> Also according to court documents, Wang provided information to CBP that he had been instructed by his supervisor, the director of his military university lab in the PRC, to observe the layout of the UCSF lab and bring back information on how to replicate it in China.
China’s intellectual property theft is really getting out of hand. It’s about we take a stand in one way or another.
On the other hand, if they think that they'll catch up by replicating things in the united states down to the layout of research labs... then that's kind of hilarious and they've really missed the point. It's like the Soviets copying the space shuttle and concorde. They're copying the wrong things, too late.
> Wang similarly told his supervising UCSF professor that he had duplicated some of the work of that professor at the lab in China. Some of the work of the UCSF lab was funded by grants from the United States Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health (NIH). Wang also wiped his personal phone of WeChat messaging content earlier the morning he arrived at LAX.
He's a "Level 9" PLA officer (apx. Major officer), if he spilled that out easily to CBP, definitely there's something more suspicious than just copy-cat labs design.
It doesn't say when the professors work was duplicated, it may have been a published experiment he duplicated at his university job. I imagine most US university medical labs have grant funding from those organizations, they don't even suggest Wang was involved with that research.
And wiping your phone before international travel, particular to China, is just smart. That doesn't imply wrongdoing.
Well, with TU 144 and Buran, the copying situation is rather interesting - both were substantially different that the Concorde and Space Shuttle. But the main copy aspect was that the politburo saw a cool thing and told the engineeres - we want THAT - NOW, get going on it or else.
> politburo saw a cool thing and told the engineeres
There was industrial espionage too. Considering they had the former and political backing, it's surprising how much of a disaster the 144 was - Not least because it was built for a market that didn't exist (comrade) in the Soviet Union, it was a noisy deathtrap. Their western equivalents flew somewhere on the order of a thousand times further (Concordski only did about 100 commercial flights)
> Well, with TU 144 and Buran, the copying situation is rather interesting - both were substantially different that the Concorde and Space Shuttle.
This is super common with industrial espionage. As a reductio ad absurdum after 1991 I believe the Russians sold working fighter jets with detailed blue prints and instructions on how to manufacture all the components to the Converse Chinese. They still failed to make a perfect copy. Same deal for whatever the Soviet copy of the B-52 was. Building a sophisticated piece of machinery when your supply chain is very different you have to make compromises and different choices and they all add up.
Not only that, but the Soviets realized that the STS (Space Transportation System) wasn't going to live up to its promises for flight rate and cost, and thought something else must be afoot.
IIRC the main thing Soviets feared was surprise strike on Moscow by nukes launched from a space shuttle.
This sounds rather absurd given that preparing a space shuttle for launch takes literally months. But the idea was, as far as I can tell, that it would launch on a regular mission, then use its heat shield and aerodynamic surfaces to change orbit inclination radically while out of reach of soviet radar, resulting in totally unexpected direct overflight of Moscow, making a decapitating strike possible.
Maybe you misread something? If I think something obviously looks like something else, that's not something you can disprove with a citation. There's no assumption involved.
Both the Mig-29 and Su-27 are based on the same aerodynamics research. That they look similar to the F-15 is probably more due to the fact that they were all designed to be air superiority fighters than any espionage.
"... the type entered large-scale service in 1949. Entry into service of the Tu-4 threw the USAF into a panic, since the Tu-4 possessed sufficient range to attack Chicago or Los Angeles on a one-way mission ...
It was different which means their was some arguable advantages, but it was less reusable and even more expensive to operate. They effectively copped the worst aspects of the shuttle and then made a lot of sacrifices to get it to fly. Which is why it only had a single unmanned flight.
It’s possible the USSR would have had more flights for propaganda reasons, but in a direct comparison the Souyuz was simply the better design. So it was the Soyuz program that continued after the USSR’s fall.
If the US had the space shuttle, the Soyuz, and common sense, they would also drop the space shuttle and fly the Soyuz. But apparently the US had neither the Soyuz nor common sense.
The Buran only existed in order to send a message. And it was also technically better designed than the space shuttle.
Sure it seemed more capable, but it was also designed for propaganda. For example the version of Buran that actually flew sacrificed the spacecrafts engines to get more stuff into orbit. The shuttle on the other hand returned with them. If you want a space truck, the Buran failed a primary design goal.
Now NASA did end up spending a lot of time refurbishing those engines, but if they wanted more frequent launches they could have simply built more engines. The program dramatically misunderstood how much they would be flying resulting in vastly higher costs over time.
Which was the major design flaw of both systems. Dig into things more and Buran was simply an even worse fit for either program than the Shuttle ended up being.
> then that's kind of hilarious and they've really missed the point.
Not quite, a layout, and process organisation of some high end labs are quite important, especially if you deal with some hazardous materials, and want to design protocols to avoid contamination/theft.
If he is a bacteriologist, then, moreover given what's in the news these days
I saw a Chinese copy of a Nazi pistol (mauser broomhandle) and at distance it is a 1-1 copy but on closer inspection you realize instead of being machined every single part was filed by hand by someone. It must have taken an incredible amount of time to make a pistol that way. Also they tried to copy the stamped lettering but most of it is jibberish. Very interesting.
This is bad read on the history of innovation. I offer two counter-examples, though there are many more:
(1) Japanese semiconductor industry, for which there is an excellent NHK documentary [1].
(2) After WW2, the British invited Soviet engineers to tour jet engine factories as a token of good faith. The engineers documented the factory layout, and wore adhesive on their shoes to gather metal filings for later analysis. A few years later, Mig-15's were shooting American planes out of the sky over Korea. A similar example: the British transferred huge bodies of knowledge to US aircraft engine manufacturers during WW2. This laid the foundation for the industry's future success.
(2) According to Mig-15 wp page, UK gave USSR an engine with blueprints. The part in your story about adhesive shoes sounds like an urban legend, unimportant detail at most.
Aerospace metallurgy is some of the most secretive aspects of development. Metal filings could literally have been more valuable than the blueprints. This is still a very competitive space a challenge for reverse engineering. Even with samples and atomic analyses, it is not always possible possible to reproduce without the proper method.
As you hint, raw composition isn't even half the story. You can put your microscopic samples in the mass spec and then melt the same elements together and not end up with the same stuff.
Treatment, how it's worked, how it's coated are just as important.
Not to mention how contaminated filings usually are.
I've hard second had that Russian TV (in Russian obvs) has had numerous virologists and people who know about virus labs in China that they'd be unsurprised if their protocol allowed accidental release. Apparently they also postulate CN labs are "playing" with much more virulent organisms --fortunately, so far, they've handled them well...
On the other hand, TV is all about speculative bombshells...
So, not sure about the above speculation, as it's Russians saying things about Chinese labs of which they may or may not have good data... but makes you think
The biggest point they make is that their protocols leave a lot to be desired and two they are working on even worse viruses... maybe fear-mongering or getting eyeballs...
...Its strange how 'thinking'is often synonymous with believing wildly implausible conspiracy theories on the basis of no evidence. Researchers have found hundreds of SARS like corona-viruses in horseshoe bats in southern china. This pandemic was predicted by many subject matter experts as a likely scenario and their research was oriented to try and prevent their worst case scenario from occurring. Because of the sheer number of potentially dangerous bat viruses, they are still concerned that we haven't even encountered the worst case virus, maybe there is something equally as hard to detect but more deadly out there. There is no need for an accidental release to occur. Zoonaotic viruses cross the species barrier and cause pandemics, that's literally the only way they happen, and it's always because of close contact between animals and humans, it's not some big mystery, eating bats in southern china was, and is incredibly dangerous.
That's correct: researchers have found a lot of similar coronaviruses in southern China.
> “I wondered if [the municipal health authority] got it wrong,” she says. “I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China.” Her studies had shown that the southern, subtropical provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan have the greatest risk of coronaviruses jumping to humans from animals—particularly bats, a known reservoir. If coronaviruses were the culprit, she remembers thinking, “Could they have come from our lab?” [0]
Given that a leading virologist who specifically studies bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology considers this a possibility, I think it's safe to say that it's not some wild conspiracy theory. I obviously don't know what happened, and it seems very plausible that the virus came from standard zoonotic transfer, but it's a bit unfair to characterize this as a conspiracy theory.
[EDIT] The article was actually changed since I read it:
"She is distressed because stories from the Internet and major media have repeated a tenuous suggestion that SARS-CoV-2 accidentally leaked from her lab—despite the fact that its genetic sequence does not match any her lab had previously studied."
