Over 1,000 Chinese researchers leave US amid crackdown on technology theft

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The United States Department of Justice has announced that over 1,000 Chinese researchers have left America amid a US national security crackdown on alleged technology theft, Sky News reported Thursday. The researchers are believed to be connected to China’s People’s Liberation Army.

According to a DoJ official, the researchers currently in question are not the same as those Chinese nationals who had their US visas revoked by the Trump administration in September, Sky News reported. Those in September’s group had included some 1,000 students and researchers considered security risks.

During a meeting at the Aspen Institute think tank, DoJ national security chief John Demers said the researchers had left when the department opened criminal cases against Chinese operatives for alleged industrial and technological espionage.

“Only the Chinese have the resources and ability and will” to engage in the breadth of foreign influence activity that US agencies have seen in recent years,” Demers added.

William Evanina, chief of the counterintelligence branch of the office of the US Director of National Intelligence, told Sky News that the researchers had begun targeting the personnel of the incoming Biden administration as well. “[The researchers are] all coming here at the behest of the Chinese government,” Evanina said.

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