Senate to talk about how the tragic spread of the coronavirus around the world underscored the need for us to focus on the persistent challenge of china not playing by the rules. Now, in the case of coronavirus that was about china not telling the World Health Organization, not telling other countries, not telling their own people what was happening in terms of the coronavirus, not taking steps to stop International Travel early on. That wasnt playing by the w. H. O. Rules, the World Health Organization rules, and the result has been devastation. It has been the spread of the virus and so much of that devastation weve seen around the globe, in my view could have been avoided had they played by the rules. Unfortunately not playing by the rules applies to china in many other areas too. We talked about trade allot on this floor of the senate to be sure that theres a level Playing Field between china and the United States and making sure they play by the International Trading rules. But heres another one where china and the Chinese Communist party has not played by the rules and thats with regard to obtaining our intellectual property, our innovation, our research. Over at the permanent subcommittee on investigations, which i chair, we found this not playing by the rules to be the case when we conducted a bipartisan yearlong investigation into how china has used socalled talent recruitment programs, most notably its 1,000 talents plan to steal u. S. Taxpayerfunded research to fuel the rise of both the Chinese Military and the chinese economy over the past 20 years. Its been going on for over two decades. You might ask, how has this happened . How could this be possible . Well, this is how it happens. Every year federal grantmaking agencies like the National Institutes of health, the department of energy and national labs, the National Science foundation, and others, give out more than 150 billion in u. S. Taxpayer funds for research. Thats quite a bit of money. For the most part, this system works well. American taxpayers send the money to the federalgrant making agencies here in washington and give it out to the best Research Labs in the country. It resulted in important breakthroughs in science, technology, and health care, in energy, in military equipment, and more. The n. S. F. Helped fund the creation of the internet. The n. I. H. Has funded research into very successful and innovative treatments for cancer and other diseases. So theres a lot of good stuff coming out of these research dollars. Its made america really the leader in the world on on innovation and new ideas, and for the most part, this federal Research Funding has enjoyed broad bipartisan support here in the congress. But guess what. Its also attracted the interest from researchers around the world who want the chance to take part in this cuttingedge research and thats good too as long as they play by the rules. What weve learned, and through our report we proved, is this system is very vulnerable to theft by other countries, and thats exactly what happened in the case of china. Chinas made it no secret that its goal is to surpass the United States as the leader in Scientific Research and they have an opportunity to get ahead by exploiting the Research Enterprise that we have in this country. So theyve taken advantage of that. Specifically, the Chinese Government has systematically targeted the most promising u. S. Researchers. So they find out somebody is doing research on Something Interesting to them, theistickicly target systematically target that person. Theyve been paying these grant recipients to take this research remember research paid for by u. S. Taxpayer dollars and apply what they learned here in labs over in china at chinese universities affiliated with the Chinese Communist party. The research takeover in china isnt going just towards academic purposes. That wouldnt be right either because our taxpayer dollars are going in to fund this research. They are then leap frogging us by getting that research. Its not just for academic purposes. Often the research go directly into things like advancing chinas mill, which has made Great Strides in the last two decades, advancing its technological truth, Manufacturing Processes and so on. A state Department Witness at one of our Senate Hearings on our report said this, and i quote, the Chinese Communist party has declared the Chinese University system to be on the front line of military civilian fusion efforts for technology acquisition. End quote. So theres a clear link here between the Research Going to these Chinese University labs and that same research being used to allow china to effectively leapfrog us in terms of their military improvements and economic growth. Part of the reasons its gone on so long, frankly, is because weve been asleep at the switch. We havent been focused on this. We do have an open, Collaborative Research system in this country, and we havent been a effective on cracking down on the intellectual property theft. Thats starting to change and im appreciative of that. It started to change, frankly, in the middle of the permanent subcommittees investigations, our report helped where during one of our hearings the f. B. I. Actually acknowledged what has been happening. This is what the f. B. I. Said, and i quote, with our present day knowledge of the threat from chinese talent plans, we wish we had taken more rapid and comprehensive action in the past. And the time to make up for that is now. End quote. Well, i appreciate the candor. I appreciate the fact that the f. B. I. Was willing to say now that weve learned all of this, we should have enacted this a long time ago and were going to do it now and make up for lost time. And they have been much more aggressive. Since our hearing and detailed report, weve seen a number of highprofiled arrests in this country who have hidden their participation in chinas,000 Talents Program and taken research over to china. Remember hearing p this issue earlier this year when a harvard professor, dr. Charles lieber, head of the Chemistry Department was accused of taking money from china and sharing his Research Money with the Chinese Government. It was a shocking example of this. But hes not the only case. In march we received news of another arrest of a professor who used to work at West Virginia university who participated in,000 tall enlts. In this case the Justice Department found he convinced his employer, a u. S. Public university to give him paid parental leave funded by american taxpayers while he went to china to work at a university there to continue his work on specializing molecular reactions used in coal conversation technologies. This is what West Virginia university. These two cases would be bad enough