So it sounds like she came to the conclusion that it wasn't an accidental release in April.
The tricky thing is that it's impossible to distinguish between "accidental release" and "standard zoonotic transfer," unless you're able to track the transmission chain to patient zero. China could possibly do that (though it's not guaranteed), but if they did and it was clearly something that was accidentally released, obviously that's not something they'd ever announce, so it'd look exactly the same as the current "we don't know anything" state.
And all the ambiguity means any stance on accidental release vs standard zoonotic transfer is going to be driven more by politics ("China is evil!" "No it's not!") than by any empirical evidence.
I agree that it's effectively impossible to distinguish between the two and that any stance on the issue is going to be driven by politics; my comment was just an objection to the claim that it is a "wildly implausible conspiracy theory" that the virus was accidentally released.
There is no proof that SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab, however it remains a plausible hypothesis. Yuri Deigin wrote a good argument for that possibility.
Not only does it not match what they have studied, but what is more likely: that a bio containment facility that is purpose built to seal off pathogens from escaping leaks and that one patient successfully infects many others with a virus that has a good chance of not even infecting them severely. Or, that multiple of the hundreds of thousands of bats that are in the region that have the virus spread it to humans because of their repeated and ongoing interaction. The latter has exponentially more chance of occurring because of the almost infinitely larger resivoir of virus and also has vastly more chance of occurring because of the number of interactions. The former is so unlikely as to be essentially an exercise in magical thinking and the only reason people give it any credence as far as I’m concerned is because it’s easier to blame something simple and politically convenient than a complex system of human behavior.
It's not "widely implausible" that the virus in Wuhan could come from the P4 lab in Wuhan that studied those viruses.
In fact, I would say it's "likely". If you see a nuclear leak somewhere, it's not a "widely implausible conspiracy theory" to think it might come from the nuclear power plant in that same area.
The difference is there arent random natural sources of liquid radioactive materials all over the place that could cause a large scale leak and have humans randomly tapping on them and hoping they don't cause it to blow.
Maybe not necessarily natural, but I think you underestimate how much radioactive material is out among the general public (i.e. outside of power plants and missile silos). Radiology as a medical field literally revolves around using radioactive materials for medical imaging, and there have indeed been incidents where regular people got their hands on some canister of the stuff (that didn't get properly disposed of), oohed and aahed as it glowed in the dark and they painted themselves with it, and a week later dozens of people are dead and hundreds injured from radiation sickness.
Sure, my analogy is not perfect.
But similar accidents have happened in the past (accidental leak of anthrax from a Russian lab, and voluntary leak of anthrax from a US lab).
I don't know if it actually comes from that lab. I'm just saying it's not a wild conspiracy theory to think that it might well come from there.
I don't know why you would call a lab escape a "wildly implausible conspiracy theory." We know viruses like this are studied in labs and that lab escapes are possible. Maybe it didn't escape from a lab, but it's not a wild conspiracy like saying 5G causes Covid.
As I understand it, the best reasons to suspect lab escape are:
1. The horseshoe bats thought to carry the virus live about a thousand miles away from Wuhan. Why wouldn't the virus start over there instead of in Wuhan.
2. The Wuhan Virology institute was a "BSL-4" lab, China's first and only. The BSL-4 lab is the only kind rated to handle very severe or infectious pathogens.
2.5 There were preexisting documented concerns about the safety protocols at the lab, saying they were substandard.
3. The Wuhan lab worked on "Chimeric coronavirus" exactly like Covid.
There's a lot more evidence and analysis from people more capable than me (see sources 3 & 4), but to me, the basic case "We are absolutely certain it came from bats a thousand miles away and definitely not the bioweapons lab next door researching this exact type of virus" makes me pretty suspicious. Add on to that the "mainstream" consensus has been wrong at every step, no lockdown, it's the flu, masks won't help, slow and few tests, etc - and I don't think anyone is really justified in dismissing the lab escape theory out of hand. Perhaps the experts are wrong. Again.
I'm actually not familiar with the evidence claiming that it's certainly zoonotic. My understanding is that is less likely due to the fact that it looks like a combination of a horseshoe bat virus and a pangolin virus - which theoretically could happen if a bat caught a pangolin virus, those two viruses infected the same cell, while reproducing the viruses were accidentally merged to cause the resultant virus to still be viable and have gained function, and then that unlucky bat traveled a thousand miles away to Wuhan to enjoy a bat stew...
Either all that, or, again, the neighborhood bioweapons lab with sloppy safety controls that was genetically modifying coronaviruses accidentally let one out.
Look, believe what you want to, I honestly don’t care, but if you think this is what a bio weapon looks like you need your head examined. Why would anyone make a weapon that kills old people by the tens of thousands and leaves most of the rest of us fine after a few weeks?
Also, there are virologists aplenty out their trying to inform the world at the moment, maybe listen to them, this is literally all they do, they might know more than you do about how viruses evolve.
Thank you, I was waiting for your permission to form my own opinions based on evidence.
Whether or not this is a bioweapon is unclear. If it is, perhaps it's designed to shut down economies rather than kill people. On the other hand, perhaps it isn't a weapon at all and is just a research project similar to the other Chimeric coronaviruses produced and studied at the Wuhan lab.
There may be plenty of virologists who think this couldn't possibly have come from a lab, but the problem right now is that when they say it couldn't possibly have come from a lab, they don't have any good reason, that I've seen, to support that conclusion, whereas there's a lot to suggest lab escape is possible. I'm willing to listen to people who know more than me, but I need them to actually show some evidence. The people who are showing evidence are those I linked to in my previous comment in points 3 and 4. It seems like there's a great deal of evidence for a lab escape.
Really? Care to tell everyone the layout of your home? How many feet in your room is your bed? How much storage do you have in your dresser? If someone wanted in and out as quick as possible, what's the best route?
Labs have sensitive areas too. Knowing the layout of them helps not just in-and-out operations but can also guide other kinds of educated guesses. Do lab staff in their offices have direct views of the lab equipment or are they separate? etc
The analogy is a bit silly. The layout of my home is on file at the county records office, and accessible online.
The real issue at hand is that he is suspected of something worse than merely copying a lab layout. Is a laboratory setup even protected? In many cases an experiment will elude replication because the lab setup was not properly documented.
Thinking that the quality of science is related to the layout of a lab is like thinking the creativity and beautiful of a piece of art is related to the location and color of the bin the artist stores their tools in.
That information may be used to assist in the theft of research down the line by someone else. Someone else could know exactly where someone's office is and what to grab out of there. Or what labs to try to get jobs/internships/etc in to be closer to a lab they want access to that they likely wouldn't get a job in.
Suppose there's a tool you really like at work. Issue tracker, build system, version control, whatever. At your next job it's missing. You influence the decision about how to fill the gap based on your experience.
Have you stolen intellectual property?
People are pretty open about "I'm planning to work at Google for a year so I can learn how they do things and then take that with me to my startup."
I mean, kinda. In any case, state sponsored intellectual property theft is par for the course, and any state would do it in the situation where China is now, and indeed every state so far did it. So I don't really think it's morally wrong, we got where we are from state-sponsored intellectual property theft and they will get to where they will go from that too.
Ultimately, there is no real morality when it comes to the actions of state actors beyond "will it improve my citizen's life?". This most certainly will, so for a Chinese official it seems moral to them.
A person can, in principle, hold the opinion that copying IP is not inherently immoral, but that ancillary crimes may be. I mean, if you think it's ok to do something, does that mean anything you do in pursuit of it is ok?
What anciliary crime did they commit except copying IP? Lying on a visa application? It's very difficult to argue that this would be a grave moral crime.
Sure, but the ends do justify the means, at least to some extent. I really don't think anyone outside of the US thinks that stealing IP in the goal of (in their eyes) lifting millions out of poverty isn't justifiable.
You could also make an argument that the other people are withholding something that could be used to do good for their own interests they lose the moral high ground.
In any case, there is really no moral argument to indict them, it's purely a question of interests in this case, so let's not pretend.
It doesn't make sense to say "authorities should have known better" in the context of making a decision based on falsehoods. It's basically the quote from Animal House - "you fucked up, you trusted [me]". It's a joke, because it's a parody of chutzpah.
We're not at war, and I assume it's perfectly legal to copy information about labs or whatever, so long as you don't incidentally violate any contracts or laws.
You mean like the US has been doing using their spying capabilities for years? Look up the echolon project or the recent scandal about US spying in Germany, a significant portion has been aimed at industrial espionage.
