CHINA-US: US ARRESTS LEADING U.S. ACADEMIC FOR CONCEALING DETAILS OF WORKING FOR CHINA

Dr. Charles M. Lieber, the chair of Harvard’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, was charged on  January 28, with making false statements about money he had received from a Chinese government-run program ( the Ten Thousand Talents Programme), as part of a broad-ranging F.B.I. effort to root out theft of biomedical research from American laboratories.

Dr. Lieber, a leader in the field of nanoscale electronics, was one of three Boston-area scientists accused on January 28 of working on behalf of China. Dr Lieber has been accused of receiving up to $50,000 per month in salary and $150,000 per year in living expenses by Wuhan University of Technology. He was also awarded more than $1.5 million by the university and the Chinese government to build a laboratory in Wuhan. Researchers are legally obligated to disclose such payments to their academic institutions.

The second person charged is Dr. Zaosong Zheng, a Harvard-affiliated cancer researcher who prosecutors said was caught with 21 vials of cells stolen from a laboratory at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital. Dr. Zheng admitted that he planned to turbocharge his career by publishing the results in China, under his own name, according to federal prosecutors. He was charged with making false statements, and is being held without bail in Massachusetts, after a judge determined that he was a flight risk.

The third to be charged on January 28, is Ms. Yanqing Ye, who had been studying at Boston University until last spring. She was accused of lying to authorities about her status as a Lieutenant in the People’s Liberation Army. She was charged with visa fraud, making false statements, acting as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy, but as she is in China she was not arrested.







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