Science suffers when the DOJ profiles scientists with ties to China
Federal funding agencies need to do more to prevent minor mistakes and to protect valuable international collaborations
Scientists working in the United States who have familial or scientific ties to China are increasingly concerned that they’ll be caught up in the US government’s imprecise effort to root out researchers stealing scientific secrets for the Chinese government.
The US Department of Justice’s China Initiative, launched in 2018, has indeed nabbed a few genuinely bad actors, but it has also netted scientists who’ve evidently done nothing wrong or simply made paperwork mistakes that could have been prevented by proper training and oversight.
Federal agencies that fund science need to be honest with the scientific community about what is and isn’t a legitimate threat, and they need to be transparent about how they make those determinations. Furthermore, funding agencies have a responsibility to train scientists in grant-funded positions to accurately report potential conflicts of interest and other funding sources.