American hospitals and universities need to be alert for Chinese espionage operations targeting sensitive research, according to a trio of Republican senators.
“Every hospital, business, and university in our nation needs to be vigilant and proactive about this risk,” Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, two Florida Republicans, warned in a letter signed by Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton.
The three lawmakers issued that warning in response to a scandal at Moffitt Cancer Center in Florida last month, when six researchers were fired for secretly participating in a program that federal investigators regard as an unconventional Chinese intelligence-gathering operation. China hawks regard innovation and new technology as one of the main arenas for an intensifying geopolitical competition between Washington and Beijing.
“We should all be very concerned about the threat of Communist China and its attempts to steal U.S. research and intellectual property,” the senators wrote on Friday to American Hospital Association President Richard Pollack. “We understand the importance of conducting collaborative research, but U.S. hospitals, businesses, and universities must protect their taxpayer-funded research from Communist China.”
The scandal at Moffitt Cancer Center involved a Chinese American researcher who allegedly recruited CEO Alan List and three other colleagues to join China’s Thousand Talents program that aims to recruit high-level scientists and talents from abroad. The Florida researchers were paid tens of thousands of dollars each for their participation but failed to disclose those contracts to their employer.
The scandal comes on the heels of FBI officials warning lawmakers about the de facto espionage risk these programs create.
“While mere participation in a talent plan is not illegal, investigations by the FBI and our partner agencies have revealed that participants are often incentivized to transfer to China the research they conduct in the United States, as well as other proprietary information to which they can gain access, and remain a significant threat to the United States,” John Brown, the FBI’s assistant director for counterintelligence, told Senate investigators in November.
The Moffitt controversy sparked increased attention from already wary U.S. officials.
“We cannot take this threat lightly, and we urge each one of your members to do a full, in-depth review of any relationship to China’s talent recruitment programs,” the senators wrote.