This is the thing that annoys me, many Americans approve their government doing industrial espionage to other countries, but then are morally outraged when others do it.
The Chinese are pretty openly doing things that are expected to give them military, technological and commercial supremacy over the United States. The 5G situation suggests the Chinese strategy might work. Having the technical leadership position on communications is a pretty big deal.
If they lose the research edge, basically the only structural advantages America has is (1) public elections, (2) likely more advanced legal theory and (3) not being an ethnostate. If they don't succeed in bringing those advantages into play then the US military is "soon" going to confined to the American continent.
The US is going to have legal problems with this Chinese activity and is going to try and do something about it, whether that is intellectually honest or not.
> If they don't succeed in bringing those advantages into play then the US military is "soon" going to confined to the American continent.
There is no scenario where that outcome happens. It's so absurd as to barely warrant a retort. Your premise requires that China enslave the entire planet, literally. China has to physically occupy - whether directly in-border or near-shore - and dictate all choices of every ally of the US, including all NATO members, as well as all of Asia.
You missed a lot of other advantages the US has over China.
4) A demographic advantage, which is a separate advantage from just not being an ethnostate. China's demographics are rapidly collapsing. There has never been a rising superpower that maintains its upward trajectory with a failing demographics, that will hold true as it pertains to China as well. Cheap, high volume labor is their largest single advantage, and they're losing those workers at an accelerating rate.
5) The US has fewer people and a system already transitioned to a high income low labor volume approach, which is a massive advantage in the era of automation and artificial intelligence. China has to go through that transition yet and it's going to be brutal for them. China has a population the size of the US living on $3 per day; one of the poorest large segments of population on the planet. Those people will never climb the prosperity ladder because it's impossible, and that dire context is only going to get worse as China's formerly easy growth slows perpetually going forward. China has already gotten old before they got rich at the median, it's too late.
6) An immigration advantage, which is slightly different from (although it relates to) the ethnostate reference. China will never convince the Elon Musks of the world to move to China.
7) Freedom of expression and speech, which is a massive cultural benefit globally (including when it comes to propaganda). It's why the US is the only country in world history to acquire a position of global cultural hegemony, spanning music, TV, movies and cultural projection broadly. No other nation has come even remotely close. As is, China can never possess this advantage.
8) China's system requires that they install a global dictatorship, or it has to collapse back in on itself. Their system is too fragile, too easily broken. You can see that in their emotionalism and fear about Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, any tiny protest or movement, any challenge to the party dictatorship, and how you can't discuss any of their numerous atrocities like Mao's famines or Tiananmen (ie you can never actually discuss their history). They have to expand their system of censorship globally (which is what they're trying to do right now, with Wolf Warrior diplomacy, trying to browbeat and threaten everyone into submission). In the US, you can freely discuss all of the mistakes the US has made, and everyone constantly does; we're jabbed globally 24/7 and we absorb that as part of being a superpower; that openness to criticism generates real long-term stability (not fake perceived stability, a managed image that isn't real).
9) English as the globally dominant language. The world will never adopt Mandarin widely.
10) The US is a liberal, democratic nation with a huge number of powerful global allies that are also part of the liberal order (from France to South Korea). China has no allies, only frenemies like Russia and North Korea. All the countries near China are terrified of them and will naturally ally with the US accordingly, including Vietnam. Countries like Japan and South Korea will never be allies with China, they're permanent rivals.
11) Open societies are always vastly superior to insular, closed-off societies. That includes when it comes to attracting immigration, getting the maximum out of their own people, or producing cultural output to project into the world. In the US, a Muslim genius from Xinjiang is free to become the next Jen...
Dang that's is really well said. Did you see that video on YouTube by this Australian guy talking about why China will not take over the world? I can't remember exactly what it's called.
> There is no scenario where that outcome happens.
China successfully infiltrates the US military research network and develops/steals enough technology to close the arms tech gap. Then China, aka 'the factory of the world', starts producing military gear and using it to stabilise regimes in Middle East and Africa. The US, worn down under infighting and with very high debts, cannot sustain its involvement on the Asian and African continents and is forced to withdraw. The Europeans, sensing a sea change in the world order, remilitarise and ask the US to leave.
There you go, now you know a scenario that could play out over ~20-30 years. Maintaining a worldwide network of military bases is expensive, China doesn't have to 'enslave' the planet to force the US to mind their own business. It just has to level the playing field a little and the US won't be able to afford the effort.
You have some good points on your list, but there are also vast misunderstandings and you clearly have preconceptions of what is 'best' based on your own preferences. To just mention a few
- the RMB is indeed in use in a number of Asian countries as an informal second currency.
- USD as global reserve currency is strong but on a downward trend. In some parts of the world the Euro has become more important and the largest holder of USD is China. If they truly wanted to harm the US they could dump these in big tranches - without this unique advantage a lot of US politics (in particular the eternal debt growth) simply don't work any longer.
- from a European perspective I have to say it does not look like the US is very democratic. A two-party state effectively run by the wealthy for their own profit, with a hundred million in an economically precarious condition with not even real access to healthcare.
I do think the last years have shown that the US too is extremely fragile, just as you diagnose for the PRC.
What’s interesting is watching video game streaming in China.
When playing games a few times then poking around a little more. I was extremly shocked at how mainstream cheating and stealing is embedded in... ugh I dunno for lack of better words, their current culture?
When and how did this become a thing?
Let me clarify I’m pretty naïve on anything China. And not trying to say everyone over there lacks integrity (thought the opposite) but seems like lack of integrity was like trendy from what I could tell?
I see the same thing in Chinese webnovels. The victims of any scam get blamed for falling for it and the scammer is considered the intelligent one, though sometimes only until they themselves get scammed in turn. Basically, honesty isn't seen as a virtue, instead there's a sort of tit-for-tat mentality of returning evil for evil and good for good.
I don't know when it became a thing, but it's a well known fact in all gaming communities that the Chinese are responsible for the vast majority of cheaters. If you region-lock the game, cheating becomes a much smaller problem.
Maybe a person who has lived in China or is Chinese could shed more light on why they want to cheat in the first place?
I’m a little disappointed how words loose meaning over time. People are extremely shocked watching video games. And there are no words to express their feelings when, for example, their dog hit by a car? Because barely anything can be more shocking than extremely shocking.
Could you elaborate more and provide some examples?
Personally I didn’t find any known streamers approved of cheating, and the mainstream absolute hate cheaters.
It's a helpful attitude. Other countries really do things differently than the US.
From what what I've read in newspapers, talking to recent immigrants and travelling for years in Asia:
1) Both China and India consider cheating on school tests to be a necessary thing to get the highest possible score. Riots occur when school physical security or test questions are changed. So it's baked into academics from a young age.
4) Ideas around what democracy mean in other countries are often different than the Western model.
In Indonesia, candidates pay voters $2 to $5 per head (vote buying) and guarantee they will be repaid after they win. If they don't win, the candidates go into hiding for a while to avoid the repayments.
At least 3 Indonesian airports are named after heros of the revolution KIA against their Dutch colonizers. (IIRC a single DC-3 was shot down, killing most of those.)
Halim Perdanakusuma in Jakarta is one of those airports.
Indonesia finally got its independence after WW2 when the USA told the Dutch not to return. Indonesia is a close friend of the US government until today, doing most of their military pilot training in the US, NTSB investigation training, and of course periodic internal purges using US intelligence.
Aside from corona, Indonesia is doing very well in terms of having a popular and well-regarded general as President, and prospering. Jakarta is a beautiful capital today, and its traffic is tolerable. (They implemented a busway system with reserved lanes, which is heavily used by commuters, and a new light rail system is going online around this time.)
Bali is not doing so well, as peak tourism is tough on locals, with insufficient electrical production, and agricultural-use water diverted to the tourist areas like Kuta - in at least one area, they can no longer grow rice.
Wang is charged with visa fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a). If convicted, he faces a maximum statutory penalty of ten years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
According to court documents, Wang was still employed by the PLA while he was studying in the United States and he made false statements about his military service in his visa application in order to increase the likelihood that he would receive his J1 visa.
Well... we don't really know yet. They're likely charging him with visa fraud initially because it's the only thing they can prove right now, and they needed to charge him with something or he would be free to leave the country.
Excuse me? This is not an accurate summary of the article at all. It's in fact exactly a spy plot: Wang was "instructed by his supervisor, the director of his military university lab in the PRC, to observe the layout of the UCSF lab and bring back information on how to replicate it in China".
observe the layout of the UCSF lab and bring back information on how to replicate it in China
That's the purpose of a J-1 visa, isn't it? The fellow was on a scientific exchange program. It's all very mystifying what the administration is trying to signal.
