More Evidence that Research Scholars Misuse Visas, Compromising National Security
By Dan Cadman on September 24, 2019
In my recent Backgrounder on the risks to national security inherent in the large nonimmigrant student and research scholar population in the U.S. I discussed not only the risks, but also possible steps the president and Congress might take to ameliorate some of those risks.
In short order, as if to emphasize the significance of those risks, two cases were publicized in the media that focus on one of the major risks associated with hosting students and scholars: the Chinese government, which casts a wide espionage net. A net so wide that it might fairly be called a "family enterprise" in which not just professional intelligence officers participate, but also virtually anyone it sends abroad who may gain access to secrets or proprietary trade information that gives China a leg up strategically, militarily, or economically.
The first case involves one Bo Mao, a Chinese professor who was arrested in Texas for theft of secrets that he allegedly passed along to Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant that is trying to corner the 5-G market, and that appears to have ties to Chinese military and intelligence organs who use Huawei's market share and equipment to spy (see here and here). A quick internet scan suggests that the man was a professor at the University Nevada, Reno, before arrest and that he has been involved in the use of lasers to meld powdered metals together in new and unique fashion.
https://cis.org/Cadman/More-Evidence-Research-Scholars-Misuse-Visas-Compromising-National-Security
