> Of the indictments, the largest group, representing 38% of the cases, charged academic researchers and professors with fraud such as failure to disclose relationships with Chinese educational institutions. None of them have been found to have spied for China. Nearly half of these cases have been dropped.
I'm surprised there isn't more pushback since there is an (unintended? intended?) chilling effect in what is otherwise branded as a free & open society.
> A university employee requested that Hu remove the letter from the application because it would violate an assurance document the university was submitting stating that the proposal had no restricted ties to China, the court documents say. A 2011 US law prohibits NASA from funding collaborations with China or Chinese businesses.
So (allegedly) the "university employee" told Hu to cover up potential illegal behavior by the university, or to protect the university from its belief that the government would mis-apply the law about "restricted ties".
But to answer your question, bringing in funding is both one of the most important and difficult jobs for a professor or researcher. So I assume some lied to unethically get a career boost, thinking they could just casually omit disclosing a role in China to get a chance at more funding.
The vast majority of scientists just want to do their job (research), but they have to play the funding game which gets deeply entangled with political bullshit. China offers the carrot (thousand talents) while USA offers the stick (China Initiative)
[1] https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2021/06/14/federal...
They did this entire witch-hunt, and that’s the only charge they think will stick? None of the fraud or spying allegations - just a lack of disclosure in a single form? We can’t even get Congress to disclose insider trading…
I look forward to the day we have a true rule of law, and more accountability from law enforcers.