This argument was specifically addressed in the source.
'According to court documents, Wang was still employed by the PLA while he was studying in the United States and he made false statements about his military service in his visa application in order to increase the likelihood that he would receive his J1 visa.'
The allegation is that he would not have been on a scientific exchange program had it been clear that it was a scientific exchange with the PLA.
The fellow did serve as an officer in the PLA and indicated as much on his visa application. Nothing would be easier for the Chinese military than to approach former officers and encourage them to join a university and apply for a scientific exchange visa in the US. If there was genuine concern the visa would have been sent to administrative processing long ago and then denied.
It doesn't make sense, especially since the researcher will have shared what he did with the intelligence officer at his installation. Any officer of any country would have done that.
Meanwhile the US charge him with nothing worse than visa fraud. They could at least point to the stolen IP. It's all very baffling.
I'm guessing the J-1 application process has very specific questions designed to capture the nuanced differences between gathering info to report back to a foreign govt versus being a more typical visiting researcher.
I would also guess the US government was monitoring all this guy's communications so they are fully aware of when he was up to.
>> Wang provided information that he was, in fact, still currently a “Level 9” technician in the PLA, employed by a military university lab. CBP officers also obtained information that this roughly corresponded with the level of Major, and that Wang had received compensation from the PLA and the China Scholarship Council—in addition to compensation from UCSF—while in the United States.
>> Wang also wiped his personal phone of WeChat messaging content earlier the morning he arrived at LAX.
What are you talking about? This sounds more like how they got Capone with tax evasion.
>> Also according to court documents, Wang provided information to CBP that he had been instructed by his supervisor, the director of his military university lab in the PRC, to observe the layout of the UCSF lab and bring back information on how to replicate it in China.
"How to do research" isn't a state secret. Graduate programs exist for the express purpose of spreading that knowledge around.
It's espionage in the sense that a number of normal behaviors are espionage when you do them as an undisclosed agent of a foreign power, but that's not the "popcorn" kind of spy.
"Wang is charged with visa fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a). If convicted, he faces a maximum statutory penalty of ten years in prison and a fine of $250,000."
The US has ludicrous prison sentences. Lie on an application = 10 years in prison. That is insane. Good luck getting out alive as a 5'5" 130 lbs guy in a federal prison covered in covid19 for 10 years. Federal prison doesn't have good time - so bring some good books.
Instead could we just charge this guy, make him pay huge fines, make him teach classes, make him explain what really happened and move on? Instead! I bet a senator out there is trying to pass a law making it 40 years.
According to the court documents, what really happened was that he was trying to steal intellectual property for China. These long sentences exist because state actors would otherwise just keep sending people until one succeeded with no downside.
? Not following. They just caught a guy doing it with harsh sentences. China already has no downsides. Having this person work with us OUT of prison would hurt China much more.
I may be totally off base, but I've heard that spies are generally treated well. That they are mostly traded. That way when our spies are caught they aren't mistreated either. Clearly situations matter and the sensitivity of what was stolen.
>The US has ludicrous prison sentences. Lie on an application = 10 years in prison.
How would the Chinese respond if it was an American stealing research funded by the PLA and was sent by the USA to study the Lab so he could bring back the know how to replicate it.
I wonder why the Chinese don't take the same approach you advocate for the USA.
Here are some current examples of how the Chinese Gov deals with supposed spies and whatever...
From what I understand they have tortured a British National recently.
Those questions are so they can stop someone and continue investigating. Why do you think there's questions on the visa like "Are you a spy for another country" or "do you intend to commit a crime when you come to the US"? It is easy to __prove__ you lied on a visa application which gives reason to hold someone. Proving spying is much harder, but now they have a reason to hold Weng and interrogate him further.
Also, think Capone and tax evasion.
The law isn't really about people that made a mistake on a visa, the law is about people having ill intentions towards the US.
Well on his visa application he didn't disclose that his real that his purpose was to collect IP as a member of the Chinese military, in fact he explicitly stated this wasn't the case. So by showing he is a spy they show he committed fraud on the application.
The "maximum sentence" thing is mostly there for intimidation. The news goes along with it because it's simple and easy, rather than because it's what really happens. The reality is that there's a complex algorithm that judges are required to use that determines the actual length of the sentence. Various factors are each worth a certain number of points, then the points are converted into time in prison.
That's just the statutory maximum. No one is getting that unless it's incredibly egregious and it's not their first conviction.
For a realistic sentence, you'd have to go through the US Sentencing Guidelines and calculate it. News reports never do because you basically have to be a lawyer to do it accurately, it's very complex and not objective.
As a SWAG, I'd think we're talking about less than a year here, given he has no criminal history. Otoh, there might be enhancements due to him being here as an agent of a foreign government.
When you see a maximum sentence and fine mentioned in a Department of Justice press release it is simply the maximum that it is possible for a hypothetical defendant whose case hits every one of the factors that can increase a sentence. There is no attempt in the press release to actually consider the relevant sentencing factors that would apply in the actual case and calculate what a real sentence might be.
See "Crime: Whale Sushi. Sentence: ELEVENTY MILLION YEARS" [1] for more detail on press release sentences.
> Wang is charged with visa fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a). If convicted, he faces a maximum statutory penalty of ten years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
So lying on a visa application is worse than immigrating illegally? Doesn't illegal immigration just get you deported?
Gaming the system or otherwise exploiting it is more malicious than circumventing it. It’s the old school version of laws like CFAA, which make explicitly super-illegal things which are already implicitly or explicitly illegal, with sometimes unforeseen consequences.
Better to apologize than ask permission, as the saying goes...
The principle st play is everywhere in the legal system: the penalty for lying on a tax return is much higher than not filing returns; the penalty for buying something with counterfeit bills is much higher than that for simply stealing it; using a fake ID to buy booze (if under 21) carries a higher penalty than buying it from a clerk who forgets to card you; lying to sn FBI agent in an investigation is infinitely worse than saying nothing; etc., etc.
If you can't prove the other stuff (easily) you have to have a means to get them on a formality. That's why there's so many questions on the immigration form.
"maximum statutory penalties" are not indicative of "worseness" of a crime. They are usually placed very high to give judges flexibility, and are somewhat arbitrary, but they don't represent the average/median sentence handed down.
Also, there is no single "illegal immigrant" law or sentence, but I'm certain there are some laws violated by illegal immigrants that carry the same meaningless unused "maximum statutory penalty".
It is a common news media blunder of quoting the "maximum statutory penalty" - which is almost always irrelevant.
Having said that, in this case, if it's a political/espionage arrest then they might in fact use it either in negotiations with the Chinese or in sentencing to pressure for more cooperation.
With nearly every criminal law, I assume including this one (but I didn't check), there is an element of "mens rea" or in plain English your only guilty if you intended to commit the crime. A typo would not qualify.
A contract is interpreted against its drafter.[1] I don’t know if or how this legal doctrine applies to sovereign governments, however. The government and its representatives are immune to certain kinds of legal interference, which this kind of legalistic spelling dispute may be be considered to be.
Is it really surprising? China has been wholesale ripping off American (and other) companies and government for years. Do you expect the government to blindly let this theft continue without a serious response?
As posted in the original post, I was posting a tangent about US laws. Specifically the charges listed in the original post are about misrepresentation on some stupid form.
I have made multiple mistakes on government forms over the years. Sometimes they send me a letter notifying me it needs to be fixed. Other times they just fix it.
>In reality, when interviewed by officers of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at LAX on June 7, 2020, Wang provided information that he was, in fact, still currently a “Level 9” technician in the PLA, employed by a military university lab.
Are you seriously telling me that the guy who is supposedly sent to "spy" in the US - just tells them at the border , oh hey, no i actually i lied - i work for Chinese military. I dont buy this - there is more to the story. I mean, do they waterboard foreigners at LAX?
The application was over a year and a half ago. Wang may simply have forgotten what lies he told on the application.
It also seems to be implied that not all the information that contradicted the visa application came from an interview. Specifically it is implied that CPB knew he was being paid by organizations in China via another source.
Well not just foreigners, but they do subject travelers to a variety of forms of psychological torture there, including sleep deprivation. Like when your plane is out on the tarmac and they keep telling you "it should be just a few more minutes" ...for hours. Then the flight is cancelled.
