Tracking paranoid rhetoric, visa restrictions, and the targeted policing of China-connected research, which combine to create a hostile atmosphere for Chinese people in the U.S.
“Faculty members, post-docs, research staff and students tell me that, in their dealings with government agencies, they now feel unfairly scrutinized, stigmatized and on edge – because of their Chinese ethnicity alone.”
—MIT President L. Rafael Reif, June 25, 2019.
Since early 2018, the American immigration and justice system has appeared to target Chinese students, and ethnically Chinese researchers, with paranoid rhetoric, visa restrictions, and targeted policing and politicization of China-connected research. Together, these three trends comprise the primary — but not only — components of the current atmosphere of suspicion and distrust in America of not just Beijing, but Chinese people as a whole.
This tool tracks rising Sinophobia in the U.S. Click on the filters to view different categories of Sinophobia-related developments, including Responses to Sinophobia, like the letter by the MIT President cited above.
Read about why The China Project launched this Sinophobia Tracker, in the words of our Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Goldkorn.
The U.S. Justice Department dropped its case against Chen Gang, the MIT nanotechnology professor whom it accused a year ago of failing to disclose China ties. The U.S. government “badly…misunderstood the details surrounding scientific and academic collaboration,” said Chen’s lawyer.
The U.S. Department of Justice launched the “China Initiative” two years ago to counter perceived “national security threats.” But the program came under fire from many civil society groups that were concerned with the FBI’s overreach, and especially with racial and ethnic profiling.
This week, the Sinica Podcast is an interview with the investigative reporters who published a scathing indictment of the China Initiative in the MIT Technology Review.
"The U.S. government’s China Initiative sought to protect national security. In the most comprehensive analysis of cases to date, MIT Technology Review reveals how far it has strayed from its goals."
“A chilling effect has taken hold on American campuses,” the New York Times reports in the aftermath of the prosecution and acquittal of nanotechnology professor Hú Ānmíng 胡安明 of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Hu told the NYT that the trial was “the darkest time of my life,” adding, “My basic human rights were invaded, my reputation was destroyed, my heart was deeply hurt, my family was hurt.” Scientists and university administrators say that the U.S. government targeting of ethnic Chinese scientists “has slowed research and contributed to a flow of talent out of the United States that may benefit Beijing.”
Launched by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2018, the China Initiative is a government program gone rogue. Will it be shut down after the suspensions of half a dozen investigations ended without prosecution or any evidence of wrongdoing?
"Hu Haizhou, who was studying underwater robotics, had permission to access code he allegedly stole… The development is a black eye for the Justice Department in its recent series of cases against Chinese military-linked researchers studying in the U.S."
"As the Trump administration continues to scrutinize all aspects of America’s relations with China, the University of North Texas has expelled 15 Chinese researchers who were funded by the Chinese Scholarship Council, a government organization."
"Scientists in China have told Nature that they are reluctant to travel to the United States for conferences or other research activities even when pandemic travel restrictions lift."
A July 8 SCMP article follows the plight of Lǐ Xiǎojiāng 李晓江, a tenured professor at Emory who was fired unceremoniously after Emory launched an investigation into his work with a research lab in China. In the article, Lǐ details how Emory’s failure to provide complete documentation to the FBI led to his being swept up in the DOJ’s ‘China Initiative.’
