The high price of overzealously defending the US research enterprise against theft by China

The US government—reflecting rare bipartisan consensus—has, of late, undertaken increasingly expansive and intrusive actions to stem the illicit flow of proprietary secrets and intellectual property to China. These actions also aim to reduce the benefits that accrue to China from expertise acquired by Chinese scholars and students during visits or extended stays in the United States. Underlying this consensus is evidence that China is stealing valuable proprietary information from the United States, characterized by FBI Director Christopher Wray as “a whole of society effort to steal from the United States” (1).

Talented scientists from China enrich campuses across the United States, including at elite institutions such as MIT, pictured here. Policies meant to protect intellectual property should be careful not to stymie these researchers’ important contributions. Image credit: iStock/Marcio Silva.

Although these government actions are well-intentioned, significant harm has resulted. The benefits to the United States from the influx of talented Chinese students, immigrant scientists, and visiting scholars to our universities have largely been ignored or poorly understood by policymakers. Numerous examples highlight the importance for the United States of welcoming talent from around the world, but most particularly from China. Understanding the implications of these examples underscores just how much we lose by enacting Draconian measures to stop Chinese scientists from coming to the United States.

Many of the concerns focused on intellectual property theft, economic competitiveness, and advancing military capabilities—extensively discussed in numerous articles and policy papers (2, 3)—are well founded. However, as professors of physics pursuing basic research, we argue that government must take into account the serious costs of restrictive US policies—adopted or proposed—that are seen as responses to these threats, particularly as they relate to fundamental scientific research at US universities.

Important Trade-Offs

No discussion of national policy and legislation should be undertaken without a serious cost–benefit analysis. US universities have achieved their world-leading stature as a direct consequence of their openness to outstanding students and scholars from around the world. In turn, our universities have been key to our national scientific and economic preeminence. The core missions of US universities are the production of new knowledge and the training of students, including new scientists—not the generation of proprietary intellectual property or patents (4).

The United States is a country of immigrants. The genius of our system is that from the earliest days, we have been able to attract dedicated, talented, ambitious people from around the world. Whether from the East or the West, their contributions have been fundamental to our economic and societal development.

The genius of our system is that from the earliest days, we have been able to attract dedicated, talented, ambitious people from around the world.

Immigrants from China have high levels of participation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields (5). When the US government denies a visa to a brilliant young Chinese scientist, it’s very unlikely that they are actually preventing a spy from entering the country. Much more likely: losing major contributions from a talented young person. When federal agents have questioned—or worse, prosecuted—innocent Chinese or Chinese-American scientists, the intent has often been to intimidate a much larger community of scientists, particularly Chinese-American scientists. Chinese students and scholars are hence discouraged from coming to the United States, and those who are here are discouraged from remaining. American scientists—especially Chinese-American scientists—or have become wary of collaborations with Chinese counterparts, even when such collaborations promise to be helpful or even essential to the research being undertaken. And they are increasingly afraid to apply for US government research funding, thus discouraging potentially important work. For the most part, the current policies are counterproductive; they fail to adequately weigh the benefits of active exchange of ideas and people with China.

One of the clearest examples of downsides came in the wake of World War II. Aerospace engineer and physicist Qian Xuesen (6) received his education in China before the war and hence before the conclusion of the Communist Revolution. Qian’s graduate study was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the California Institute of Technology. He went on to make significant contributions to US missile and rocketry development and worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II. Qian cofounded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and was widely recognized for brilliant and original contributions to many fields of science, both extremely practical and highly fundamental. However, during the McCarthy period in the early 1950s, he came under suspicion for having Communist sympathies and consequently lost his clearance; ultimately, he was placed under house arrest.

Qian apparently stated his reluctance to contribute to any US endeavor intended to be deployed in an armed conflict between China and the United States. This is not equivalent to treason. Of course, we cannot know what was in his heart, but no evidence has ever been produced that he engaged in espionage or passed any classified information to China. Indeed, many other American scientists at the time expressed concerns about using science to enable war. Eventually, after spending 5 years under house arrest, Qian was allowed to return to China. Once in China, Qian became a leading contributor to their missile and rocket development programs and to their nuclear program. He was known as the “Father of Chinese Rocketry” and lavishly honored by the Chinese government. Then-Under Secretary of the Navy Dan Kimball has been quoted (7) as saying, “It was the stupidest thing this country ever did. He was no more a Communist than I was, and we forced him to go.” Whatever one might imagine were the security benefits of expelling Qian, it’s very hard to believe that they were in any way commensurate with the losses.

Or consider the much more recent case of Xi Dai, a theoretical physicist, whom one of us knows personally. Dai is chair of physics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (8). He played a central role in the discovery and exploration of a new class of quantum materials known as “topological insulators.” An enormous ongoing international effort seeks to exploit the unique properties of topological insulators to form the building blocks of novel approaches for more efficient electronics. If successful, this could have a transformative impact in many technologies (9). Dai is at the center of this activity.

