By Ken DilanianNBC
News
At least 154 Chinese scientists, who worked on US government-sponsored research at the country's top national security laboratory over the past two decades, have been recruited for scientific work in China, some of which helped develop military technology that threatens American national security, according to a new private intelligence report obtained by our sister network NBC News.
The report, produced by the company Strider Technologies, describes what it calls a systematic effort by the Chinese government to put Chinese scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where nuclear weapons were first developed.
According to the report, many of those scientists returned to China to contribute to advances in technologies such as deep-earth-penetrating warheads,
hypersonic missiles
,
silent submarines,
and
drones
.
Workers at the Los Alamos lab. Via NBC News
The scientists received up to $1 million for their participation in the Chinese government's "talent programs" aimed at recruiting Chinese scientists to return to China.
These talent programs have long been identified as a source of concern, but US officials said they had never seen an unclassified report before that described the phenomenon in such detail, naming specific scientists and projects. in which they have worked.
The transfer of talent "poses
a direct threat to the national security of the United States
," said Greg Levesque, co-founder of Strider and lead author of the report.
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"China is playing a game that we are not ready for and we really need to start mobilizing," Levesque added.
Although a former Los Alamos scientist pleaded guilty in 2020 to lying about his participation in a recruitment program in China, most of the conduct described in the report appears to have been legal.
In addition, US officials and experts say that
most Chinese scientists who emigrate to the United States stay here
, and many of them have made significant contributions to US defense technology.
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But current and former US intelligence officials told NBC News that the Strider report shows how the Chinese government has been using talent recruitment programs to gain knowledge of American technology to help build a military that now represents a significant threat to the national security of the United States.
The officials added that China's turn from hardliners under President Xi Jinping is
prompting a reassessment of the long history
of scientific exchange between the two nations.
"We have benefited greatly from the influx of Chinese talent," said Robert Daly, a China expert at the Wilson Center.
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"And I hope we can continue to do that -- it's essential for the United States. But China is now developing weapons systems, capabilities, doctrines and, frankly, attitudes toward its own power, which means we have to put some of these issues on the blackboard." ".
In 2019, a bipartisan Senate report said China's Thousand Talents Program and similar deals were a vector for China to exploit American research.
Christopher Wray, Director of the FBI, said in a 2020 speech: "Through talent recruitment programs like the Thousand Talents, China pays scientists at American universities
to secretly bring our knowledge and innovation to China
. , including valuable federally funded research."
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"To put it bluntly," Wray added, "this means that US taxpayers are effectively footing the bill for China's own technological development."
Los Alamos, where the atomic bomb was developed during World War II, is dedicated to science and engineering in support of the national security of the United States.
But much of the research done there is unclassified, and many foreign scientists work in the lab.
Los Alamos officials referred questions to the Department of Energy, which declined to address the report's specific findings.
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The Energy Department said in a statement to NBC News that "America's national security and defense require ironclad protection of critical technology development, even as we safeguard the open scientific research that
underpins America's technological leadership
."
"In response to growing threats to research security, the Department of Energy has taken significant steps in recent years, including adopting rigorous research, counterintelligence reviews, and restrictions on participation in foreign talent programs," added the department.
"The Department of Energy," he added, "also maintains procedures to ensure compliance with United States export licensing requirements, including those governing the delivery of controlled technology to foreign nationals in the United States."
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The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
The Strider report notes that in 2019, the Department of Energy adopted a rule that prohibits employees and contractors from participating in talent programs linked to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
That rule, according to the report, appears to have slowed the
brain drain.
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The Justice Department in 2018 launched what it called the China Initiative, an effort designed to thwart China's theft of cutting-edge research.
A series of cases erupted amid accusations of racial discrimination and the Justice Department last year abandoned the initiative.
Yet national security officials say the threat of Chinese espionage -- and China's legal acquisition of American intellectual property -- remains.