Outrage over plan to retry Chinese researcher

Asian American groups have expressed outrage over US federal prosecutors' plan to retry a Chinese-born researcher under the China Initiative.

The Justice Department filed a notice of intent Friday to pursue a retrial of Anming Hu, a former associate engineering professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, without stating the reason.

Hu was accused of concealing his affiliation with a Chinese university when he applied for grant funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). His original trial ended in a hung jury and mistrial in June.

Following the mistrial, which was the first trial under the China Initiative, civil rights groups and Asian-American scientific groups called upon the Biden administration to rescind the initiative, a program launched by the Trump administration to target researchers with ties to China, with the aim of combating economic espionage.

US Representative Judy Chu of California, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, expressed outrage that the Justice Department would continue to press its "flawed case", which she said is based on racial profiling.

"The case of Dr Anming Hu is the most glaring example of how investigations rooted in racial profiling lead to flimsy cases that cannot stand up in court. Worse, in order to justify this investigation, we know that FBI agents have falsified evidence," Chu said in a statement.

"Yet instead of accepting that Dr Hu does not in any way present a threat to our national security, the DOJ is disappointingly doubling down, pressing for a retrial to justify their fruitless investigation," she said.

Chu criticized FBI procedure, saying the agency started by racially profiling suspects and searching for a crime, instead of beginning with a crime and searching for a suspect. She said many of the FBI's cases under the China Initiative have been flawed, evident in the number of cases that have been dropped without explanation.

Last month, the Justice Department abruptly dropped visa fraud and other charges against five scientists from China in five separate cases, including a mathematics professor, three biomedical and cancer researchers in California, and a doctoral candidate studying computer science in Indiana. Prosecutors didn't provide explanations in their motions to dismiss.

Nearly 100 members of Congress, led by Congressman Ted Lieu of California, sent a letter Thursday to US Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting an investigation to determine whether the Justice Department, under the China Initiative, uses race in targeting people for arrest and other adverse actions.

The US government's decision to retry Hu is to "confirm an utter disregard for justice and our democracy", said John Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice.

"This trial has exposed the deeply problematic investigations, surveillance and prosecutions of Asian Americans and Asian immigrants," he said.

During Hu's first trial, court documents and courtroom testimony showed that prosecutors brought fraud charges after nearly two years of surveilling Hu and failing to find evidence of economic espionage or other criminal activity.

"Rather than dropping the case upon finding no evidence of economic espionage, the FBI sought to charge Professor Hu with wire fraud based on an alleged willful failure to disclose despite Professor Hu following his university's policy," said Yang.

According to a July 29 report by Knox News, University of Tennessee administrators were manipulated by the FBI to "hand over documents from Hu's university files without a warrant, concealed the federal investigation from him, misled NASA at the behest of a federal agent, set Hu up for his eventual arrest and fired him as soon as he was in handcuffs".

The Asian American Scholar Forum is urging the university to reinstate Hu's tenure, provide back pay and his full salary and benefits. The group called on the university to correct the injustice against Hu, as "it has become clear that the decision of suspending Prof Hu's tenure was made on the basis of the false accusation of him as a Chinese spy from the FBI".

Following the Justice Department's retrial announcement, APA Justice said it is "outraged" by the department's "blatant" disregard of the facts and misconduct in the first trial of Hu.

"What happened to Professor Hu and his family is not an isolated event; it is part of systemic racial bias, discrimination, and profiling by our federal government against scientists and researchers of Asian descent across the country despite its declared intent to combat economic espionage," said the group.

OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates said it was "deeply disappointed" by the government's decision to retry Hu.

"The original trial laid bare the misguided and systemic efforts to strip Asian Americans and Asian immigrants of their civil liberties and shows the entrenched anti-Asian sentiment rampant among some members of law enforcement," said Linda Ng, the groups' president. "And more importantly, it incurred a high emotional and financial toll on Hu and his family."