Suspicion of Chinese-Born Researchers Threatens US Innovation
January 27, 2021
Caroline Wagner responds to the arrest of MIT engineering professor Gang
Chen earlier this month.
(7postman/E+ via Getty Images)
By Caroline Wagner
The Ohio State University
The arrest of MIT engineering professor Gang Chen on Jan. 14 has drawn
attention to the role of China in U.S. science and technology system. It's
not the first time suspicions have fallen on a Chinese-born scientist - Chen
is a naturalized U.S. citizen - for work they conduct openly in the United
States.
The charges against Gang Chen - wire fraud, failing to report a foreign bank
account and a false statement on a tax return - stem from failing to
disclose Chinese funding for his research. MIT called the allegations
"distressing," and the school's president and 100 faculty members are
defending a Chinese university's investment in MIT research. No evidence of
spying has been made public, but a Department of Justice criminal complaint
expressed suspicions that Chen's loyalty may not be aligned with American
interests.
These kinds of investigations risk damaging one of the U.S.'s most important
assets: open inquiry.
The U.S. government's scrutiny of Chinese Americans and Chinese scholars
runs up against the value of open scientific exchange. My research on
international collaboration in science has shown that open nations have
strong science. Nations that accept visitors and send researchers abroad,
those that engage richly in cross-border collaborations and fund
international projects produce better science and excel in innovation.
Closing doors inhibits the very trait that makes the U.S. innovation system
the envy of the world.
For six decades, the United States has been the mecca for smart people
interested in conducting research. But this changed under the Trump
administration: Government agencies looked with extra scrutiny at scholars
from China for fear they planned to steal intellectual property. In a speech
to U.S. academics, an FBI official has stated, ".the greatest long-term
threat to our nation's information and ideas and to our economic vitality
and leadership is the threat from the Chinese government."
Scrutinizing Chinese researchers as if their actions automatically deserve
suspicion threatens to poison the relationship between the U.S. and China,
the rising world power in science and technology. I contend that cutting off
this relationship makes the American innovation system more vulnerable, not
safer. U.S. strength is in rapid innovation in an open environment; China's
choice for a more closed society may work against their innovation goals,
but we should not turn it against our own.
Different Countries, different treatment
The tales of two rocket scientists reflect what I consider the danger
inherent in fears of Chinese influence.
Qian Xuesen writes on chalkboard
Undated photo of Qian Xuesen.
(Shizhao/Wikimedia Commons)
Qian Xuesen, a Chinese-born scientist educated at MIT, helped the United
States win World War II with contributions to jet propulsion research. After
the war, Qian worked at Caltech publishing brilliant science.
Sadly for him, the early days of American rocket science coincided with
growing suspicions about foreign influence in the United States, similar to
concerns seen now. Qian's coworkers began to worry whether he was American
enough in his allegiances.
At the same time that suspicions gathered around Qian and others, the
American government's secret Operation Paperclip brought Wernher von Braun
and other Nazi military rocket scientists to the United States. Von Braun
and others spent a decade under military custody, accelerating the American
rocket program.
Both Qian and von Braun spent the early 1950s under house arrest, but for
different reasons and with different ends. Although no evidence was ever
presented, in 1955, Qian was deemed a spy and deported. China welcomed him
back, building him a laboratory; he is called "the father of Chinese space
technology." Encouraging Qian to remain in the U.S. likely would have
delayed Chinese advances in missile technology.
Model rocket with von Braun and JFK
Wernher von Braun (center) explained the Saturn Launch System to President
John F. Kennedy.
(NASA, CC BY)
In contrast, von Braun led U.S. rocket science to success in the Cold War's
space race. He went on to great acclaim in the United States and became an
American citizen, working for NASA for the rest of his life.
American suspicions about China have a long history, fed by xenophobia and
anti-Communist views. Even now, U.S. law prohibits NASA from cooperating
with China. As China has grown to be the world's largest high-tech exporter,
fears and anger grow that China is stealing U.S. know-how. China's case is
complicated by its sheer size as well as internal links between science and
military technology.
Chinese Scholars in the US
Even in the face of political tensions and visa challenges, the number of
international Chinese students and scholars moving to the U.S. for higher
education and to participate in research and development grew spectacularly
in the decade leading up to the Covid-19 pandemic.
two women with U.S. and China flags, one wearing a graduation gown
Two students from China celebrate their 2019 graduation from Columbia
University in New York.
(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Chinese students studying in the United States in 2017 numbered about
141,000 undergraduates and 125,000 graduate students. An estimated 4,400
Chinese scholars (which can include students) came to the U.S. in 2017 to
work in American labs, joining more than 9,000 already in the U.S. Chinese
doctorate earners graduating from American universities in 2018 with plans
to remain in the U.S. numbered more than 4,000 - similar to the preceding
five years.
What Happens When Scientists Migrate
The "mosaic theory" has been borrowed from finance to apply to Chinese
students, visitors and emigres in the United States. U.S. government
officials fear that each visitor could each be contributing a single "tile"
of knowledge that, once recombined in China, construct complicated mosaic
patterns of deep scientific and technological insights and capacities.
This idea assumes that China possesses a great deal of core knowledge needed
to reassemble the information. It would also rely on a herculean feat of
organization.
Moreover, the mosaic theory misunderstands science and technology, which is
quite unlike finance where a dollar can be in only one place at a time.
Scientific research is shared and multiplied through open exchange,
communication and mobility. Knowledge held in secret gets old and stale very
quickly. Researchers who do not share are shunned: It is exchange and
recombination that creates the value.
Columned building at MIT
MIT is just one illustrious U.S. university that is an adopted home for
scholars from around the world.
(Maddie Meyer/Getty Images News via Getty Images)
The United States has benefited mightily from the openness of its system to
welcome smart people from anywhere in the world to help build a knowledge
base. One-third of Nobel Prizes awarded to U.S.-based scientists have gone
to immigrants. People who spend time in the U.S. and later return home often
continue to link to their American counterparts, creating a global network
of connections with broad global (and national) benefits.
Covid-19 research and development experiences highlight the benefits of
openness. In the earliest days of the pandemic, Chinese researchers
galvanized world research by publishing the genome sequence of the novel
coronavirus. International coronavirus researchers who had formed
connections over the decade prior to Covid-19's emergence were energized
into action. Rapidly, Chinese and U.S. scientists increased their
cooperation on virology, immunology and epidemiology to lay the groundwork
for rapid testing, treatment and vaccines. Regrettably, political actions on
both sides cooled the early actions and reduced the linkages, but vaccines
were on the way.
The United States can continue to discourage Chinese researchers from
participating in its research, stuck in binary mode of viewing relations as
so-called "great power competition." China is not an ally, so it does make
sense to me to restrict cooperation on military technologies.
But suspicions about Chinese researchers - ones echoing a Red Scare and
fears of spying - will send home the next Qian Xuesen to build China's
capabilities. I suggest the U.S. would benefit from recognizing the critical
role of open research, the enriched scientific capacities of many countries
and the benefits the United States receives thanks to knowledge created or
reintegrated here by immigrants and visitors.
