The US’ arrests earlier this week of several Chinese-American scientists on suspicion of espionage have raised concerns over the possible implications for Taiwanese participating in Beijing’s “thousand talents” program.
China has included Taiwanese researchers in the program as part of its 31 incentives announced in February, offering them generous salaries and other financial benefits. If these researchers take trade secrets and advanced research to China, it is a huge blow to Taiwan, both economically and militarily.
Chinese espionage in the US also presents a threat to Taiwan, as those secrets could be used to invade Taiwan and hamper the US’ ability to respond in the event of a cross-strait conflict.
There is also the concern that Taiwanese researchers might lose the trust of their peers, and risk being blacklisted by Washington and losing cooperation opportunities in the US.
International cooperation is beneficial to scientific advancement, but nations lose any competitive advantage garnered from research conducted at their institutions when it is lost to a foreign government.
China “depends on industrial espionage, forced technology transfers, and piracy and counterfeiting of foreign technology as part of a system of innovation mercantilism,” the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in a report.
Innovative research is expensive and Chinese companies often seek to avoid this expense, as a lack of protection for intellectual property rights in China makes research costs hard to justify.
In April, it was discovered that China was testing a stealth technology that would hide warplanes from radar systems. The New York Times on April 30 reported that there were suspicions that Beijing obtained the technology through a Chinese researcher who worked on similar technology at Duke University in 2008.
The administration of US President Donald Trump, citing such cases of espionage, has been seeking to ban Chinese researchers from US institutions.
Some politicians, such as US Senator Ted Cruz, have said that urgent action must be taken, as China is infiltrating US universities through its Confucius Institutes, which disguise themselves as centers for language and cultural exchanges, but are used by Beijing for espionage — which one of the institutes has admitted.
It would not be difficult for Chinese intelligence agencies to recruit Chinese students in the US involved in research that is of interest to Beijing, as the students need to regularly return to China to renew their visas.
Taiwanese researchers make even easier targets, as many of them voluntarily go to China to work or study — a situation that Beijing’s incentives might exacerbate.
So how can Taiwan and the US safely allow scientific and academic exchanges, and cooperate with China?
In the case of Chinese scientists in the US, it is imperative to fully understand their motivation for being there, their long-term plans and their ties to Beijing.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese who have had access to sensitive industrial or military technology should not be allowed to have any contact with Chinese officials or travel to China.
In July last year, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Fraser Stoddart criticized Trump’s approach to the issue, saying unfettered access and travel are crucial to scientific advancement.
In an ideal world, he would be correct. Unfortunately, the very freedom of people to meet and share ideas would come under threat if authoritarian governments are allowed to undermine democracies worldwide.
From the Iran war and nuclear weapons to tariffs and artificial intelligence, the agenda for this week’s Beijing summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is packed. Xi would almost certainly bring up Taiwan, if only to demonstrate his inflexibility on the matter. However, no one needs to meet with Xi face-to-face to understand his stance. A visit to the National Museum of China in Beijing — in particular, the “Road to Rejuvenation” exhibition, which chronicles the rise and rule of the Chinese Communist Party — might be even more revealing. Xi took the members
A Pale View of Hills, a movie released last year, follows the story of a Japanese woman from Nagasaki who moved to Britain in the 1950s with her British husband and daughter from a previous marriage. The daughter was born at a time when memories of the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki during World War II and anxiety over the effects of nuclear radiation still haunted the community. It is a reflection on the legacy of the local and national trauma of the bombing that ended the period of Japanese militarism. A central theme of the movie is the need, at
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on Friday used their legislative majority to push their version of a special defense budget bill to fund the purchase of US military equipment, with the combined spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.78 billion). The bill, which fell short of the Executive Yuan’s NT$1.25 trillion request, was passed by a 59-0 margin with 48 abstentions in the 113-seat legislature. KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), who reportedly met with TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) for a private meeting before holding a joint post-vote news conference, was said to have mobilized her
Before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can blockade, invade, and destroy the democracy on Taiwan, the CCP seeks to make the world an accomplice to Taiwan’s subjugation by harassing any government that confers any degree of marginal recognition, or defies the CCP’s “One China Principle” diktat that there is no free nation of Taiwan. For United States President Donald Trump’s upcoming May 14, 2026 visit to China, the CCP’s top wish has nothing to do with Trump’s ongoing dismantling of the CCP’s Axis of Evil. The CCP’s first demand is for Trump to cease US
RSS