>>6773696

1/2

U.S. Targets Efforts by China, Others to Recruit Government Scientists

Officials say Energy Department researchers are recruited by military-affiliated groups and lured with multimillion-dollar packages

By Timothy Puko and Kate O’Keeffe

Updated June 10, 2019 6:50 p.m. ET

The U.S. Energy Department is banning its researchers from joining Chinese talent-recruitment programs after finding personnel were recruited by foreign military-linked programs and lured with multimillion-dollar packages.

The move is the latest attempt by the Trump administration to stave off what it sees as China’s pervasive theft of U.S. science and technology, and it comes as tensions between Washington and Beijing continue to rise.

Trade talks between the U.S. and China foundered last month when the Trump administration accused China of reneging on previously negotiated agreements—an allegation Beijing denies. Both sides have raised tariffs on each other’s goods and drawn each other’s companies into the fray.

After U.S. officials cut Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co. off from critical U.S. suppliers, Chinese authorities summoned top U.S. tech firms including Microsoft Corp. and Dell Technologies Inc. to warn them about repercussions if they were to pare back business dealings in China.

President Trump called into CNBC Monday morning and said he is taking on China for the future of the country, even if it may hurt U.S. businesses in the short term. He said U.S. tariffs will force companies to leave China, giving the U.S. a competitive advantage.

China is “going to make a deal because they’re going to have to make a deal,” he said in the interview.

The Energy Department has become a major target for economic espionage, its leaders said, because it is the government’s primary scientific agency, supporting wide-ranging programs from elemental research in physical science up to work enhancing the military’s nuclear arsenal. The ban will apply to more than 100,000 people, mostly contractors, at a network of sites and labs across the country, often researching subjects considered vital to national security, including energy production, artificial intelligence and nuclear physics.

One would “almost have to be willfully blind” to ignore the threat China poses, said Dan Brouillette, U.S. deputy energy secretary, in an interview. “The threat is that they will take technology and research that is paid for by the American taxpayer that in many cases has dual-use applications” in both commerce and defense, he said.

The White House is leading an effort to protect government science programs from intellectual property theft. In May it created a joint committee including Energy Department leadership that, among other goals, intends to make recommendations that can be applied across the administration, officials said.

As of Monday, the Energy Department is requiring all personnel and nearly all contractors to disclose connections to foreign-government programs designed to recruit scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs, according to a new order that implements a plan reported by The Wall Street Journal in February. Employees working with any programs deemed to be sensitive from a national-security perspective will have to sever those ties or resign from the department, according to the document and department officials.

The department has found that foreign talent programs have offered scientists in its national lab system hundreds of thousands of dollars—in some cases millions of dollars—to conduct research. In some instances, Energy Department laboratory personnel have been recruited by foreign military-affiliated talent programs, Mr. Brouillette said.

While Energy Department counterintelligence personnel will develop a comprehensive list of recruitment programs that will be covered by the order, China and iterations of its Thousand Talents Plan are already squarely in the department’s sights, officials said. The order also prohibits countries considered to be adversaries, currently Russia, Iran and North Korea in addition to China, from using talent programs to pay or otherwise lure scientists in the U.S. to help develop technology, officials said.

China’s Thousand Talents websites name more than 300 U.S. government researchers who have accepted the program’s money, James Mulvenon, general manager at U.S. defense contractor SOS International LLC, told the Senate Judiciary Committee at a December hearing. The Chinese government targets a mix of Americans and foreign nationals, and doesn’t limit recruitment efforts to people of Chinese ethnicity.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/energy-department-bans-personnel-from-foreign-talent-recruitment-programs-11560182546

>>6774218

2/3

Participants in such programs “travel from the U.S. at Chinese government expense, divulge technical knowledge through scripted venues, are briefed on China’s technology interests, return to their U.S. “base” for more information, and repeat the process,” Mr. Mulvenon told senators.

The threat is now growing, according to U.S. officials, as other countries hostile to the U.S. seek to emulate China’s success to nurture their own programs to bolster scientific developments.

China has denied orchestrating a systematic plan to steal U.S. technology. “China places a high priority on protecting intellectual-property rights and improving its business operating environment,” the Commerce Ministry told the Journal last year.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The administration’s effort to stave off intellectual property theft by China has also led to similar steps at other agencies. The National Institutes of Health last summer urged more than 10,000 research entities to discern whether federal grant recipients had properly reported affiliations with foreign governments or entities. The National Science Foundation has commissioned a review of how to better balance open science with national security, and it is trying to improve its disclosure process for outside affiliations, including support from foreign governments.

Mr. Brouillette said the new policy is necessary because the Energy Department didn’t previously require all employees and contractors to disclose their participation in foreign government programs. Its rules didn’t make “crystal clear” in every situation that it was illegal or improper to participate, especially for contractors, and codifying the department’s policy provides the legal standing to enforce a ban in future, Mr. Brouillette added.

“It gives us the ability to go after folks, if you will,” he said.

The department oversees 17 national laboratories. They employ about 15,000 federal workers and another 100,000 contractors. It is also home to the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semiautonomous agency in charge of maintaining the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.

Closing the loophole at the Energy Department is critical not only to protecting its own research but to preventing the threat from metastasizing if scientists build on experiences at multiple agencies, said Mr. Brouillette.

“You can conduct genetic-type research at NIH, for instance, and then work your way into a DOE laboratory where we’re doing similar work and then potentially work your way into a defense laboratory that does similar work, and you can theoretically combine all those experiences and put those things together in a way that creates a threat,” he said.

Once Energy Department scientists pledge to quit problematic foreign talent programs, it would be up to counterintelligence officials to determine whether the scientists continue to present a security risk, said Mr. Brouillette. Disclosure of participation also wouldn’t necessarily prevent a possible prosecution of the scientist later on, he said. At the same time, lying could also lead to charges.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/energy-department-bans-personnel-from-foreign-talent-recruitment-programs-11560182546

>>6774229

3/3

In February 2018, a Chinese-American oceanographer pleaded guilty in federal court to illegally accepting a salary from a Chinese talent program while he was employed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Last month, a former Energy Department scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which does nuclear-weapons research, was indicted on a charge of making false statements about his alleged involvement with a Chinese talent-recruitment program. The scientist, who is Indian-American, has pleaded not guilty.

Advocacy groups are warning against a witch hunt against scientists of Chinese descent. In a letter to Mr. Trump dated June 4, the Committee of Concerned Scientists—a nonprofit group that advocates for scientific freedom—alleged that the U.S. government was waging a “campaign of intimidation of ethnic Chinese scientists” and called for it to “make a public statement assuring them that they will be treated as equal valuable members of the American society.”

Mr. Brouillette said that concerns about racial profiling were political and that the department’s policy was a common-sense approach to protecting U.S.-funded research. He said that all employees, regardless of ethnicity or national origin, would be required to disclose any connections to foreign governments. He also said that, in consultation with lab directors, the department had decided to tailor the policy to apply only to talent-recruitment programs targeting research and that it wouldn’t affect cooperative programs or MOUs with friendly countries.

Write to Timothy Puko at tim.puko@wsj.com and Kate O’Keeffe at kathryn.okeeffe@wsj.com

Appeared in the June 11, 2019, print edition as 'U.S. Targets China on Recruitment.'

https://www.wsj.com/articles/energy-department-bans-personnel-from-foreign-talent-recruitment-programs-11560182546