China Initiative: Effect Of Espionage Mission's Drift From Focus

The DOJ launched the program to "identify secret theft cases," but it hasn't been very successful.

A recent story involving the curious case of Professor Charles Lieber, the chair of the chemistry department at Harvard University, has floated under many people's radars recently.

On the surface, it's just a matter of tax fraud: just before Christmas, Lieber was convicted of six charges relating to false statements, wire fraud, and hiding financial support from a Chinese University. But this case was about so much more than tax fraud — it’s about espionage, academic freedom, and the escalating research wars between China and the US.  

The Lieber case was the first guilty verdict as a result of a Department of Justice program known as “The China Initiative.” In 2018, the DOJ launched the program to “identify secret theft cases” and enforcement over “non-traditional collectors” of information, like researchers in labs and universities.