bodyType

customContents

entityId

printArticlePageQuery

filter

article

body

urlAlias

articleSectionsContent

articleSeoArticle

articleSourceHeaderArticle

contentSchemaRenderContent

contentSubHeadlineContent

contentHeadlineContent

mainImagePrintArticleArticle

authorBlockPrintArticleArticle

contentSponsorTagContent

articlePianoPaywallContent

scmpYoutubeContent

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

query printArticlePageQuery(
  $entityId: String!
  $customContents: [CustomContentInput]
  $bodyType: BodyFormatTypeEnum
) {
  article(filter: {entityId: $entityId}) {
    entityId
    body(customContents: $customContents, type: $bodyType) {
      json
    }
    urlAlias
    ...articleSectionsContent
    ...articleSeoArticle_3o8td4
    ...articleSourceHeaderArticle
    ...contentSchemaRenderContent
    ...contentSubHeadlineContent
    ...contentHeadlineContent
    ...mainImagePrintArticleArticle
    ...authorBlockPrintArticleArticle
    ...contentSponsorTagContent
    ...articlePianoPaywallContent
    ...scmpYoutubeContent
    ...hooksTrackPageViewArticle
    id
  }
}

fragment articlePianoPaywallContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksPaywallPromiseContent
}

fragment articleSectionsContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  sections {
    value {
      ...helpersCheckIfNewsSectionInFirstIndexSection
      ...entityLink
      name
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment articleSeoArticle_3o8td4 on Article {
  ...hooksArticleSeoArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersGetArticleTypeArticle
  entityId
  publishedDate
  updatedDate
  summary {
    text
  }
  subHeadline {
    text
  }
  body(customContents: $customContents, type: $bodyType) {
    text
  }
  keywords
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  topics {
    name
    entityId
    id
  }
  urlAlias
  authors {
    name
    id
  }
  images {
    style(filter: {style: "768x768"}) {
      url
    }
  }
  readingTime
}

fragment articleSourceHeaderArticle on Article {
  urlAlias
  ...entityLink
}

fragment authorBlockPrintArticleArticle on Article {
  ...defaultArticleDateContent
  ...authorNamesArticle
}

fragment authorNameAuthor on Author {
  ...entityLink
  name
  entityUuid
}

fragment authorNamesArticle on Article {
  authorLocations
  authors {
    entityId
    location
    ...authorNameAuthor
    id
  }
}

fragment blockquoteQuoteContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...contentShareWidgetContent
}

fragment checkersCheckContentContainsStarlingImageContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment contentHeadlineContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  headline
  socialHeadline
  ...contentHeadlineTagContent
  ...helpersUseContentSponsorContent
}

fragment contentHeadlineTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksContentHeadlineTagContent
}

fragment contentNewsletterWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    relatedNewsletters {
      ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
      id
    }
    id
  }
  sections {
    value {
      relatedNewsletters {
        ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
        id
      }
      id
    }
  }
  ... on Article {
    relatedNewsletters {
      ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment contentSchemaRenderContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...blockquoteQuoteContent
  ...imageContent
  ...inlineWidgetContent
  ...photoGalleryWidgetContent
  ...scmpYoutubeContent
}

fragment contentShareWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  urlAlias
  shortUrl
  socialHeadline
  headline
}

fragment contentSponsorTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...helpersUseContentSponsorContent
}

fragment contentSubHeadlineContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  subHeadline {
    json
  }
  summary {
    json
  }
  ...contentSchemaRenderContent
}

fragment defaultArticleDateContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksArticleDateUtilsContent
}

fragment entityLink on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  __typename
  entityId
  entityUuid
  urlAlias
  urlRedirect {
    toUrl
    id
  }
  application {
    entityId
    id
  }
  ... on Section {
    fullSectionPath {
      entityId
      id
    }
    parentSection
  }
  ...helpersAppBarVariantBase
  ...helpersApplicationBase
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusArticle
  ...helpersStyleSectionContent
}

