Additionally, it's systematic, from the article and in the same week:

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.

I don’t think the article suggests China did anything nefarious, other than paying a US professor to do some research in China and help develop a university in China. Which in my opinion is what every other country should try to do with good foreign researchers. In this case the game seems to be played by the researcher.

> While no one figures it out, China wins.

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.

Professor != researcher. It's more like a research manager. Not a huge loss to the field.

I would be willing to bet money that there are literally 0 tier-1 tenured research professors that didn't make significant contributions 'on their own' before becoming PI's in the US. (although 'on their own' is questionable anyway since this was probably in someone else's lab)..

Yes, they've made those contributions in the past. By the time they become professors they're mostly mooching off their grad students' work.

A nicer way to put it would be they're managing and directing research projects.

Also makes it easier to poach info from multiple research streams...