He could not predict the change of direction of the U.S. foreign policy. China is taking place of Russia as the No. 1 threat. How could he predict this in 2012?
BTW, I am curious to know did he pay tax for those income? If not, that will be another very serious problem.
This is pretty black and white, assuming the evidence presented is legit, which he will have the opportunity to oppose in court.
The parent comment was just trying to make a suggestion, that if that scientist had stopped before the tide has turned against China in the past few years, then he probably would've gotten away with it. He did the calculations right for his chances of not being caught being pretty good back in 2012, he just simply didn't adjust them as the time passed and the situations changed. Or maybe he did the adjustment, but a lot of people tend lose their minds and get too greedy to stop before it is too late when it comes to big money.
Furthermore, juxtaposing the two statements implies a sort of grey area like that doesn’t make sense here. It’s hard to draw any conclusion other than greed and/or malice.
But then again, people can be smart in some areas and quite error prone in others. This was a really terrible miscalculation.
If you're lying to them, maybe someone cares.
The fact that he hid it I think makes very clear that he was aware of the problematic nature of taking that money.
Of course the press (not to mention twitter mob) just toggled from the extreme on one side to the other.
Whether those ambitions are worth pursuing is another matter entirely.
This isn't really that relevant, all he had to do was disclose his connections. It's not the crime, it's the cover up. The US govt certainly understands hundreds if not thousands of academics have connections to China. It's not a crime to accept research money. It's lying about it that's the issue. If you're lying to the country about who you work for, what else are you lying about?
I don't think he would have remained undetected and the timing of all of this isn't that important. The recipients of the 1000 talents programs aren't some huge secret. It's actually very likely that the government knew all along and was seeing who would lie about it. If he had disclosed his connections, he wouldn't be facing charges.
It's not a crime to accept research money from China as an academic. It is a crime to accept money from China, lie to the government about it, then accept US govt defense dollars.
Imagine if you were working at AWS but moonlighting at Google Cloud. No one would bat an eye if you were fired and taken to court.
I think how much trouble he is in is going to come down to whether he notified the IRS of the Chinese bank accounts. There is nothing juries hate more than millionaires who cheat on their taxes and it will look terrible if he hid the money.
If you are a tenured/tenure-track professor at a tier-1 research university, your name is literally your career - you don't rent this out lightly on some whim. You also don't take money from another institution to create the 'X+Y University Collaborative Research Lab' without running this by legal.
Further, the affidavit outlines more involved collaboration (co-advising / hosting / advising students, $800k to build a joint-lab etc).
While no one figures it out, China wins.
When some one figures it out, US loses a top researcher.
Win-win for China. Why wouldn't they play this game? It's a guaranteed win.
Yanqing Ye, 29, who is currently in China, is charged with one count each of "visa fraud, making false statements, acting as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy." She had been working at Boston University and is accused of lying about her position as a lieutenant in the Chinese military.
Zaosong Zheng, 30, was arrested last month at Boston's Logan International Airport and is charged with allegedly attempting to smuggle vials of biological materials and other research materials stolen from U.S labs. Zheng, who was a a Harvard-sponsored cancer researcher, has been indicted on that charge along with a count of making false statements.
Do they though? If China is hiring people who don't honestly fulfill their disclosure requirements, it may be the case that they're getting people who fake research results as well. They're actually selecting for low levels of integrity.
Also makes it easier to poach info from multiple research streams...
Simple. Most institutions simply do not CHECK. Think about how you'd detect that this is happening. You'd need to somehow gain evidence that they hold a bank account that is receiving funds originating from China.
Not easy. In fact, damn near impossible.
So let's look at this case...
> Lieber was also awarded more than $1.5 million by WUT and the Chinese government to establish a research lab and conduct research at Wuhan University of Technology.
> For a large part of the time frame in question, Lieber was also the principal investigator on at least six U.S. Defense Department research grants
...ah ha. So the DoD caught him because he was being so blatant.
Simply not true. FATCA is a thing, and the USG is comfortable hammering foreign banks for info. It's a lot harder with China, but they absolutely comply: https://www.china-briefing.com/news/china-agrees-fatca-compl...
This is also why that Chinese money goes to Canada (esp. Vancouver) -- the Canadian government doesn't dig as hard.
1. FACTS doesn't report domestic accounts that are funded by foreign sources.
2. Harvard didn't catch this - the DoD did.
The point is that other schools could not possibly detect this sort of behavior unless it becomes as wildly blatant as this guy did it.
According to the affidavit, there was a paper trail, contracts on both countries with a suspected spy agency, er University research department, etc etc. Not sure he knew what he really got into. Maybe did it once and then he got used to the money
Maybe like a foolish US tourist taking some recreational drugs to China?
(I'm not comparing the two issues in a moral way, just to show how different crimes can be minor/serious in different countries.)
Meanwhile:
>paid up to $50,000 a month, in addition to $150,000 per year
Seems pretty straightforward.
He must be a smart guy, I wonder how he thought he would get away with it?
Even if he could hide the money run of the mill espionage could find it.
He was supposed to do research at Wuhan University and even file for parents for and sort of promote that school. Hard to imagine nobody would notice that.
I wonder if he kept taking the money after he told investigators that he wasn't a part of the program? He had to suspect they were on to him?