fragment helpersAppBarVariantBase on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  ...helpersCheckIsLiveArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  ...helpersSectionContent
  ...helpersStyleSectionContent
}

fragment helpersApplicationBase on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusPage
}

fragment helpersCheckIfNewsSectionInFirstIndexSection on Section {
  name
}

fragment helpersCheckIsAmpEnabledArticle on Article {
  entityId
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  disableOffPlatformContent
  sponsorType
  published
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
}

fragment helpersCheckIsLiveArticle on Article {
  flattenTypeIds
  liveArticle {
    status
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsMainTopicContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPlusArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ... on Article {
    paywallTypes {
      entityUuid
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPlusPage on Page {
  urlAlias
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle on Article {
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle on Article {
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostiesPage on Page {
  urlAlias
}

fragment helpersCheckIsStyleArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersGetArticleTypeArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ... on Article {
    types {
      value {
        entityId
        id
      }
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter on Newsletter {
  entityId
  name
  alternativeName
  description {
    text
  }
  summary {
    text
  }
  homepageDescription {
    text
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizeArticleTypeEntityIdsArticle on Article {
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizeAuthorTypesArticle on Article {
  authors {
    types
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizedAuthorEntityIdsArticle on Article {
  authors {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersSectionContent on Section {
  fullSectionPath {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersStyleSectionContent on Section {
  fullSectionPath {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersUseContentSponsorContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    sponsor {
      ...sponsorTagSponsor
      name
      type
      id
    }
    id
  }
  ... on Article {
    sponsorType
  }
  ...helpersCheckIsMainTopicContent
}

fragment hooksArticleDateUtilsContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  createdDate
  publishedDate
  updatedDate
}

fragment hooksArticleSeoArticle on Article {
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  ...hooksContentHeadlineTagContent
  ...helpersCheckIsAmpEnabledArticle
  entityId
  headline
  socialHeadline
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  authors {
    entityId
    id
  }
  images {
    generic_og: style(filter: {style: "og_image_scmp_generic"}) {
      url
    }
    styles(filter: {styles: ["og_image_posties_article", "og_postmag", "og_image_style", "og_image_scmp_analysis", "og_image_scmp_explainer", "og_image_scmp_editorial", "og_image_scmp_fact_check", "og_image_scmp_debate", "og_image_scmp_live", "og_image_scmp_obituary", "og_image_scmp_opinion", "og_image_scmp_review", "og_image_scmp_series", "og_image_scmp_generic"]}) {
      url
      style
    }
    type
  }
  urlAlias
}

fragment hooksContentHeadlineTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  __typename
  ... on Article {
    types {
      value {
        name
        entityId
        description {
          text
        }
        id
      }
    }
    ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  }
  flag
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  ...hooksContentHelperContent
}

fragment hooksContentHelperContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...helpersSanitizeArticleTypeEntityIdsArticle
  ...helpersSanitizeAuthorTypesArticle
  ...helpersSanitizedAuthorEntityIdsArticle
  flag
}

fragment hooksPaywallPromiseContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
}

fragment hooksTrackPageViewArticle on Article {
  entityId
  publishedDate
  headline
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  urlAlias
  authors {
    name
    id
  }
  entityUuid
}

fragment imageContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  headline
  ...checkersCheckContentContainsStarlingImageContent
}

fragment inlineWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...contentNewsletterWidgetContent
}

fragment mainImagePrintArticleArticle on Article {
  images {
    title
    url
    isSlideshow
    size_652x446: style(filter: {style: "652x446"}) {
      url
    }
  }
}

fragment photoGalleryDialogContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  __typename
  ...contentShareWidgetContent
}

fragment photoGalleryWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...photoGalleryDialogContent
}

fragment scmpYoutubeContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  urlAlias
  publishedDate
}