I can't tell if these comments are just people not reading the article or a gross characterization. Can we get @dang in here? All that is being discussed is the MAXIMUM penalty as if it is the standard. In HN we're supposed to respond to the article accurately. So here's some quotes.
>> Wang provided information that he was, in fact, still currently a “Level 9” technician in the PLA, employed by a military university lab. CBP officers also obtained information that this roughly corresponded with the level of Major, and that Wang had received compensation from the PLA and the China Scholarship Council—in addition to compensation from UCSF—while in the United States.
>> Also according to court documents, Wang provided information to CBP that he had been instructed by his supervisor, the director of his military university lab in the PRC, to observe the layout of the UCSF lab and bring back information on how to replicate it in China.
>> Wang also wiped his personal phone of WeChat messaging content earlier the morning he arrived at LAX.
TLDR: Wang was a major in the Chinese Army, being paid by them while going to UCSF and was sending information back to China.
Just wait 24 hours. the PLA will kidnap at least 3 US citizens and send them to hellhole prisons - - just like they did against Canadians when the daughter of billionaire Huawei founder Ren Zheng was arrested. Anybody want to bet against me ?
For additional context: this is part of US DoJ Initiative to target Chinese Nationals for economic espionage. Meng / Huawei was extradited under initiative scoped only for Chinese Nationals. Corporations typically pay fines for sanction busting, but Chinese executives are (now) targeted for extradition for similar crime. Related, few months ago, DoJ also lumped RICO charges against Huawei. Typically reserved for individuals not entire corporate entities. Basically US DoJ is using every tool in the box to disproportionately prosecute Chinese actors. Reflected in analysis that individuals swept up under this initiative receive greater sentencing than norm. Good recent talk on the subject:
This guy could be spilling beans for lighter sentencing. But also likely a defection to drum up support for the narrative. His confessions like "level 9 technician" that works for university lab is eerily close to "anecdotes" I've proponents of the initiate echo over the last few years. It almost feels like a manufactured consent soundbite, eerily repeating heads
for someone following the subject. My understanding is there's moderate pushing back at how uncomfortably red-scare and racial coldwar 2.0 policies under this admin's China-hawks has been. Ultimately it may be counterproductive... but election coming up, so time to build that hard on China narrative.
Well the spectrum is between enemy and competitor. Hawks are arguing former, doves and moderators the latter. Policies and tolerance towards costs will differ depending on position i.e. there's room for cooperation on some issues if not viewed purely as enemy. Partner is definitely off the table though.
For what it's worth, Chinese foreign ministry denies his military affiliation. Official claim is that he's just doctor studying broad. I'm only stating this this possibility because it's atypical for China to issue flat denials in these circumstances and the records under the China initiative has share of overzealous prosecution. It's possible DoJ broadened the definition to what constitutes as PLA affiliation. Labeling tech researchers as PLA personnel is the same spin used to accuse Huawei's founder of PLA affiliation during the Huawei campaign, despite him never holding military rank. Maybe not so much as showing proof as redefining proof. Just seems odd a spy would cooperate this completely VS an academic who thought their actions acceptable a month before suddenly becoming not. Senior Chinese academics doing research in West while running labs in China was acceptable / grayzone practice that just shifted into high risk behaviour.
This arrest happened in context of June 1st proclamation to crack down on Chinese researchers [1]. The timing of arrests with respect to new policy proclamations is important especially with respect to geopolitical signalling i.e. Meng extradited month after DoJ extradition initiative. There's a lot of norms recently being upended for Chinese academics with particular focus on affiliations to Chinese military institutions - hence why he's not being charged for crime related to transfer of research (and I surmise, won't be) - the entire replicating layout and research stuff might be nominally above board, but the DoJ just wanted to nail and Chinese academic ASAP to signal to China arrangements that were nominally acceptable before are now subject to prosecution. "Killing the Chickens, to Scare the Monkeys". Otherwise I feel like they would choose a much clear cut case. So far it feels like more geopolitics and elections posturing.
>> Wang is alleged to have made fraudulent statements on this visa application. Specifically, in his visa application, Wang stated that he had served as an Associate Professor in Medicine.
seriously, that was the fault they found? it was just a mix up with his occupation. so what if he was military?
this isn't going to end well. If we randomly go arresting chinese people trying to return to china, they're just going to do the same back and US citizens are going to get arrested in China for equally BS reasons.
> Wang is alleged to have made fraudulent statements on this visa application. Specifically, in his visa application, Wang stated that he had served as an Associate Professor in Medicine in the PLA, from September 1, 2002 through September 1, 2016.
> In reality, when interviewed by officers of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at LAX on June 7, 2020, Wang provided information that he was, in fact, still currently a “Level 9” technician in the PLA, employed by a military university lab.
> According to court documents, Wang was still employed by the PLA while he was studying in the United States and he made false statements about his military service in his visa application in order to increase the likelihood that he would receive his J1 visa.
He stated on his visa application that his employment with the military ended in 2016 when in fact he continued working for them. That’s visa fraud right there. You cannot knowingly provide materially false information to obtain US immigration benefits. They were totally right to charge him.
Imagine for a second, that you're filling out a visa application and you've stopped working for the army and started working another research job. Now, if you're still being paid, on retainer you could say that you're still working there or not, it could be either way depending on what definition you use. He probably just forgot what he wrote on his visa. How was he supposed to remember every last detail of a visa application from 4 years earlier?
Imagine if they ask you, the next time you go abroad about every last detail on your visa application, do you think you could remember every last date of where/when you were employed?
who knows, maybe his wife filled out the application for him, or his secretary.
jailing people for a simple visa application mistake is a big mistake. Bascially, they're assuming he's a spy. whatever happened to "innocent till proven guilty"?
Active-duty military of a foreign nation gets special attention at borders. As you might expect.
When I was in the USAF my unit got invited to participate in a shooting competition in Innsbruck. At the time, Austria was a neutral country (that is: not in NATO or the Warsaw Pact), so we each had a special document from their Foreign Minister giving us permission to enter while in uniform and handle weapons.
This PLA Major knew that his J1 visa would have been held up (best case) or denied (worst-case) so he lied on the application about who he worked for. Customs & Border Protection is actually being low-key about this, because as an officer in a foreign military who lied and entered the country and then worked at a research facility, he could easily have been charged with being a spy.
> still currently a “Level 9” technician in the PLA
A civilian technician at the military is still quite far from "active-duty military officer." It's like calling a civilian contractor at US Army an army officer.
if he really was a spy, don't you think he would have remembered his cover story a lot better.
What he told the CBP isn't even in contradiction with his application: "Associate Professor in Medicine in the PLA" vs "Wang provided information that he was, in fact, still currently a “Level 9” technician in the PLA, employed by a military university lab".
Interesting little data point: I just asked my gf (who is from China mainland) to take a peep at WeChat, and it hasn't blown up with this story (yet?).
Do civilians in the military get ranks? I'm having a time squaring what you're saying with what's in the article.
>Wang provided information that he was, in fact, still currently a “Level 9” technician in the PLA, employed by a military university lab. CBP officers also obtained information that this roughly corresponded with the level of Major
Civilian technicians at many NATO militaries also have "levels."
A difference in between a civilian worker in the military, and a ranked officers is exactly them being a civilian, and another being a member of military command.
No civilian employee anywhere there commands troops around. A distinction that can not be overlooked, and be more obvious.
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[ 1.6 ms ] story [ 203 ms ] threadChina’s intellectual property theft is really getting out of hand. It’s about we take a stand in one way or another.
On the other hand, if they think that they'll catch up by replicating things in the united states down to the layout of research labs... then that's kind of hilarious and they've really missed the point. It's like the Soviets copying the space shuttle and concorde. They're copying the wrong things, too late.
They are being thorough.
And then he told them everything during an interview. Or maybe it's all lies to hide something else. Who knows.
But something doesn't add up to him just confessing that quickly all that information
And wiping your phone before international travel, particular to China, is just smart. That doesn't imply wrongdoing.
There was industrial espionage too. Considering they had the former and political backing, it's surprising how much of a disaster the 144 was - Not least because it was built for a market that didn't exist (comrade) in the Soviet Union, it was a noisy deathtrap. Their western equivalents flew somewhere on the order of a thousand times further (Concordski only did about 100 commercial flights)
This is super common with industrial espionage. As a reductio ad absurdum after 1991 I believe the Russians sold working fighter jets with detailed blue prints and instructions on how to manufacture all the components to the Converse Chinese. They still failed to make a perfect copy. Same deal for whatever the Soviet copy of the B-52 was. Building a sophisticated piece of machinery when your supply chain is very different you have to make compromises and different choices and they all add up.
