FILE – Professor Xi Xiaoxing, Chair of Department of Physics at Temple University in Pennsylvania. (Courtesy of Xi Xiaoxing)
Yang Chen
November 18, 2015 3:44 PM
Some Congressional members and Asian American groups are calling on the U.S. Justice Department to investigate what they say is a trend of Asian American scientists being suspected of spying for China.
Temple University physics professor Xi Xiaoxing and Sherry Chen, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service, were accused of spying for China. The government later dropped the cases against them.
At a news conference Tuesday on Capitol Hill, Xi and Chen – both naturalized U.S. citizens – told their stories of being arrested by the FBI in front of coworkers and family members. Both said they are innocent and were unfairly targeted because of their race.
The U.S. government accused Xi of scheming to violate a non-disclosure agreement by sharing U.S. company technology with Chinese entities. Xi was arrested on May 21, 2015, and charged with four counts of wire fraud.
Chen was arrested in October 2014. She was accused of downloading sensitive material and providing it to the Chinese government. Although the charges have been dropped, she has not been allowed to return to work.
U.S. must correct mistakes, Chen says
Chen called for the government to admit its mistake.
“If they are wrong, they should correct it,” she said. “There is no reason not to allow me to return to work,” she said.
There has been an increase in the number of Chinese Americans accused of spying for China in the last few years.
Peter Zeidenberg, the lawyer for both Xi and Chen, believes it has a lot to do with the cyber issues between the U.S. and China.
“There is tremendous concern in our government about perceived cyberattacks and economic espionage that they attribute to China, and as a result they are under a great deal of pressure to do something,” Zeidenberg said.
“When you are under pressure to do things, sometimes you don’t take sufficient care, you do due diligence, and you move too quickly,” he said. “You don’t move with the appropriate care that you should take before you indict. I think that’s what happened with these cases.”
