More than 1,000 experts flee country on tech theft scrutiny

More than 1,000 Chinese researchers have left the US amid a crackdown on alleged technology theft, top US security officials said on Wednesday, adding that Chinese agents have already been targeting the incoming Biden administration.

China dismissed the accusations as “ludicrous”.

John Demers, chief of the US justice department’s national security division, told a discussion hosted by the Aspen Institute think-tank that the researchers had left the country as the department launched multiple criminal cases against Chinese operatives for industrial and technological espionage.

A justice department official said they were a different group to those mentioned by the state department in September, when it said the US had revoked visas for more than 1,000 Chinese nationals under a presidential measure denying entry to students and researchers deemed security risks.

The official said the researchers Demers referred to, who US authorities believe were affiliated with China’s People’s Liberation Army, fled the US after FBI interviews in more than 20 cities and the US closure of China’s Houston consulate in July.

“Only the Chinese have the resources and ability and will” to engage in the breadth of foreign influence activity that US agencies have experienced in recent years, Demers said.

William Evanina, chief of the counterintelligence branch of the office of the US director of national intelligence, told the same event that Chinese agents were already targeting personnel of the incoming administration of president-elect Joe Biden, and “people close” to his team. He did not elaborate. Biden’s transition team declined to comment. His campaign team said over the northern summer it expected cyberattacks and was prepared.

In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a news briefing the US accusations were ludicrous, before adding, “In the eyes of some Americans, there is only hatred, division and confrontation.”

ONLY THE CHINESE ARE ABLE TO ENGAGE IN THE BREADTH OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE ACTIVITY RECENTLY

Evanina said Chinese researchers in the US who were under scrutiny of agencies are “all coming here at the behest of the Chinese government”.

China described the visa crackdown earlier this year as naked political persecution and racial discrimination that seriously violated human rights.

China-US relations have deteriorated to their worst in decades during outgoing US President Donald Trump’s tenure with disputes simmering over issues from trade and technology to Hong Kong and the coronavirus.