He lied on a sworn affidavit, basically, when going out for his grants which includes a background check. You swear your statements to be true. He lied. It doesn’t matter what country is in vogue at the time, and in 2012 China was very much considered a threat for these exact kinds of things.

This is pretty black and white, assuming the evidence presented is legit, which he will have the opportunity to oppose in court.

I don't think that the parent comment is arguing that what he did was justified back then, but now it isn't. They explicitly state that it was definitely a violation of rules even back then.

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.

Fair point. I am also suggesting it was a serious problem in 2012 that was already recognized by the government. Hard to think of a period in recent memory when China has not been considered a threat for this kind of thing.

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.

I have a real hard time getting past "oh well nobody cares now I'll just lie to U.S. Defense Department....".

If you're lying to them, maybe someone cares.

Chinese espionage on college campuses was very much on the government radar in 2012.

The paperwork telling him to disclose was probabbly a big hint.

The talks about China as a serious geopolitical rival go back a while longer than 2012, but even so, if he was completely unaware of any potential conflict of interest then he obviously could have disclosed this funding.

The fact that he hid it I think makes very clear that he was aware of the problematic nature of taking that money.

The president of the US in 2012 made fun of his opposition for calling Russia a serious national security threat.

It is bizarre how for so many that history just never happened. Not just the president but the press. At least the president was something of a man of "nuance", always trying to take positions somewhere in the middle. Though I do recall it was a somewhat awkward process as he came around to making increasingly stronger stands against his successor.

Of course the press (not to mention twitter mob) just toggled from the extreme on one side to the other.

It's not a threat to the national security of a nation surrounded by two oceans, and in possession of six thousand nuclear bombs, but it's a threat to some national political ambitions.

Whether those ambitions are worth pursuing is another matter entirely.

> He could not predict the change of direction of the U.S. foreign policy. How could he predict this in 2012?

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?

It is relevant, if it is not because of the change of direction of the U.S. foreign policy, he can still keep undetected.

> change of direction of the U.S. foreign policy, he can still keep undetected.

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 being asked to disclose at the time should tell him clearly what to do.

Wasn't China the #1 fear in 2012. More around the economy taking over/high growth rates / pegged currency. Russia only came back in vogue after Trump/election.

You have this a bit backwards. Russia sanctions predate Trump and were kept in place by Congress despite his efforts to overturn them. They were not put in place by Trump.