"The objective for China is to acquire foreign technologies"

Harvard University, Massachusetts (illustration).

Maddie Meyer GETTY IMAGES / AFP / File

Text by: Martin Chabal

6 mins

A prominent Harvard chemistry professor was found guilty on Tuesday in Boston federal court of concealing from authorities his links to a Chinese program suspected by the United States of economic espionage.

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In the United States, Charles Lieber, a prominent Harvard professor, was convicted by the American courts of having concealed his links with the Wuhan Technological University. He said he had no connection with any Chinese research program. He faces five years in prison.

Even if the American justice recognized that participating in international research programs was always legal, it considered that everything had to be declared to the American authorities.

The latter thus want to be able to detect any attempts at Chinese influence in American research which are increasingly common in a context of technological war between the two countries.

Antoine Bondaz, researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research and specialist in Chinese foreign policies, discusses Chinese objectives in the academic world. 

RFI: What is the interest for China in recruiting foreign researchers like Charles Lieber here, who worked for the Wuhan Technological University? 

Antoine Bondaz:

 There was first a very clear desire from China, from the mid-1980s, to catch up, particularly in scientific and technological terms, compared to the United States, and more broadly through compared to western countries.  

And then in recent years, as China accelerated this catching up, it decided to attract scientists to its territory.

Whether it is Chinese people who have gone abroad to study, but also potentially foreigners who would be interested in coming to work and do research in China.

This was done through several recruitment programs, the best known being the “Thousand Talents” program, but also through cooperation programs.

The objective for China is lawfully, sometimes illicitly, to acquire foreign technologies and therefore to catch up. 

Are there other concrete cases where we have seen a Chinese penetration in academia as is the case with Charles Lieber?  

Yes indeed, the Mille Talents program is a public program under the authority of the Ministry of Education, but in cooperation and close coordination with different institutions within the Communist Party, such as the United Front department.

And then "A Thousand Talents" is not the only program which aims to recruit personalities abroad.

Whether it is sometimes Nobel Prize winners, there it is obviously extremely visible, but also developers, creators of start-ups abroad in order to attract them to China and

to make them participate in the increase of the capacities of innovation in the country. 

Are there any targets favored by China? 

The most targeted countries are obviously the countries which are the most advanced in scientific and technological terms, in particular all the Western countries. Whether in Australia, the United States and Europe, there is not one country more targeted than another. On the other hand, it should be emphasized that the various countries targeted by China are reacting, organizing themselves, in particular to do what is called in France the protection of scientific and technological potential.

While the Anglo-Saxon countries have taken measures in recent years, it is rather continental Europe today that can be targeted by China.

Not only because it has an extremely important scientific and technological potential, but also because the mechanisms of surveillance and protection of this potential are sometimes less elaborate, less developed than they were in Australia, in the United Kingdom. United or even the United States.  

This is also illustrated by the case of Charles Lieber ... 

Indeed. The case of Charles Lieber is quite emblematic of this American desire to better monitor and protect its scientific and technological potential. It is a question in particular of making scientists face up to their responsibilities when they do not mention certain partnerships or when they openly lie about the links they may have with China, the income they can derive from it and it can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. More broadly, it is about seeking to protect scientific and technological potential while technological competition is today at the heart of the relationship between China and the United States and by extension with the other Western powers. 

American scientists fear that political and geopolitical issues interfere with their research work.

Are they right to worry?

The objective is to avoid falling into the excess and calling into question all the partnerships and scientific and technological cooperation that there would be with China. 

What is important is to distinguish between certain types of cooperation which may be sensitive, particularly in the field of science or technology which could be considered as dual, whether in aeronautics or in acoustics. navy as is sometimes the case in France or Europe. And then cooperation which is much less sensitive, for example in the human sciences. It is necessary to make the share of things on the degree of sensitivity of the cooperation and then on the potential vulnerability of certain scientists, of certain researchers. The objective is above all to protect them and prevent foreign countries, whether China or other countries, from putting them in situations which are illegal under the law of their national country. 

In the case of Charles Lieber, is the sensitive nature of his research proven? 

You must always be extremely careful when commenting on a court decision.

On the one hand, there is the court decision and on the other the communication that is made.

The court decision is,

, not politicized.

On the other hand, the communication that there may be around, by the Department of Justice or by the government to publicize this affair and "sensitize" the rest of the population, is necessarily political. 

You still have to be careful and avoid going overboard.

It is not because Chinese researchers are on American territory or in Europe that they necessarily aim to capture foreign technologies or to carry out illicit operations.

Obviously, we must be right, but at the same time we must be aware that in certain types of cooperation which are sensitive today, it may be necessary to carry out an audit, or even take additional measures to once again

protect the scientific potential. and technological, whether in France or in other countries. 

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