In January of 2021, the Materials Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) announced (10) that Dai was joining their faculty. This was an exciting development for materials physics in the United States and a coup for UCSB. Alas, the announcement was premature. Dai, with the backing and support of the University of California, applied for an O-1 visa (11) over a year ago. The visa application was subsequently denied in July 2022, under section 212a3Ai of 8 USC 1182: Inadmissible aliens (12). A second application was also denied in April 2023.

Like any university scientist, Dai, as we know from personal interactions, dreams of making important discoveries and sharing them with the world by publishing them in widely disseminated international scientific journals. He dreams of training students who will go on to make even more unexpected contributions to our understanding and mastery of the physical world we inhabit. By blocking his entry into the country, we are losing an opportunity to attract an excellent Chinese scientist. That represents a flawed policy, not hard-nosed “real politic.”

And consider the story of MIT Professor Gang Chen (13). In January 2021, he was arrested, not allowed to travel outside of Massachusetts, and charged (14) with various crimes under the Department of Justice’s now-abolished China Initiative. The charges were all dropped (15) 1 year later—the federal prosecutors involved acknowledged that there was ultimately no evidence of wrongdoing.

Several articles have noted the injustice and the undeserved suffering that this case brought to Chen and his family (16, 17). Less discussed are the practical implications. During the year he was under investigation, Chen was banned from campus, and his contact with students and postdocs was restricted. His very productive MIT laboratory was dismantled. Fortunately, MIT did put Chen on leave with salary while the federal case was being pursued, and they paid all of his substantial legal expenses.

After his exoneration, one might have worried that Chen would conclude—as had Qian Xuesen before him—that since the United States had rejected him, there was no reason for him to stay. There can be no doubt that China—indeed, many countries around the world—would welcome him enthusiastically. Chen was already renowned for cutting-edge research in nanotechnologies and, more generally, in mechanical engineering. He was elected to the US National Academy of Engineering in 2010, to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018, and to the US National Academy of Sciences in 2023.

Fortunately, Chen has continued to work at MIT, although he says that he will no longer accept government funding for his research (18). Just months after being exonerated, Chen coauthored a paper on a novel semiconductor called cubic boron arsenide (19). The results suggest that this material has electronic properties superior to other semiconductors (mostly silicon) that form the basis of all modern electronics. This work is still exploratory, but the discovery could have a big impact in the years to come (20).

Policies and politicians should, of course, recognize that the governance of China is increasingly authoritarian. But ideological policy prescriptions that lead to major decoupling and isolation are dangerous and harmful to the US national interest.

Capitalizing on Collaborations

Numerous studies have attempted to quantify the losses resulting from government policies designed to protect the United States. A major takeaway: The toxic research environment resulting from these policies is helping the Chinese government convince scientists to return to China or persuading them not to immigrate to the United States. For example, a survey (21) in 2021 of scientists (faculty, staff, and graduate students) at 83 highly ranked US research universities found that when noncitizen scientists were asked about their plans to stay in the United States, 42.1% of Chinese scientists said the Department of Justice’s “China Initiative” and related FBI investigations have affected their plans to stay in the United States, compared to just 7.1% of non-Chinese scientists. In 2021 alone, more than 1,400 Chinese scientists left the United States for China, according to a report (22) from scholars at Harvard, Princeton, and MIT. These departures have continued (23). In contrast, before the China Initiative, nearly 80% of Chinese students receiving advanced degrees in the United States remained here, thereby contributing significantly to the STEM talent needed in the US workforce.

Although the China Initiative was formally terminated in February 2022 (24, 25), its damage persists. The initiative must be replaced with policies that avoid racial profiling while addressing the real challenges posed by our relations with the People’s Republic of China. We must find ways to protect our national security while nurturing beneficial scientific collaborations between US and Chinese scientists. We need policies that encourage an influx of talented individuals of all origins. For example, Congress should consider the Keep STEM Talent Act—a bipartisan bill first introduced in the Senate in 2019 (26) and recently reintroduced (27)—that would provide lawful permanent residence for many advanced STEM degree holders, along with their spouse and children.

Policies and politicians should, of course, recognize that the governance of China is increasingly authoritarian. But ideological policy prescriptions that lead to major decoupling and isolation are dangerous and harmful to the US national interest. Where safeguarding national security is necessary, government officials should, of course, classify research, and such work should not be conducted on open university campuses. Research and development that directly and substantially contribute to advancing military capabilities should certainly be done in secure national laboratories or secure industrial laboratories.

In most cases, however, sufficient security can be ensured without curtailing international academic scientific exchanges. Indeed, we should encourage open and transparent cooperation, particularly academic exchanges and research collaborations. Scientists in China contribute significantly to advancing scientific knowledge in many areas—for example, advanced materials (28). China now leads the world in citation counts of publications in top science journals (29). Open and transparent scientific research collaboration with China has clear benefits for the United States and US researchers. In addition, collaborations provide channels for diplomacy and could go a long way toward addressing the challenges, from climate change to pandemics, that face the globe.