Asian American groups are sounding the alarm after the House of Representatives passed a bill this week that would reinstate the highly controversial Trump-era surveillance program, the China Initiative.
Lawmakers approved the bill Wednesday by a vote of 237-180. The China Initiative, which expired in 2022, was aimed at curbing China’s economic and technological espionage, but many Asian American groups have accused the program of racial profiling against academics of Asian descent in the United States. denounced. They fear that if signed into law, the program will once again cast a cloud of suspicion on the community.
“While originally a Trump-era initiative touted as a national security measure, the China initiative has turned out to be a witch hunt,” said leaders of the civil rights group Asian American Justice. said. AAJC, Stop AAPI Hate, and the Asian American Scholars Forum said in a joint statement.
The group added that the plan devastated families and hampered the United States’ ability to retain and attract academic talent.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas), told NBC News: “Twenty-three Democrats join me in calling out the victims of the Chinese Communist Party’s depredations for far too long. He stood up for Chinese Americans, who we have become.”
“Groups opposed to this bipartisan bill should be ashamed of their racist actions that mislead and terrorize Asian Americans,” he said.
The bill was passed during “China Week,” according to the paper, and the House of Representatives said it aimed to address “the military, economic, ideological and technological threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party.” and approved about 20 bills, mostly Republican-led.
Special Committee on the Communist Party of China. The House’s new “China Week” comes after Speaker Mike Johnson said in July that the goal was to present “a significant package of China-related legislation signed into law by the end of this year.” was established.
Under the China Initiative, first introduced by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2018, several Asian American academics and scientists were falsely accused of espionage.
One such scientist, Professor Gan Cheng of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has hidden his ties to several Chinese companies and encouraged students to apply for jobs in China, among other accusations. He was arrested in January 2021 after the government alleges he encouraged The charges were dropped a year later.
At a news conference on the subject Tuesday at the U.S. Capitol, Chen urged lawmakers to halt any attempts to restart the program.
“I remember the police screaming next to my bed the morning I was arrested, and I still often wake up to my wife’s screams in my dreams,” Chen said at a press conference. “I am no longer seeking government funding. I have completely discontinued my previous research.”
Anmin Hu, a nanotechnology expert at the University of Tennessee who was similarly arrested in February 2020 before charges were suddenly dropped in what became known as the first case under the China Initiative. It opposed the possibility of reviving the initiative.
“Before my arrest, I had hoped to become a U.S. citizen and was waiting for a green card. I loved my job as a university professor, where I could share my knowledge with students and advance research.” said Hu. “Within hours of my arrest, I lost the career I had worked my whole life to build.”
He added: “If we can learn from these incidents and ensure that nothing like this ever happens to anyone again, we will be stronger as a nation.”
Moreover, since the bill’s passage, the White House has denounced the possibility of a resurgence of the China initiative.
The Biden administration said in a statement: “This bill could also create a false and harmful public perception that the Department of Justice is applying a different standard to investigating and prosecuting criminal activity related to Chinese people and Chinese Americans.” There is,” he said.
In the end, four of the 12 cases filed under the initiative involving academic institutions and funding agencies ended in guilty pleas or convictions, according to Justice Department statistics.
Asian American advocacy groups have long warned about the “chilling” effects of security programs. According to a 2021 white paper from the nonprofit Committee of 100, more than 50% of Chinese scientists in the United States “feel significant fear or anxiety” about being under government surveillance.
And in a speech at George Mason University in 2022, Matthew Olsen, then the head of the Department of Justice’s National Security Bureau, raised concerns about the program’s potential for discrimination, racial profiling, and impact on the research community. Ta. “We have concluded that this is not the right approach,” he said.
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