fragment sponsorTagSponsor on Sponsor {
  name
  type
  images {
    url
  }
}


sections

types

disableOffPlatformContent

sponsorType

published

headline

socialHeadline

authors

images

publishedDate

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

keywords

topics

readingTime

authorLocations

entityUuid

Kristin Huang

Kinling Lo

As the trade war goes on, the focus is now on technology. Washington wants Beijing to stop forcing joint venture partners to transfer technologies to their mainland collaborators, and is scrutinising the work of US-based Chinese researchers. In the first of a series, Kristin Huang and Kinling Lo look at how a Chinese talent scheme has drawn the attention of US security bodies
For communications engineering professor Alan Liu, going to America for work is no longer an option.
Liu returned to China seven years ago after a stint as a visiting scholar at the University of Colorado Boulder’s electrical, computer and energy engineering department.
“I haven’t been back to the United States since then … and I don’t want to go back because it’s becoming increasingly troublesome,” said Liu, who is now a doctoral supervisor at a prestigious Chinese university.
He said the door appeared to be closing for Chinese academics in America. “The visa for the US is hard to get – fewer US universities are willing to accept Chinese visiting scholars, and US professors are reluctant to invite Chinese since it may trigger an investigation.”
Is the US right to cry foul about forced technology transfer in China?
The academic is one of many Chinese to benefit from the Thousand Talents Plan, a state-sponsored scheme set up in 2008 to lure the world’s brightest minds to work in China – mainly Chinese researchers educated or employed overseas, and particularly in hi-tech areas.
But as the trade war between the US and China rages, with technology a main battlefront, the programme and others like it have drawn scrutiny from security agencies.


What talent plan?
That has prompted Beijing to play down the scheme described as an effort “to facilitate the legal and illicit transfer of US technology, intellectual property and know-how” to China by the National Intelligence Council, a branch of the Pentagon.
For recipients like Liu, what was once a prestigious award is now highly sensitive.
“Around mid-September, I was asked to delete anything related to the Thousand Talents Plan from my homepage,” he said.
As well as scrubbing any mention of the award from their online profiles, recipients’ names have been removed from the official TTP site. Online Chinese news reports on the plan have also disappeared.
Will China’s new forced technology transfer law satisfy US concerns?
In the past decade, the TTP has brought more than 7,000 top-level scientists and researchers to China – most of them from the United States – as well as hundreds of foreigners.
Awarded by the State Council, China’s cabinet, it is worth up to 1 million yuan (US$145,000), along with access to research funding of up to 5 million yuan and benefits including housing, schooling and health care. Many of the TTP researchers maintain their overseas affiliations while working part-time in China.
The United States has seen the biggest loss of talent as a result of the plan, according to a report by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, part of its economic affairs ministry.
“We estimate that almost 4,000 highly talented researchers, entrepreneurs and professionals of Chinese origin have left the country through this policy. And we have to keep in mind that next to the 1,000 Talents Policy, there are also many other policies targeting overseas Chinese,” the report said.

Espionage threats
Programmes like the TTP have also been linked to the theft of scientific research and fuelled concerns over potential espionage threats from China.
On December 12, senior FBI official Bill Priestap told US lawmakers that China “is the most severe counter-intelligence threat facing our country today”.
“The Chinese government is attempting to acquire or steal, not only the plans and intentions of the United States government, but also the ideas and innovations of the very people that make our economy so incredibly successful,” said Priestap, the bureau’s assistant director of counter-intelligence.
“China’s talent recruitment plans, such as the Thousand Talents Programme, offer competitive salaries, state-of-the-art research facilities, and honorific titles, luring both Chinese overseas talent and foreign experts alike to bring their knowledge and experience to China, even if that means stealing proprietary information or violating export controls to do so,” he said.
Why US-China dispute is about so much more than a trade imbalance
His remarks came after the National Institutes of Health in early December said it found a number of cases of scientists committing “serious violations” of its policies by not disclosing grants, laboratories or funded faculty positions in foreign countries.
Those violations also included information-sharing during the peer review process, which the NIH internal investigation report said had occurred under undue foreign influence.




