How the DOJ's China Initiative subjected scientists to loyalty tests

In February 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice terminated the controversial "China Initiative," a Trump-era program created to target economic espionage by the Chinese government. During its lifespan of three plus years, the focus of the initiative gradually shifted to academia, targeting a number of researchers and professors with grant fraud charges. Among those who were charged under the initiative, nearly 90% were of Chinese heritage, and many of the cases involving research integrity have been dropped after lengthy and costly legal battles. Civil rights groups raised concerns about racial profiling, which was repeatedly refuted by the FBI and the DOJ even as the China Initiative came to an end. It also happened against the backdrop of the U.S.-China technology race, which made the belief that science has no borders a wishful thinking.

In the third and final episode of the "Caught in the Crossfire" series, we followed the case of MIT professor Gang Chen, one of the most prominent scholars being charged under the China Initiative, to show how the program had subjected scientists to loyalty tests.