This sounds rather absurd given that preparing a space shuttle for launch takes literally months. But the idea was, as far as I can tell, that it would launch on a regular mission, then use its heat shield and aerodynamic surfaces to change orbit inclination radically while out of reach of soviet radar, resulting in totally unexpected direct overflight of Moscow, making a decapitating strike possible.
they didn't though, please try again.
It just occurred to me to check out the Mig-29 on Wikipedia, and it has an uncanny resemblance to the F-15.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a9763/did-the...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-144#Development
>uncanny resemblance
duh...
When I say it looks like the F-15, I'm saying, as opposed to, say, the F-16 or F-18 or F-14.
And it's just a comment on the superficial appearance, not based on aerospace knowledge or about espionage.
This thread isn't even about espionage, is it?
"... the type entered large-scale service in 1949. Entry into service of the Tu-4 threw the USAF into a panic, since the Tu-4 possessed sufficient range to attack Chicago or Los Angeles on a one-way mission ...
and early Intel microchips: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KR580VM80A , which included military versions.
Here’s a good summary of its life: https://youtu.be/XLOCQw5s9Uw
The Buran only existed in order to send a message. And it was also technically better designed than the space shuttle.
Now NASA did end up spending a lot of time refurbishing those engines, but if they wanted more frequent launches they could have simply built more engines. The program dramatically misunderstood how much they would be flying resulting in vastly higher costs over time.
Which was the major design flaw of both systems. Dig into things more and Buran was simply an even worse fit for either program than the Shuttle ended up being.
Not quite, a layout, and process organisation of some high end labs are quite important, especially if you deal with some hazardous materials, and want to design protocols to avoid contamination/theft.
If he is a bacteriologist, then, moreover given what's in the news these days
(1) Japanese semiconductor industry, for which there is an excellent NHK documentary [1].
(2) After WW2, the British invited Soviet engineers to tour jet engine factories as a token of good faith. The engineers documented the factory layout, and wore adhesive on their shoes to gather metal filings for later analysis. A few years later, Mig-15's were shooting American planes out of the sky over Korea. A similar example: the British transferred huge bodies of knowledge to US aircraft engine manufacturers during WW2. This laid the foundation for the industry's future success.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihkRwArnc1k
Here is a related link. https://www.inkstonenews.com/tech/chinese-spy-accused-trying...
Treatment, how it's worked, how it's coated are just as important.
Not to mention how contaminated filings usually are.
On the other hand, TV is all about speculative bombshells...
So, not sure about the above speculation, as it's Russians saying things about Chinese labs of which they may or may not have good data... but makes you think
The biggest point they make is that their protocols leave a lot to be desired and two they are working on even worse viruses... maybe fear-mongering or getting eyeballs...
> “I wondered if [the municipal health authority] got it wrong,” she says. “I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China.” Her studies had shown that the southern, subtropical provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan have the greatest risk of coronaviruses jumping to humans from animals—particularly bats, a known reservoir. If coronaviruses were the culprit, she remembers thinking, “Could they have come from our lab?” [0]
Given that a leading virologist who specifically studies bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology considers this a possibility, I think it's safe to say that it's not some wild conspiracy theory. I obviously don't know what happened, and it seems very plausible that the virus came from standard zoonotic transfer, but it's a bit unfair to characterize this as a conspiracy theory.
[EDIT] The article was actually changed since I read it:
"She is distressed because stories from the Internet and major media have repeated a tenuous suggestion that SARS-CoV-2 accidentally leaked from her lab—despite the fact that its genetic sequence does not match any her lab had previously studied."
So it sounds like she came to the conclusion that it wasn't an accidental release in April.
[0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-chinas-bat-wo...
And all the ambiguity means any stance on accidental release vs standard zoonotic transfer is going to be driven more by politics ("China is evil!" "No it's not!") than by any empirical evidence.
https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throu...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5SRrsr-Iug
In fact, I would say it's "likely". If you see a nuclear leak somewhere, it's not a "widely implausible conspiracy theory" to think it might come from the nuclear power plant in that same area.
I don't know if it actually comes from that lab. I'm just saying it's not a wild conspiracy theory to think that it might well come from there.
As I understand it, the best reasons to suspect lab escape are:
1. The horseshoe bats thought to carry the virus live about a thousand miles away from Wuhan. Why wouldn't the virus start over there instead of in Wuhan.
2. The Wuhan Virology institute was a "BSL-4" lab, China's first and only. The BSL-4 lab is the only kind rated to handle very severe or infectious pathogens.
2.5 There were preexisting documented concerns about the safety protocols at the lab, saying they were substandard.
3. The Wuhan lab worked on "Chimeric coronavirus" exactly like Covid.
There's a lot more evidence and analysis from people more capable than me (see sources 3 & 4), but to me, the basic case "We are absolutely certain it came from bats a thousand miles away and definitely not the bioweapons lab next door researching this exact type of virus" makes me pretty suspicious. Add on to that the "mainstream" consensus has been wrong at every step, no lockdown, it's the flu, masks won't help, slow and few tests, etc - and I don't think anyone is really justified in dismissing the lab escape theory out of hand. Perhaps the experts are wrong. Again.
I'm actually not familiar with the evidence claiming that it's certainly zoonotic. My understanding is that is less likely due to the fact that it looks like a combination of a horseshoe bat virus and a pangolin virus - which theoretically could happen if a bat caught a pangolin virus, those two viruses infected the same cell, while reproducing the viruses were accidentally merged to cause the resultant virus to still be viable and have gained function, and then that unlucky bat traveled a thousand miles away to Wuhan to enjoy a bat stew...
Either all that, or, again, the neighborhood bioweapons lab with sloppy safety controls that was genetically modifying coronaviruses accidentally let one out.
1. https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-wuhan-lab-complicate...
2. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52318539
3. https://project-evidence.github.io/
4. https://link.medium.com/MI3PjBt0g7
Whether or not this is a bioweapon is unclear. If it is, perhaps it's designed to shut down economies rather than kill people. On the other hand, perhaps it isn't a weapon at all and is just a research project similar to the other Chimeric coronaviruses produced and studied at the Wuhan lab.
There may be plenty of virologists who think this couldn't possibly have come from a lab, but the problem right now is that when they say it couldn't possibly have come from a lab, they don't have any good reason, that I've seen, to support that conclusion, whereas there's a lot to suggest lab escape is possible. I'm willing to listen to people who know more than me, but I need them to actually show some evidence. The people who are showing evidence are those I linked to in my previous comment in points 3 and 4. It seems like there's a great deal of evidence for a lab escape.
Labs have sensitive areas too. Knowing the layout of them helps not just in-and-out operations but can also guide other kinds of educated guesses. Do lab staff in their offices have direct views of the lab equipment or are they separate? etc
The real issue at hand is that he is suspected of something worse than merely copying a lab layout. Is a laboratory setup even protected? In many cases an experiment will elude replication because the lab setup was not properly documented.
Have you stolen intellectual property?
People are pretty open about "I'm planning to work at Google for a year so I can learn how they do things and then take that with me to my startup."
Ultimately, there is no real morality when it comes to the actions of state actors beyond "will it improve my citizen's life?". This most certainly will, so for a Chinese official it seems moral to them.
Many people do believe it is a moral wrong to impose something on other people without their consent.
You could also make an argument that the other people are withholding something that could be used to do good for their own interests they lose the moral high ground.
In any case, there is really no moral argument to indict them, it's purely a question of interests in this case, so let's not pretend.
We're not at war, and I assume it's perfectly legal to copy information about labs or whatever, so long as you don't incidentally violate any contracts or laws.
This is the thing that annoys me, many Americans approve their government doing industrial espionage to other countries, but then are morally outraged when others do it.
If they lose the research edge, basically the only structural advantages America has is (1) public elections, (2) likely more advanced legal theory and (3) not being an ethnostate. If they don't succeed in bringing those advantages into play then the US military is "soon" going to confined to the American continent.
The US is going to have legal problems with this Chinese activity and is going to try and do something about it, whether that is intellectually honest or not.
There is no scenario where that outcome happens. It's so absurd as to barely warrant a retort. Your premise requires that China enslave the entire planet, literally. China has to physically occupy - whether directly in-border or near-shore - and dictate all choices of every ally of the US, including all NATO members, as well as all of Asia.
You missed a lot of other advantages the US has over China.
