Stoking fear of Chinese scholars and students

The rhetoric about Chinese scholars is dangerous, Frank Wu warns. By broadly assuming that Chinese scholars pose a threat to higher education and the broader society, the U.S.A. has become a baffling, if not a hostile, place. These conditions could drive scholars who would otherwise contribute  their research, teaching, and cultural knowledge away as well as foster a resentment toward the U.S.A. that will be extremely negative over the long haul.

Unfortunately, the FBI continues to urge U.S.A. higher education to watch what is happening in theft of intellectual property by China. In remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations, FBI Director Christopher Wray remarked that, "China has pioneered a societal approach to stealing innovation in any way it can from a wide array of businesses, universities, and organizations," and "They're doing it through Chinese intelligence services, through state-owned enterprises, through ostensibly private companies, through graduate students and researchers, through a variety of acts, all working on behalf of China." Specific examples of theft of intellectual property include a faculty member who worked at Emory University and another is from Harvard University where cancer research findings were presumed stolen by a Chinese medical student.

In another protectionist move, Republicans in the U.S.A. Congress have proposed to deny visas to all students and scholars who have Chinese military ties.

U.S. academic groups are now pushing back against the FBI. Pen America, the American Association of University Professors, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and 19 other higher education associations came together to publish a statement that included the warning, "Federal agencies need to clarify and specify their concerns, and ensure that their efforts do not trample on individual rights nor on the principle of free and open academic inquiry and exchange."

Liz Reisberg warned that other countries have been vilified in the past and that characterizing all scholars from a particular country seldom leads to fair or positive results. She wrote, "Creating 'monsters' does not serve us well. In the case of China, assuming all Chinese students and scholars who are at universities abroad are government agents does a great injustice to the thousands of talented individuals who have contribute economically and academically to the institutions where they have enrolled.