MIT president criticises Washington for ‘unfounded suspicions’ about Chinese academics
- L. Rafael Reif tells Massachusetts Institute of Technology community that researchers of Chinese background feel ‘stigmatised and on edge’
- Reif’s letter comes as US government has stepped up its scrutiny of mainland Chinese on many fronts
Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s president has accused the US government of creating “a toxic atmosphere” for academics of Chinese descent in its efforts to prevent Beijing from acquiring advanced American technology.
“I am well aware of the risks of academic espionage and MIT has established prudent policies to protect against such breaches,” L. Rafael Reif said in a letter to the school’s faculty, students, staff and alumni.
“But we must take great care not to create a toxic atmosphere of unfounded suspicion and fear. Looking at cases across the nation, small numbers of researchers of Chinese background may indeed have acted in bad faith, but they are the exception and very far from the rule.
“Yet faculty members, post-docs, research staff and students tell me that, in their dealings with government agencies, they now feel unfairly scrutinised, stigmatised and on edge – because of their Chinese ethnicity alone,” Reif wrote.
MIT was one of many American universities to end funding ties with Chinese telecoms equipment makers Huawei Technologies and ZTE, citing the risks that such arrangements might cause in the light of US federal investigations of the two companies.
MIT – rated third in US News and World Report’s ranking of American universities – announced its decision in April after Stanford University, the University of California’s flagship Berkeley campus and Princeton University all cut future research collaborations with Huawei.
MIT cuts funding ties with Huawei and ZTE citing US investigations
The US government has stepped up its scrutiny of mainland Chinese individuals and entities on many fronts.
US President Donald Trump used concerns about transfers of US technology to Chinese companies as part of his justification for a trade war he launched nearly a year ago.
A few weeks later, US lawmakers used the same pretext to pass a new law that greatly expands the national security review role of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US.
FBI director Christopher Wray told the Senate Intelligence Committee last year that China had aggressively placed operatives at universities, including professors, scientists and students and that the bureau must monitor them from its field offices across the nation.
Many academics displayed “a level of naivete” about the level of China’s infiltration, he said.
FBI chief says Chinese operatives have infiltrated ‘naive’ US universities
Without mentioning these comments specifically, Reif called suspicion based on race or national origin “heartbreaking”.
He referred to the architect and MIT alumnus Ieoh Ming Pei as an example of someone of Chinese descent who had made great contributions to America in the form of “iconic buildings from Boston to Paris and China to Washington DC, as well on our own campus”.
“By his own account, he consciously stayed alive to his Chinese roots all his life,” Reif said. “Yet, when he died at the age of 102, The Boston Globe described him as the most prominent American architect of his generation.
“Thanks to the inspired American system that also made room for me as an immigrant, all of those facts can be true at the same time.”
Reif, president of MIT since 2012, was born and raised in Venezuela. He moved to the US in 1979 to earn a doctoral degree in electrical engineering at Stanford and joined the MIT faculty in 1980.
