China opposes stigmatizing talent program

China opposes all words and practices that stigmatize the "Thousand Talents Plan", a program designed to recruit talented people from overseas, which is of no difference from other countries' practices, said the Chinese embassy in the United States on Thursday.

An embassy spokesperson made the remarks after Charles Lieber, the former chair of Harvard University's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, was convicted on Tuesday for lying about his relations with the Chinese program.

Lieber, 62, pleaded not guilty to filing false tax returns, making false statements, and failing to file reports for a foreign bank account in China. His defense attorney Marc Mukasey argued that prosecutors lacked proof of the charges and maintained that investigators kept no records of their interviews with Lieber prior to his arrest.

His case is among the most high-profile ones to come from the US government's controversial "China Initiative". Launched in 2018 under former president Donald Trump, it has faced criticism that it harms academic research and amounts to racial profiling of Chinese researchers.

Hundreds of faculty members at Stanford, Yale, Berkeley and other prominent colleges have been calling for an end to the China Initiative, including about 40 of Lieber's colleagues who wrote a letter in March asking the government to drop the charges against him.

The spokesperson said the purpose of China's "Thousand Talents Plan" is to promote talent mobility between China and other countries, and to galvanize international cooperation in scientific and technological innovation. This is no different from other countries' practices in this area. The "Thousand Talent Plan" respects scientists, technology and protects intellectual property rights.

"The Chinese side opposes all words and practices that stigmatize the 'Thousand Talents Plan', supports and champions the global mobility of scientific knowledge and talent," the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson also said some media describes Lieber's ruling as a victory for the US government's "China Initiative". This is totally wrong and seriously misleading to the public. The US government claims that the China Initiative aimed at so-called economic espionage. However, based on the Department of Justice's news release, Lieber was convicted of false statements and tax related issues－both of which have nothing to do with economic espionage.

"We have noted that the US justice department's repression of scientists and damage to normal China-US scientific and technological exchange in the name of combating economic espionage has already evoked doubts among visionary people in the US," the spokesperson said. "We urge the US to listen to the call for justice from within, stop this wrong practice, and meet with China halfway to jointly maintain and promote normal scientific and technological exchanges and cooperation between the two countries."

Same lines

Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Wednesday that China manages international scientific exchanges along the same lines as the US and other countries. He called for some US government departments and politicians to stop stigmatizing such programs.

Hao Min, director of the Intellectual Property and Technology Security Research Center at the University of International Relations in Beijing, said the US government's extensive investigations have severely hampered international cooperation in modern scientific research.

"Some issues that could have been solved by administrative measures and penalties within academic institutions could now easily become several 'federal felonies', resulting in chilling scientific and business collaborations with Chinese partners," she said, adding that it will greatly deteriorate the environment for China-US scientific and technological cooperation and people-to-people exchanges, and cause profound damage to the international scientific development.

Hao added that science has no borders, and called on the US government to live up to its commitment to the openness of science.

Contact the writers at chenyingqun@chinadaily.com.cn.