Growing suspicion
Meanwhile, Chinese researchers have had US visa applications rejected and there is closer scrutiny of those studying and working in American universities – especially if they are part of talent schemes like the TTP.
In early September, Texas Tech University cancelled an offer to host a visiting scholar from a Chinese college after the person applied to the TTP, according to a widely publicised letter from Joseph Heppert, the American university’s vice-president for research.
Another Chinese TTP recipient was investigated by the FBI in April while doing postdoctoral research at a non-profit biomedical science centre in La Jolla, California, the South China Morning Post has learned. The FBI’s San Diego division would not confirm or deny the investigation, but a source with knowledge of the matter said the researcher was suspected of working for and transferring knowledge to a Chinese university.

David Zweig, director of the Centre on China’s Transnational Relations at the University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong, said the US accusations against China were geopolitically motivated.
“The talent programmes are run by the Communist Party, that’s why they are under fire in the US,” Zweig said, adding that Chinese did not have to be part of the TPP to be spies.
US steps up reviews of Chinese research activity on American campuses
According to a survey conducted by Business Roundtable, an association of executives from top US corporations, Germany leads the world in attracting overseas talent, followed by Australia and Singapore. But their talent schemes have not been targeted by the United States, which ranks ninth on that list.
Sun Yun, director of the China programme at US think tank the Stimson Centre, said Chinese academics were being regarded with suspicion because Beijing had specifically designed programmes to lure them back to China and contribute their knowledge.
“Some of those programmes are very high-profile and thus it is very easy for these cases to catch the attention of the investigators. I have not seen similar programmes from the Japanese or Korean governments to attract their scholars back to serve their countries,” Sun said.


‘Unnecessary and unreasonable’?
But Wang Huiyao, founder and president of Beijing think tank the Centre for China and Globalisation, said China’s talent programmes were no different from those in other countries.
“China is doing nothing wrong with its talent programmes, and I see the US actions to step up checks on Chinese academics as unnecessary and unreasonable,” Wang said.
China’s scientists overworked and underpaid, survey says
American Charles David, an assistant professor at Tsinghua University’s School of Medicine in Beijing and a TTP recipient last year, said he hoped there would be no barriers to his eventual return to the US, such as barring the plan’s researchers from funding.
“[Although] I would be surprised if my field is one of concern to the US government,” he said. “I think most scientists don’t care where the work is done or who it is done by.”
US scientist extols benefits of China’s Thousand Talents Plan
David said there was nothing like the TTP in the US. “[A difference with] Chinese funding mechanisms is that the applicant’s background and accomplishments are weighed much more heavily than the specific research plan,” he said. “This is less true in the US … The TTP is a one-off combination of research and personal funds, with no equivalent in the US.”


As China and US spar over tech, scientists would rather not talk about their talent awards

(FILES) In this file photo taken on December 05, 2018, a Chinese and US national flags hang on a fence at an international school in Beijing, China. - The US central bank sent a strong signal on Friday, December 21, 2018 that it would be willing to reconsider expected interest rate hikes amid new data showing President Donald Trump's multi-front trade wars are dragging on the economy and shaking up investors. (Photo by FRED DUFOUR / AFP)

(180516) -- NEW YORK, May 16, 2018 (Xinhua) -- Graduates of School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) wave flags during the commencement ceremony of the 264th Academic Year of Columbia University in New York, the United States, on May 16, 2018. Over 15,000 students graduate from the university this year. More than 35,000 students, guests, faculty and staff participated in the ceremony on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Michael Nagle)

China’s Thousand Talents Plan aims to lure the world’s brightest minds – mainly researchers educated or employed overseas, and particularly in hi-tech areas. Photo: Reuters

News

China

Diplomacy

Chinese researchers facing visa issues and tighter scrutiny in America – especially those who are part of schemes like Beijing’s Thousand Talents Plan
Programmes to lure brightest minds to China are now highly sensitive and the US has linked them to forced technology transfers and loss of know-how


Chinese researchers facing visa issues and tighter scrutiny in America – especially those who are part of schemes like Beijing’s Thousand Talents Plan.


US-China trade war

US-China trade war: All stories