Chinese-born scientist in US tells of ‘fear and desperation’ from Trump-era convictions
- University of Kansas academic Franklin Tao speaks of charges amid China Initiative, ‘losing almost everything’ and bittersweet victory
Tao was one of about two dozen academics who were charged as part of the US Justice Department’s “China Initiative”, which launched in 2018 during former president Donald Trump’s administration and aimed to counter suspected Chinese economic espionage and research theft.
Speaking at an event co-hosted by the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and United Chinese Americans, the 52-year-old chemical engineer said his immediate hope was to return to the University of Kansas, where he was a tenured associate professor before the school fired him after he was convicted of four counts in 2022.
Later that year, a district judge overturned three of the counts, all related to wire fraud, citing a lack of evidence that he received money or property for work with Fuzhou University, Fujian province, in southeastern China.
Then, earlier this month, an appeal court in Denver threw out the final count about making a false statement. The court said Tao’s failure to inform his university about his affiliation with the Chinese university did not have any material effect on any pending federal funding decisions.
Tao had initially gone to trial in 2022, facing eight counts of wire fraud and making false statements.
According to court documents, Tao’s case began as an espionage investigation when a visiting scholar at the University of Kansas sent the FBI an anonymous tip and impersonated others to make additional allegations. The FBI found no evidence of espionage but discovered that Tao had potentially accepted a second full-time appointment at Fuzhou University and hid it from Kansas.