4) A demographic advantage, which is a separate advantage from just not being an ethnostate. China's demographics are rapidly collapsing. There has never been a rising superpower that maintains its upward trajectory with a failing demographics, that will hold true as it pertains to China as well. Cheap, high volume labor is their largest single advantage, and they're losing those workers at an accelerating rate.
5) The US has fewer people and a system already transitioned to a high income low labor volume approach, which is a massive advantage in the era of automation and artificial intelligence. China has to go through that transition yet and it's going to be brutal for them. China has a population the size of the US living on $3 per day; one of the poorest large segments of population on the planet. Those people will never climb the prosperity ladder because it's impossible, and that dire context is only going to get worse as China's formerly easy growth slows perpetually going forward. China has already gotten old before they got rich at the median, it's too late.
6) An immigration advantage, which is slightly different from (although it relates to) the ethnostate reference. China will never convince the Elon Musks of the world to move to China.
7) Freedom of expression and speech, which is a massive cultural benefit globally (including when it comes to propaganda). It's why the US is the only country in world history to acquire a position of global cultural hegemony, spanning music, TV, movies and cultural projection broadly. No other nation has come even remotely close. As is, China can never possess this advantage.
8) China's system requires that they install a global dictatorship, or it has to collapse back in on itself. Their system is too fragile, too easily broken. You can see that in their emotionalism and fear about Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, any tiny protest or movement, any challenge to the party dictatorship, and how you can't discuss any of their numerous atrocities like Mao's famines or Tiananmen (ie you can never actually discuss their history). They have to expand their system of censorship globally (which is what they're trying to do right now, with Wolf Warrior diplomacy, trying to browbeat and threaten everyone into submission). In the US, you can freely discuss all of the mistakes the US has made, and everyone constantly does; we're jabbed globally 24/7 and we absorb that as part of being a superpower; that openness to criticism generates real long-term stability (not fake perceived stability, a managed image that isn't real).
9) English as the globally dominant language. The world will never adopt Mandarin widely.
10) The US is a liberal, democratic nation with a huge number of powerful global allies that are also part of the liberal order (from France to South Korea). China has no allies, only frenemies like Russia and North Korea. All the countries near China are terrified of them and will naturally ally with the US accordingly, including Vietnam. Countries like Japan and South Korea will never be allies with China, they're permanent rivals.
11) Open societies are always vastly superior to insular, closed-off societies. That includes when it comes to attracting immigration, getting the maximum out of their own people, or producing cultural output to project into the world. In the US, a Muslim genius from Xinjiang is free to become the next Jen...
[0]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=_AvNT3vyzr0
Oh, you mean... kinda like the US does? How deep do you think our alliances that haven't even survived a century run?
China successfully infiltrates the US military research network and develops/steals enough technology to close the arms tech gap. Then China, aka 'the factory of the world', starts producing military gear and using it to stabilise regimes in Middle East and Africa. The US, worn down under infighting and with very high debts, cannot sustain its involvement on the Asian and African continents and is forced to withdraw. The Europeans, sensing a sea change in the world order, remilitarise and ask the US to leave.
There you go, now you know a scenario that could play out over ~20-30 years. Maintaining a worldwide network of military bases is expensive, China doesn't have to 'enslave' the planet to force the US to mind their own business. It just has to level the playing field a little and the US won't be able to afford the effort.
- the RMB is indeed in use in a number of Asian countries as an informal second currency.
- USD as global reserve currency is strong but on a downward trend. In some parts of the world the Euro has become more important and the largest holder of USD is China. If they truly wanted to harm the US they could dump these in big tranches - without this unique advantage a lot of US politics (in particular the eternal debt growth) simply don't work any longer.
- from a European perspective I have to say it does not look like the US is very democratic. A two-party state effectively run by the wealthy for their own profit, with a hundred million in an economically precarious condition with not even real access to healthcare.
I do think the last years have shown that the US too is extremely fragile, just as you diagnose for the PRC.
Let me clarify I’m pretty naïve on anything China. And not trying to say everyone over there lacks integrity (thought the opposite) but seems like lack of integrity was like trendy from what I could tell?
Maybe a person who has lived in China or is Chinese could shed more light on why they want to cheat in the first place?
I’m a little disappointed how words loose meaning over time. People are extremely shocked watching video games. And there are no words to express their feelings when, for example, their dog hit by a car? Because barely anything can be more shocking than extremely shocking.
It's a helpful attitude. Other countries really do things differently than the US.
From what what I've read in newspapers, talking to recent immigrants and travelling for years in Asia:
1) Both China and India consider cheating on school tests to be a necessary thing to get the highest possible score. Riots occur when school physical security or test questions are changed. So it's baked into academics from a young age.
India arrests hundreds over Bihar school cheating
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-31998343
A Q and A about cheating among Chinese students
https://www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/ucd/a-q-and-a-abo...
Riot after Chinese teachers try to stop pupils cheating
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/101323...
2) In the case of China, invention originality is not a goal - results are.
3) Art copies are not seen as inferior because they have the same appearance:
https://aeon.co/essays/why-in-china-and-japan-a-copy-is-just...
4) Ideas around what democracy mean in other countries are often different than the Western model.
In Indonesia, candidates pay voters $2 to $5 per head (vote buying) and guarantee they will be repaid after they win. If they don't win, the candidates go into hiding for a while to avoid the repayments.
In China, there's Xi, dictator for life.
no democracy can exist without first spilling blood for it imho.
At least 3 Indonesian airports are named after heros of the revolution KIA against their Dutch colonizers. (IIRC a single DC-3 was shot down, killing most of those.)
Halim Perdanakusuma in Jakarta is one of those airports.
Indonesia finally got its independence after WW2 when the USA told the Dutch not to return. Indonesia is a close friend of the US government until today, doing most of their military pilot training in the US, NTSB investigation training, and of course periodic internal purges using US intelligence.
Aside from corona, Indonesia is doing very well in terms of having a popular and well-regarded general as President, and prospering. Jakarta is a beautiful capital today, and its traffic is tolerable. (They implemented a busway system with reserved lanes, which is heavily used by commuters, and a new light rail system is going online around this time.)
Bali is not doing so well, as peak tourism is tough on locals, with insufficient electrical production, and agricultural-use water diverted to the tourist areas like Kuta - in at least one area, they can no longer grow rice.
Defendant Charged with Visa Fraud
Wang is charged with visa fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a). If convicted, he faces a maximum statutory penalty of ten years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
According to court documents, Wang was still employed by the PLA while he was studying in the United States and he made false statements about his military service in his visa application in order to increase the likelihood that he would receive his J1 visa.
That's the purpose of a J-1 visa, isn't it? The fellow was on a scientific exchange program. It's all very mystifying what the administration is trying to signal.
'According to court documents, Wang was still employed by the PLA while he was studying in the United States and he made false statements about his military service in his visa application in order to increase the likelihood that he would receive his J1 visa.'
The allegation is that he would not have been on a scientific exchange program had it been clear that it was a scientific exchange with the PLA.
It doesn't make sense, especially since the researcher will have shared what he did with the intelligence officer at his installation. Any officer of any country would have done that.
Meanwhile the US charge him with nothing worse than visa fraud. They could at least point to the stolen IP. It's all very baffling.
I would also guess the US government was monitoring all this guy's communications so they are fully aware of when he was up to.
>> Wang provided information that he was, in fact, still currently a “Level 9” technician in the PLA, employed by a military university lab. CBP officers also obtained information that this roughly corresponded with the level of Major, and that Wang had received compensation from the PLA and the China Scholarship Council—in addition to compensation from UCSF—while in the United States.
>> Wang also wiped his personal phone of WeChat messaging content earlier the morning he arrived at LAX.
What are you talking about? This sounds more like how they got Capone with tax evasion.
>> Also according to court documents, Wang provided information to CBP that he had been instructed by his supervisor, the director of his military university lab in the PRC, to observe the layout of the UCSF lab and bring back information on how to replicate it in China.
It's a case of an active PLA officer trying to sneak into the US under false pretextes to infiltrate a US research institution.
How is this not a spy plot?
It's espionage in the sense that a number of normal behaviors are espionage when you do them as an undisclosed agent of a foreign power, but that's not the "popcorn" kind of spy.
The US has ludicrous prison sentences. Lie on an application = 10 years in prison. That is insane. Good luck getting out alive as a 5'5" 130 lbs guy in a federal prison covered in covid19 for 10 years. Federal prison doesn't have good time - so bring some good books.
