dismissal was a bad thing (since nobody endorses espionage).
[+] [-] tsol|4 years ago|reply
While I can agree with and see the value of the overall agenda, it seems a matter of bad application. I won't pretend to be an expert on the matter who can say exactly what needs to be done, but I wonder about how necessary it really is to drag people through the mud in such cases. It certainly can have a chilling effect on scientists with affiliations to Chinese entities, many of which are plenty secular. I understand the impetus to investigate all affiliations when a foreign state is involved, but at the same time it becomes self destructive if it goes too far all too quickly. The solution, to me, seems to fall on those doing the investigating; that the investigating parties must hold to a higher and better informed standard before bringing forth charges that could hurt American scientists, and by extention, American science
[+] [-] elzbardico|4 years ago|reply
Let us say no for this shit! ---
BASTILLE DAY
Music: Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson Lyrics: Neil Peart
There’s no bread let them eat cake \ There’s no end to what they’ll take \ Flaunt the fruits of noble birth \ Wash the salt into the earth \ But they’re marching to Bastille Day \ La guillotine will claim her bloody prize \ Free the dungeons of the innocent \ The king will kneel, and let his kingdom rise \
Bloodstained velvet, dirty lace \ Naked fear on every face \ See them bow their heads to die \ As we would bow as they rode by \
And we’re marching to Bastille Day \ La guillotine will claim her bloody prize \ Sing, o choirs of cacophony \ The king has kneeled, to let his kingdom rise. \
Lessons taught, but never learned \ All around us anger burns \ Guide the future by the past \ Long ago the mould was cast \
For they marched up to Bastille Day \ La guillotine – claimed her bloody prize \ Hear the echoes of the centuries \ Power isn’t all that money buys \
[+] [-] p_l|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kelnos|4 years ago|reply
A broad-based initiative to stop economic and scientific espionage? Sure, that could be a good idea. A targeted initiative that obviously will end up demonizing a particular race/nationality/ancestry of people? No, not good at all.
I absolutely agree that the investigating parties need to have higher standards of investigation. But the entire framing of it as the "China Initiative", literally an intent to target people for persecution based on their national origin, is a huge problem.
[+] [-] Zak|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beepbooptheory|4 years ago|reply
Are you all really here in 2022, being like "we can't risk a Chinese national from even seeing our American semiconductor research, they will steal it and use it against us?" Are actual scientists concerned? Or just the state, and apparently most of the fellow commenters?
[+] [-] jason-phillips|4 years ago|reply
There are a number of issues at play here and I can speak to several of them, having either helped the federal government directly or having knowledge of industrial espionage in my industry at the time (semiconductors).
Some technology is export-controlled in the United States, full stop. Semiconductor research may absolutely be export-controlled and thus may not leave the United States or be shown to foreign nationals. Any researcher's talk, paper, research, materials, etc. must undergo an export controls review first before it leaves the United States or is shown to a foreign national. This is SOP at every research lab in the United States.
If you do not disclose information when asked by the federal government as part of an investigation impacting national security, then woe be unto you. I don't know what else to say there. It appears that this may be what caused this gentleman the issues outlined by the NY Times.
Industrial espionage is absolutely a thing in the semiconductor industry. I was once told how Hynix pilfered fab designs from Samsung. The loss was estimated to be $1 billion. I am personally aware of other lesser IP loss through the hands of careless engineers.
I hope this helps answer your question. It is absolutely a thing in 2022.
[+] [-] sidlls|4 years ago|reply
I've been on the defensive end of attacks by employees (all Chinese citizens, living in China) in our Chinese organization attempting to breach data and infrastructure firewalls.
Once upon a time my work touched some sensitive, classified areas. I was more or less constantly harassed by rather hilarious and obvious attempts by Chinese individuals to gain access to the classified bits for a time.
We don't live in a world where scientific and technological advances are all to the good for humanity. There are politically powerful people who would see these things used to ends that hurt others for their own gain. It happens all the time, and likely will as long as humans are what we are.
[+] [-] andreilys|4 years ago|reply
Yes. It completely bankrupted and destroyed the Canadian company Nortel [1]. Sure there were other problems that led to the downfall of Nortel, but this was a major contributing factor and has had a big impact on the Canadian tech ecosystem.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7275588/inside-the-chinese-milita...
[+] [-] lettergram|4 years ago|reply
> Are you all really here in 2022, being like "we can't risk a Chinese national from even seeing our American semiconductor research, they will steal it and use it against us?" Are actual scientists concerned? Or just the state, and apparently most of the fellow commenters?
It’s intellectual property. The majority of the worlds cutting edge research are designed, developed, tested, and eventually marketed in the United States. That’s the advantage of free markets and gives the US first mover advantage.
Yes, it’s exceedingly important that is maintained (to the United States). If that stops occurring... manufacturing is gone, mining and energy sectors are regulated to oblivion. There’s not much left. Food and services? Healthcare? None of those produce enough wealth to maintain the nation, only information and advanced / advancing technology can support US growth.
[+] [-] Symbiote|4 years ago|reply
Not everything is published openly. Some research is kept quiet until the economic value has been realized, and sometimes the "what" is published but not so much the "how".
