“There
is insufficient evidence that academic/economic espionage by Chinese
nationals is a widespread problem at U.S. universities,” writes Truex.
“After 20 months of ongoing investigations in 2019 and 2020, the ‘China
Initiative’—a Department of Justice (DOJ) effort—had brought formal
charges at only ten U.S. universities or research institutions, and only
three cases involved any evidence of espionage, theft, or transfer of
intellectual property. Given that there are about 107,000 Chinese
citizens in STEM [fields] at U.S. universities at the graduate level or
above, current DOJ charges imply a criminality rate in this population
of .0000934, less than 1/10,000.”