What next for the US’s China Initiative after the case against MIT’s Gang Chen falls apart?
By 
Rebecca Trager2022-01-21T10:47:00
The US’s probe into researchers’ ties to China and potential theft of intellectual property stands on a knife edge
It’s been a wild ride recently for those following the US government’s China Initiative, which the former Trump administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) instituted in 2018 to crack down on economic espionage and trade secret theft by China. Those following the saga can be forgiven for developing whiplash from the abrupt twists and turns.
Right before Christmas, Harvard’s former chemistry department chair, Charles Lieber, became the highest-profile academic convicted under the China Initiative . A jury found him guilty of not reporting ties to, and research funding from, China. The 62-year-old faces up to 26 years in prison and steep fines, on top of massive legal bills. Whatever the sentencing outcome, his late-stage lymphoma means there’s a good chance it’ll be life for Lieber.