[+] [-] ren_engineer|4 years ago|reply
lots of technology that took billions of dollars and decades to develop? Why would you give that away for free?
Protecting IP isn't some new thing, humans have done it for thousands of years
>As Constantine Porphyrogennetos' warnings show, the ingredients and the processes of manufacture and deployment of Greek fire were carefully guarded military secrets.
>The technological advantage it provided was responsible for many key Byzantine military victories, most notably the salvation of Constantinople from the first and second Arab sieges, thus securing the Empire's survival
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire
[+] [-] prionassembly|4 years ago|reply
Some people need to take science more seriously, but there's a kind of crowd that needs to stop worshipping scientists.
[+] [-] synergy20|4 years ago|reply
I don't see any solution though, if you don't control, you will lose valuables faster, if you do, you will overdo it sometimes.
Nothing is perfect, if things went too far in the process, let's trust the legal system to sort it out.
[+] [-] 83|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coliveira|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mirkules|4 years ago|reply
It does happen, even at university level.
[+] [-] mberning|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hazelmatic|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cm2012|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cullinet|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tharne|4 years ago|reply
Yes
[+] [-] lenkite|4 years ago|reply
"Xiaoqing Zheng who holds dual-citizenship in the United States and China, used elaborate and sophisticated methods to steal countless digital files containing trade secrets from General Electric regarding their wind turbine technology" https://blog.twinstate.com/news/ge-trade-secrets-theft
Jizhong Chen and Xiaolang Zhang indicated in theft of trade secrets https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/09/apple-has-deep-concerns-that... https://www.digpu.com/business-and-finance/chinese-man-jizho...
"According to today’s conviction, Xu attempted to steal technology related to GE Aviation’s exclusive composite aircraft engine fan – which no other company in the world has been able to duplicate – to benefit the Chinese state." https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdoh/pr/jury-convicts-chinese-o...
" A notable example is the 2014 lawsuit by T-Mobile, in which Huawei was accused of, among other conduct, sending an engineer to a T-Mobile facility to see "Tappy," the company's computer driven robot with a mechanical arm used to test smartphone screens to improve the reliability of its handsets. The engineer slipped one of the robot's fingertips into his laptop bag but was caught on camera" https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/trade-secrets/1052104/th...
"A former associate scientist was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison in federal court today for stealing proprietary information worth more than $1 billion from his employer, a U.S. petroleum company." https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-national-sentenced-st...
There are dozens of such visible cases. The vast majority of trade-secret theft is uncaught.
[+] [-] jollybean|4 years ago|reply
It can take decades of effort, R&D, product development to develop the key understanding towards making for example, jet turbines, high speed trains, chip fabs etc..
Economic espionage is real and part of China's industrial strategy.
It should be noted that 'everyone else' will also steal R&D to the extent that it's related to weapons, but generally not industrial information.
That said - probably most research isn't that important, and this kind of thing can easily turn into 'Witch Hunt'. Paradoxically, the CPP will also use an overbearing posture by the US on this issue as part of propaganda efforts.
The CCP right now is fighting a 'narrative war' with all the touchy issues: they are circulating information indicating that COVID started in Europe, and in response to stern words by Canada PM Trudeau, China is telling it's citizens the a recent outbreak is due to 'frozen food from China'. Controlling information means being able to tell their citizens whatever they want and having them believe it for the most part. That a few independent thinkers want to 'VPN out' and form their own opinions isn't that important if you can tell 99% of people what the truth is.
CCP is playing 'full court press competition' - they are engaging and comprising students on campus [1] , seeking information from well placed ex-patriots [2], planting spies everywhere [3], grabbing people and re-patriating Chinese citizens abroad by force [4], running disinformation campaigns [5], compromising state officials [6] and more.
So it's important that our 'values' of true justice, equality, transparency etc. are not compromised, and we don't want to regress to early 20th century racism, but at the same time, it's a 'war' of sorts and it's incredibly naive to operate on the basis that this is not happening and affecting everyone.
Probably it will take more than just a simple plan, but a major new way of thinking about China, and a whole series of changes in that regard.
Even things such as governments new 'Trustless' IT policy published here yesterday, are a step in the right direction.
[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/even-on-us-campuses-china...
[2] https://www.csis.org/programs/technology-policy-program/surv...
[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/explain-the-chinese-...
[4] https://thethaiger.com/news/world/china-forced-nearly-10000-...
[5] https://thediplomat.com/2020/06/chinas-disinformation-campai...
[6] https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Barbara-Boxer-China-...
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] splitstud|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Tabular-Iceberg|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sigmaprimus|4 years ago|reply
The fact the state and his own lawyer were pressing him to take a deal is also very troubling as it echoes the plight of many impoverished young men who lost their families, careers, reputations and futures by pleading down trumped up charges laid against them.
These are the stories the RWM doesn't cover as it does not fit their narrative.
[+] [-] mupuff1234|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] floor_|4 years ago|reply
"How I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography then got into more trouble"
https://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/les/crypto.htm
[+] [-] selimthegrim|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rolling_robot|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] javajosh|4 years ago|reply