on their own, but since the start of this month we had three more cases announced by the department of justice and f. B. I. In relation to the program. I commend the f. B. I. For their work to continue to crackdown on this program and go after these problems. They need better tools to do it. A few weeks ago a former Emery University professor worked simultaneously and secretly for six years for worth Emery University and for Emery University and for the communist party of china. Conducting Similar Research projects at both institutions. Despite the clear conflict of interest, he failed to report any of his at least 500,000 in foreign income on his federal tax returns. That very same day a professor at university of arkansas was arrested on charges of wire fraud for allegedly failing to disclose his ties to the Chinese Government despite being required to do so as a grant recipient from nasa. Nasa. And just this past week we found out that this problem had rooched my home reached my home state of ohio when the department of justice announced the arrest of a professor affiliated with the Cleveland Clinic. He received 3. 6 million from the National Institutes of health. Again, taxpayer dollars. To secure that grant, he is accused of lying to hide the fact that he was given a deanship at university of wuhan china and lied about his Chinese Research overlapping his n. I. H. Research. According to the criminal complaint, he received 3 million in funding to china to run a shadow lab to replicate his clevelandlab. He said he even admitted he hand carried samples to china of biological material from cleveland, ohio, to wuhan. Those samples are still stored in china. It also states that he did not close one of his chinese grants required that he be in wuhan for ten months of the year at the same time he was employed full time at Cleveland Clinic, again working with n. I. H. Funded research. I was glad to work with the f. B. I. To ensure we stop this happen. As a thousand talents member, this individual recruited around 40 to 50 other u. S. Based researchers for his Chinese University by hosting events at harvard and other schools in the United States. This is a big deal and it needs to stop. I commend the assistant attorney general for National Security for his work on this and other cases and the the f. B. I. Special agent in charge, eric smith, and all the members of their team for their work on this Cleveland Clinic case. Again, these cases are all positive steps in the right direction, but the problem, as you might notice, is none of these criminals charges and arrest were based on participating in the thousand Talents Program. Or hiding that from the Research Institutions or universities. The criminal charges and arrest were for perjury, wire fraud, tax evasion. Amazingly failing to disclose on a Grant Application to receive u. S. Taxpayer funds that you are receiving compensation from a Foreign Government and giving them research is not currently a crime. That needs to change. One example of the Emery University professor, according to the law, only committed tax fraud while arkansas professor committed wire fraud. The fact they are technically only financial crimes show that were still just nibbling around the edges of this problem. Its time for us to get at the underlying flaw in our Research Enterprise of talent programs enticing researchers here in the u. S. To steal for other countries. Were going to need targeted legislation that will take direct action against this practice and thats exactly what we have done. Along with a group of colleagues cliewg democrat tom including tom carper, we are introducing the sawfding innovation act which will build on the e. S. I. Report and look at the ongoing i. P. Theft going on. It will help the d. O. J. Go after thousand tall enlts participants by allowing d. O. G. To hold federal recipient to this isnt just about more rest. We should all agree that transparency on Grant Applications is critical to the integrity of research and this distribution will help promote those principles. Our bill also makes other changes as well based on the recommendations in the report. It requires the office of management and budget, o. M. B. , to streamline and coordinate grant making between the agencies so theres needed accountability and transparency when it comes to tracking the billions of dollars of taxpayer funds and grant money being distributed. Weve worked closely with the department of energy and others on this legislation and they agree this is important. It also allows the state department to deny visas to foreign researchers seeking to access sensitive u. S. Research when there is a threat to our economic or National Security. This may surprise you, but they cant do that now. Career Foreign Service officers, employees at the state department have begged us for that authority. Our bill also requires Research Institutions to have safeguards in place to prohibit unauthorized access to Sensitive Research because weve found that to be a serious problem. And our bill ensures transparency by requiring universities to report any Foreign Government of 50,000 or more and empowering the department of education to fine universities that repeatedly fail to disclose these gifts. Right now, our number one priority is and should be solving the coronavirus crisis. And i get that. And, by the way, the f. B. I. Sent a notice around last week to universities, Research Institutions saying, watch out. Because there are actually chinese hackers trying to get your research on coronavirus. This just happened last week. But i got to tell you, in the context of this crisis, weve also got to reevaluate how we do business with china. China has not been playing by the same set of rules as the rest of the world. We talked about that earlier with regard to trade, with regard to reporting on the coronavirus. I think in a fair and straightforward manage weve got to lead in insisting that there be a level Playing Field, whether it is the with the h. O. , whether it is transparency with the coronavirus or trade policy or how research is acquired. My hope is that our p. S. I. Report and now the legislation we are introducing lets us reset the way we conduct our research. Our goal should be to continue to reward those who continue to come to our shores and discover new breakthroughs in science and technology. Were very proud of the fact that were the most innovative country in the world and known for our Research Enterprise. We want to do it in a smart way. We want to be sure we are keeping china and other nationstate competitors from stealing that research for its own benefit. We look forward to getting support from both sides of the aisle because te final subpoenas 8 6 along party linessubpoenas