The nightmare of the chemistry teacher seemed to end.
Five years had passed since Feng Tao, also known as Franklin, was driven by FBI agents from his home in Lawrence, Kansas. The first professor arrested in the framework of a Trump-Eara program aimed at combating Chinese espionage, Dr. Tao was accused of hiding his links with a Chinese university, while conducting research funded by a federal limit at the University.
In July, he won his legal struggle. A federal appeal court overturned the final conviction in his case. His wife, Hong Peng, recalled in an interview that he thought that her husband could eventually return to his workshop and his family could perhaps recover some of a normal life.
But the University of Kansas did not reintroduce him.
Dr. Tao, a Chinese citizen and a permanent US resident, now sued his former employer for illegal termination. He has accused the University of illegally monitoring it on behalf of federal researchers and breach of his own disciplinary policies, ending him before his criminal procedure.
“The University allowed to join Fearmongering and Racist Witch Witting”, read a complaint filed by Dr. lawyers. TAO in January in a federal court in Kansas.
The University of Kansas did not respond to comments.
The experience of Dr. TAO stresses that, more than three years after the completion of the Trump era program, known as China’s initiative, its reaction continues to resonate between teachers and researchers of Chinese origin.
The FBI has brought at least twelve prosecutions to universities or research institutions during the three years of the initiative, mainly against scholars of Chinese descent. No one included charges of financial espionage or theft of commercial secrets or intellectual property.
Critics claimed that the program had highlighted scientists on the basis of their nationality and overestimated the blurry line between violations of notice policies and the most serious crimes such as espionage. Many of the persecutions against the academics of Chinese origin eventually collapsed.
However, there are increasing concerns that China’s initiative could revive under a second Trump administration.
Congress is currently considering a bill on credits that will distribute funding for a Ministry of Justice program focusing on the extraction of Chinese espionage, including academic academic academic. And about a week ago, Republican legislators reiterated the legislation on the protection from Chinese espionage, establishing a “CCP initiative” – ​​referring to the Chinese Communist Party – at the Ministry of Justice.
“President Joe Biden recklessly ended the Chinese initiative founded by President Trump during his first term,” Florida’s Senator Rick Scott said in a statement. “Now, President Trump is back in action to keep Communist China fully responsible for her exploitation for the United States.”
There is a broad agreement that the Chinese government has tried to steal American technology, including through the recruitment of scientists abroad.
Chinese partnerships with researchers and universities funded by the US have also helped promote Beijing developments in areas such as sub -language and nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence and semiconductors, according to a report posted by a committee last autumn.
US universities have challenged parts of this report, but also began to collaborate with Chinese institutions. In January, the University of Michigan ended its joint collaboration with a Chinese university.
Legislators have also raised concerns about the large number of Chinese students studying science and engineering in American campuses – sometimes using rhetoric that has been criticized as a fear.
“The difference is that Chinese students here in the US are not studying ancient Greek history – they are studying Stem and National Security issues here,” said Senator James Risch, Republican Chairman of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee. “And each of them, whether they like it or not, is an agent of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Critics say that resources could be better directed to neutralizing the real Chinese espionage threats. Such programs could also be reversed to US national security, helping to accelerate a talent that is the key to maintaining a scientific and technological advantage against China.
“There are real, genuine threats that need to be addressed, but we should not use a sledgehammer on the subject – we should use a scalpel,” said Gisla Perez Kusakawa, executive director of the Asian American Forum Scholar, a New York -based defense team.
A 2022 survey of scholars of Chinese origin found that 45 % of respondents who had previously received federal grants said they would avoid doing so in the future. In interviews, many concerns said they could undergo unnecessary racial profile.
The number of academic partnerships between researchers in the United States and China has also been reduced since 2017 and there are concerns that the restrictions on future research partnerships, such as those that Republicans recommended in their fall report, could reduce American scientists, such as US scientists.
Caroline Wagner, a professor of public policy at the Ohio State University, who advises the government on research security, said that given the open nature of scientific research, efforts to alleviate China from acquiring certain technologies could eventually “prove”.
Federal funding services and universities have recently taken steps to clarify which academics ties they need to disclose, which Dr. Wagner said it was a step in the right direction.
“I am not sure that it will need China’s initiative now given throughout the infrastructure that has been implemented,” he said.
Critics say Dr. Tao is a case study of how integrity issues have been exploited in academic research to support the spy accusations. It increased in a village in southwestern China, Dr. Tao moved to the United States in 2002 to follow a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Princeton. After working at various universities, he was hired by the University of Kansas in 2014 in a professor.
Known among his colleagues for his intense ethics, Dr. Tao continued to work after the allegations that came out even when they were suspended without remuneration, publishing dozens of documents. But it has also raised millions of dollars in legal accounts.
According to his lawsuit against the university, the FBI began his research after an unhappy visitor, a scholar, falsely accused Dr. Tao of being a spy. During the investigation, authorities discovered a work offer from Fuzhou University in southern China that Dr. Tao failed to reveal to the university.
Dr. Tao traveled to China to create a workshop and hire staff for the university, while telling officials at the University of Kansas that he was in Germany. But Dr. Tao told officials that he had nothing to reveal, since he never received money or signed a contract with Fuzhou University.
However, prosecutors said Dr. Tao had committed fraud hiding his offer and work with the Chinese Foundation from his University and two funding services, the National Foundation of Sciences and the Ministry of Energy.
A jury found him guilty of three cable fraud measurements and a number making a false statement. But in 2022, a federal judge threw fraud convictions, citing insufficient evidence that Dr. Tao had received money for his work in China.
“This is not a espionage case,” said US regional judge Julie Robinson. “If it were, they showed absolutely no proof that was happening.”
And in 2024, a Federal Court of Appeal closed the latest counting of a false statement, arguing that Dr. Tao’s failure to reveal had not affected a real funding decision.
In his lawsuit to return his job, Dr. Tao accused the University of Race -based discrimination, saying that other teachers who did not have Chinese descent did not face an end, although they had similar university -related interactions. The university, the lawsuit said, violated its own policies, failing to hear its employment status.
In addition to rehabilitation, Dr. Tao is looking for a payment for lost salaries, lawyers and damage to emotional discomfort and injury to his reputation.
“We cannot choose the country where we were born, where we came,” said Dr. Tao’s wife, an American citizen. “What we have experienced, this is a completely racial profile.”
