The jury in a closely watched criminal trial has found Harvard professor Charles Lieber guilty on all counts of income tax evasion and failing to report his ties to a Chinese talent programme. Lieber, 62, who was placed on academic leave after the charges were filed, sat with his head bowed after hearing the verdict on Tuesday in Boston. He was formerly chairman of Harvard’s chemistry department. The case, part of the US Department of Justice’s “China Initiative”, was unusual in that it went to trial – most such cases settle – and involved a high-profile Caucasian. Nearly 90 per cent of cases under the initiative – a programme started in 2018 aimed at stemming the theft and loss of technology to China – have involved Chinese-American scientists. Analysts said the jury decision after less than three hours of deliberation could pressure universities to strengthen their research safeguards against foreign leaks even as it chills collaborative research and further intimidates Asian-American scientists. China was not on trial as the two sides laid out their arguments over six days. The Chinese Communist Party and its intent behind the Thousand Talents Plan (TTP) – a programme Beijing started in 2008 to recruit strategic foreign talent – were mentioned only in passing. But China remained in the picture despite the narrowly focused charges, two involving tax evasion, two for failing to disclose foreign bank accounts and two for hiding his ties to the Chinese talent programme. Joining the TPP or working with Wuhan University of Technology, which Lieber aligned with, is not illegal, but failing to disclose his research ties is. In its final statement, the government successfully argued that by telling investigators he was not involved in the talent programme after negotiating a three-year contract and admitting on videotape to bringing cash back from China to evade taxes, Lieber knowingly and wilfully committed the crimes. “It’s not that the defendant just has no memory of what happened,” said Jason Casey, the lead prosecutor. “It’s that he does not want to remember. He does not want to remember because he knows that he agreed to the contract, that he participated in the Thousand Talents programme, took bags of cash on the airplane that he never reported.” US ‘China Initiative’ stymied scientific innovation, study says The core of the government’s case was several hours of videotape taken shortly after Lieber was arrested by FBI agents in January 2020 at his Harvard lab. On tape, the professor attempts to justify his actions. “I did do something wrong,” he is heard saying. “I was not completely transparent with DOD investigators by any stretch of the imagination,” he adds, referring to the US Department of Defence, which funded much of his research. Lieber’s lawyers argued that the government’s case was sloppy, circumstantial and relied on inconclusive documents, witnesses lacking in expertise and details gleaned from the internet. “It’s sort of prosecution by Google,” said Marc Mukasey, Lieber’s lead lawyer. “It’s a game of gotcha.” “I’m not saying if a guy got cash and carried it into the country, it doesn’t raise suspicion,” Mukasey added. “We don’t convict on suspicion. We convict on proof.” Lieber is a global leader in nanotechnology, the manipulation of atoms with applications for health sciences and lithium-ion batteries. Video, testimony and documents in the federal trial failed to fully explain why a Harvard scientist at the top of his game joined the talent programme affiliated with a second-tier Chinese university. A three-year TTP contract he allegedly signed with the Wuhan university in 2012 included US$158,000 in compensation and US$10,000 a month in expenses. Full tenured Harvard professors made around US$200,000 annually, according to a 2012 Business Insider article. Lieber also made tens of thousands of dollars more in licensing fees and journal articles, according to 2013 and 2014 tax returns prosecutors in court. In the FBI video, Lieber is heard saying that ambition influenced his involvement amid hopes that more research citations that might result in a Nobel Prize nomination. “My fault, I wanted to be recognised for what I’d done,” he said. “Everyone wants to be recognised.” Harvard professor, accused of lying about China ties, faces new tax charges Emails presented into evidence painted the picture of a busy, somewhat self-absorbed top scientist used to having his way. At one point he becomes increasingly irritated by his Wuhan university colleagues, expressing concern they are trying to take advantage of his prestige and use his and Harvard’s name without authorisation. “The reason for my support is due to my friends and support at Peking University,” Lieber writes on hearing of his growing recognition in Chinese scientific circles. “That has nothing to do with WUT so do not try and take any credit.” Sentencing is expected next year. Making false statements carries a sentence of up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000 per count. Lieber was released in late January 2020 after posting US$1 million in bail and surrendering his passport. Estimates place the cost of Chinese economic espionage to the US economy at up to US$600 billion annually. “They have a successful prosecution and the prosecution of a white person, so I think they can use this as defence of the program,” said Gabriel Chin, a law professor at the University of California, Davis. “But if you’re talking about people getting brown cases of cash and they don’t report as income, those cases are legitimate. We still hope they don’t target people of a particular race, ethnicity or religion.” Video shows Harvard professor denying bringing cash payments back from China While many critics concede that China is hardly benign in its efforts to acquire foreign intellectual property, they also say Washington has overreached. Rather than prosecuting espionage or trade secrets cases, it has increasingly gone after paperwork violations against scientists whose research is often widely available on the internet. This, they add, threatens to ruin careers, fuel anti-Asian prejudice and undercut US competitiveness. “I’m not naive. I know that China, Xi Jinping and company can do a lot of bad things,” said Margaret Lewis, law professor at Seton Hall Law. “But if you call something the China Initiative, it’s going to direct investigators and prosecutors, whether they realise it or not, to consider deep in their brain, certain markers, as signs that I should look at this further.” “The China Initiative does not fuel guilt by association, but it feeds suspicion by association.” According to MIT Review , 88 per cent of China Initiative defendants are of Chinese heritage. Of 23 “research integrity” cases, a growing Justice Department priority, most are linked to talent programmes, with nine dismissed and six pending, it said. Lieber is only the second integrity case to go to trial. The first one, involving nanotechnology professor Anming Hu at the University of Technology, Knoxville, ended in an acquittal in September. The FBI and Justice Department have countered that the programme is not race-based and that Beijing has exploited America’s generosity and open systems for military and strategic advantage. US President Joe Biden ’s administration has pledged to review the China Initiative amid growing calls from community groups, lawmakers and academia to shut it down. “The initiative has drifted and, in some significant ways, has lost its focus,” Andrew Lelling, the former US attorney who brought the Lieber case, said on Twitter this month. “DOJ should revamp, and shut down, parts of the programme, to avoid needlessly chilling scientific and business collaborations.” Others say much more is needed than shutting down a questionable policy. “We need to end the policies and practices of racial profiling,” said Jeremy Wu, founder of APA Justice, one of several groups opposing the programme. “The China Initiative is a symptom of the continuing systemic problems.” But political inertia and questions over how to better address US tech security and Chinese intellectual property theft may conspire against any quick action. “If they were smart, they would put something in its place – higher fences around smaller properties,” said Mark Cohen, director of the law and technology centre at the University of California, Berkeley. “But I don’t think Biden can afford to look weak on China. I think it will be like an old general that just fades away, doesn’t die.”