Instead could we just charge this guy, make him pay huge fines, make him teach classes, make him explain what really happened and move on? Instead! I bet a senator out there is trying to pass a law making it 40 years.
According to the court documents, what really happened was that he was trying to steal intellectual property for China. These long sentences exist because state actors would otherwise just keep sending people until one succeeded with no downside.
Unlike most criminals, spies are probably moderately rational about risk/reward, as such this is probably actually an effective deterrent.
/end unsupported opinion.
If these court documents can show that, why isn't he being charged for it?
State prison is worse. covid19 wasn't an issue, but I went into a Texas prison smaller than that (5'9", 123lbs) and served six years, day for day.
How would the Chinese respond if it was an American stealing research funded by the PLA and was sent by the USA to study the Lab so he could bring back the know how to replicate it.
I wonder why the Chinese don't take the same approach you advocate for the USA.
Here are some current examples of how the Chinese Gov deals with supposed spies and whatever...
From what I understand they have tortured a British National recently.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/china-tortured-detained-...
Here is the case of two Canadians still in prison on some kind of drummed up charges...
https://globalnews.ca/news/6270013/canadians-detained-china-...
I too would argue for longer, harsher sentences for foreign spies. Force rival nations to stop or to get better at it.
Also, think Capone and tax evasion.
The law isn't really about people that made a mistake on a visa, the law is about people having ill intentions towards the US.
For a realistic sentence, you'd have to go through the US Sentencing Guidelines and calculate it. News reports never do because you basically have to be a lawyer to do it accurately, it's very complex and not objective.
As a SWAG, I'd think we're talking about less than a year here, given he has no criminal history. Otoh, there might be enhancements due to him being here as an agent of a foreign government.
See "Crime: Whale Sushi. Sentence: ELEVENTY MILLION YEARS" [1] for more detail on press release sentences.
[1] https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentenc...
So lying on a visa application is worse than immigrating illegally? Doesn't illegal immigration just get you deported?
The principle st play is everywhere in the legal system: the penalty for lying on a tax return is much higher than not filing returns; the penalty for buying something with counterfeit bills is much higher than that for simply stealing it; using a fake ID to buy booze (if under 21) carries a higher penalty than buying it from a clerk who forgets to card you; lying to sn FBI agent in an investigation is infinitely worse than saying nothing; etc., etc.
Also, there is no single "illegal immigrant" law or sentence, but I'm certain there are some laws violated by illegal immigrants that carry the same meaningless unused "maximum statutory penalty".
It is a common news media blunder of quoting the "maximum statutory penalty" - which is almost always irrelevant.
Having said that, in this case, if it's a political/espionage arrest then they might in fact use it either in negotiations with the Chinese or in sentencing to pressure for more cooperation.
I have never seen such attrocious imbalance of power.
No wonder foreigners are wary of coming to the US
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_proferentem
There’s no way I’d step foot in US territory.
I’d sooner visit China or Russia, to be honest.
I know I’m not alone.
Are you seriously telling me that the guy who is supposedly sent to "spy" in the US - just tells them at the border , oh hey, no i actually i lied - i work for Chinese military. I dont buy this - there is more to the story. I mean, do they waterboard foreigners at LAX?
Something does not add up here.
It also seems to be implied that not all the information that contradicted the visa application came from an interview. Specifically it is implied that CPB knew he was being paid by organizations in China via another source.
Well not just foreigners, but they do subject travelers to a variety of forms of psychological torture there, including sleep deprivation. Like when your plane is out on the tarmac and they keep telling you "it should be just a few more minutes" ...for hours. Then the flight is cancelled.
>> Wang provided information that he was, in fact, still currently a “Level 9” technician in the PLA, employed by a military university lab. CBP officers also obtained information that this roughly corresponded with the level of Major, and that Wang had received compensation from the PLA and the China Scholarship Council—in addition to compensation from UCSF—while in the United States.
>> Also according to court documents, Wang provided information to CBP that he had been instructed by his supervisor, the director of his military university lab in the PRC, to observe the layout of the UCSF lab and bring back information on how to replicate it in China.
>> Wang also wiped his personal phone of WeChat messaging content earlier the morning he arrived at LAX.
TLDR: Wang was a major in the Chinese Army, being paid by them while going to UCSF and was sending information back to China.
For additional context: this is part of US DoJ Initiative to target Chinese Nationals for economic espionage. Meng / Huawei was extradited under initiative scoped only for Chinese Nationals. Corporations typically pay fines for sanction busting, but Chinese executives are (now) targeted for extradition for similar crime. Related, few months ago, DoJ also lumped RICO charges against Huawei. Typically reserved for individuals not entire corporate entities. Basically US DoJ is using every tool in the box to disproportionately prosecute Chinese actors. Reflected in analysis that individuals swept up under this initiative receive greater sentencing than norm. Good recent talk on the subject:
Margaret Lewis | The U.S. Department of Justice's China Initiative https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9I2TZzcv8g
This guy could be spilling beans for lighter sentencing. But also likely a defection to drum up support for the narrative. His confessions like "level 9 technician" that works for university lab is eerily close to "anecdotes" I've proponents of the initiate echo over the last few years. It almost feels like a manufactured consent soundbite, eerily repeating heads for someone following the subject. My understanding is there's moderate pushing back at how uncomfortably red-scare and racial coldwar 2.0 policies under this admin's China-hawks has been. Ultimately it may be counterproductive... but election coming up, so time to build that hard on China narrative.
This arrest happened in context of June 1st proclamation to crack down on Chinese researchers [1]. The timing of arrests with respect to new policy proclamations is important especially with respect to geopolitical signalling i.e. Meng extradited month after DoJ extradition initiative. There's a lot of norms recently being upended for Chinese academics with particular focus on affiliations to Chinese military institutions - hence why he's not being charged for crime related to transfer of research (and I surmise, won't be) - the entire replicating layout and research stuff might be nominally above board, but the DoJ just wanted to nail and Chinese academic ASAP to signal to China arrangements that were nominally acceptable before are now subject to prosecution. "Killing the Chickens, to Scare the Monkeys". Otherwise I feel like they would choose a much clear cut case. So far it feels like more geopolitics and elections posturing.
[1] https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article...
seriously, that was the fault they found? it was just a mix up with his occupation. so what if he was military?
this isn't going to end well. If we randomly go arresting chinese people trying to return to china, they're just going to do the same back and US citizens are going to get arrested in China for equally BS reasons.
> In reality, when interviewed by officers of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at LAX on June 7, 2020, Wang provided information that he was, in fact, still currently a “Level 9” technician in the PLA, employed by a military university lab.
> According to court documents, Wang was still employed by the PLA while he was studying in the United States and he made false statements about his military service in his visa application in order to increase the likelihood that he would receive his J1 visa.
He stated on his visa application that his employment with the military ended in 2016 when in fact he continued working for them. That’s visa fraud right there. You cannot knowingly provide materially false information to obtain US immigration benefits. They were totally right to charge him.
Imagine if they ask you, the next time you go abroad about every last detail on your visa application, do you think you could remember every last date of where/when you were employed?
who knows, maybe his wife filled out the application for him, or his secretary.
jailing people for a simple visa application mistake is a big mistake. Bascially, they're assuming he's a spy. whatever happened to "innocent till proven guilty"?
When I was in the USAF my unit got invited to participate in a shooting competition in Innsbruck. At the time, Austria was a neutral country (that is: not in NATO or the Warsaw Pact), so we each had a special document from their Foreign Minister giving us permission to enter while in uniform and handle weapons.
https://imgur.com/a/5ZDNWBI
This PLA Major knew that his J1 visa would have been held up (best case) or denied (worst-case) so he lied on the application about who he worked for. Customs & Border Protection is actually being low-key about this, because as an officer in a foreign military who lied and entered the country and then worked at a research facility, he could easily have been charged with being a spy.
A civilian technician at the military is still quite far from "active-duty military officer." It's like calling a civilian contractor at US Army an army officer.
Is this difference really so significant?
What he told the CBP isn't even in contradiction with his application: "Associate Professor in Medicine in the PLA" vs "Wang provided information that he was, in fact, still currently a “Level 9” technician in the PLA, employed by a military university lab".
>Wang provided information that he was, in fact, still currently a “Level 9” technician in the PLA, employed by a military university lab. CBP officers also obtained information that this roughly corresponded with the level of Major
A difference in between a civilian worker in the military, and a ranked officers is exactly them being a civilian, and another being a member of military command.
No civilian employee anywhere there commands troops around. A distinction that can not be overlooked, and be more obvious.