Prosecutors Say They’re Spies, But Charges Tell a Different Story
Chinese researchers said to be involved in espionage face more prosaic charges like visa and wire fraud.
When U.S. prosecutors sought last month to throw a Chinese scientist in jail until her trial for visa fraud, a judge refused, saying they had sought to paint her as a “foreign spy” without backing up the claim. “The government suggests that this court should treat this case as one involving espionage charges, even though no such charges have been filed,” wrote U.S. District Judge John Mendez in Sacramento of the indictment against University of California at Davis researcher Juan Tang.
In July, when the U.S. announced charges against Tang and three other researchers who were working in American university labs, the top U.S. Department of Justice official responsible for national security said their presence in America was “part of the Chinese Communist Party’s plan to take advantage of our open society.” But the other scientists aren’t charged with spying, either, and they too face more prosaic charges.