DOJ’s ‘China Initiative’ is dead but racial profiling fears are still very much alive

What's next in U.S.-China relations.

Feb 24, 2022 View in browser   By Phelim Kine Matthew Olsen attends a Senate Judiciary hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday, July 14, 2021. | Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/AP Photo Hi China Watchers. As Russian forces pour into Ukraine in the first major European land war since 1945, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson HUA CHUNYING's assertion hours prior to the invasion that the U.S. is "the culprit of current tensions surrounding Ukraine" will likely live in infamy. There's more on the unfolding war in Ukraine in our Translating Washington, China and Watchersphere sections. Between invasion coverage, we kick the tires on the DOJ's overhaul of its "China Initiative" investigative program. We'll also check in on an AUKUS reunion in Munich, Beijing's "politicization" of the Winter Olympics and why no one wants to talk about the 50th anniversary of Nixon's historic trip to China. And speaking of Americans in China — that's the focus of our latest author conversation in "One Book, Three Questions." Got a book to recommend? Tell me about it at pkine@politico.com. Let's get to it. — Phelim Assistant Attorney General for National Security MATTHEW OLSEN sought Wednesday to lance the boil of festering criticism of the DOJ's "China Initiative" investigation program by announcing its immediate termination. Olsen said the Justice Department is replacing the program with "the strategy for countering nation-state threats" while vowing to be "relentless in defending our country from China." In a press briefing , Olsen noted public concern about the program's alleged racial profiling and said that the Department of Justice would shift gears to a wider security threat focus from "hostile nations," including China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. The DOJ will also temper its focus on researchers suspected of grant fraud linked to their relationships with Chinese educational institutions through "alternative remedies, such as civil or administrative [penalties]," Olsen said. But critics say the China Initiative shutdown doesn't address issues of systemic anti-Asian racism within both the DOJ and the FBI that will persist despite the program's closure. "I commend the Justice Department for ending the China Initiative … [but] I disagree with [Olsen's] statement that the China Initiative didn't promote racially biased investigations and prosecutions," said MICHAEL GERMAN , a 16-year veteran of the FBI and a fellow at the Brennan Center. "It is important to understand and acknowledge that anti-Asian bias in espionage investigations pre-dated the China Initiative and will continue absent a concerted effort to eradicate it." That sentiment was echoed by Rep. JUDY CHU (D-Calif.), who told China Watcher that Olsen's "major step forward" in junking the China Initiative won't erase its harms. "The China initiative engaged in blatant racial profiling, it reinforced harmful stereotypes that Asian Americans are the perpetual 'others' and it ruined numerous lives in the process," said Chu. Former Attorney General JEFF SESSIONSlaunched the China Initiative in 2018 to address Chinese government "deliberate, systematic, and calculated threats" to U.S. technology and intellectual property. The Trump-era program soon became synonymous with racial profiling accusations and flawed investigative work that resulted in a series of high-profile acquittals of researchers prosecuted for alleged inappropriate or publicly undeclared ties to China. U.S. prosecutors scored a rare win in December when they convicted Harvard professor CHARLES LIEBER after a China Initiative probe revealed he had lied about his involvement with the Chinese government's Thousand Talents Program . That program recruits academics to work in Chinese universities to help develop their science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs. Lieber's lawyers called his conviction a "manifest injustice" and are appealing. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has adopted criticism of the China Initiative as a press briefing propaganda point. Last week, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson WANG WENBINcalled the program proof of "systemic racial discrimination." The spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., LIU PENGYU, responded to the China Initiative's closure by describing the program as "a clumsy tool to abuse the national security concept to suppress and contain China." The China Initiative attracted criticism from the outset for being the only DOJ investigative program with an explicit geographic focus that implicitly cast suspicion on Chinese citizens or Asian Americans with ties to the country. "The Justice Department can continue to take appropriate measures to counter that [China] threat without the inflammatory moniker of the 'China Initiative,'" said DAVID LAUFMAN, former chief of the DOJ's counterintelligence section and partner at Wiggin and Dana. Olsen said shuttering the initiative won't affect the pursuit of current cases opened under the program. And the intensity and frequency of new China-related investigations are unlikely to diminish. "The announced changes likely will have minimal impact on the Department's and FBI's investigative activity," said BRANDON VAN GRACK, former DOJ senior national security official and a partner at Morrison & Foerster. Olsen balanced acknowledgment of Asian American and Pacific Islander dismay at apparent racial profiling by calling it "perception" rather than reality. "I have not seen any indication of bias or prejudice in decision-making by the Department of Justice in these cases," Olsen said. That's cold comfort to Asian American community advocates who insist ending the "China Initiative" title won't address such discrimination. "We need a [DOJ] commitment to real and substantive changes that include long-term feedback from Asian American civil rights groups and community members," said GISELA PEREZ KUSAKAWA, assistant director of the Anti-Racial Profiling Project at the nonprofit Asian Americans Advancing Justice. Other critics say Olsen's dismissal of claims of racial profiling of Asian Americans ignores a long and inglorious history. Prosecutions of Asian Americans on spy charges subsequently dismissed for lack of evidence include Taiwan-bornWEN HO LEE in 1999, the hydrologist SHERRY CHEN in 2014 and physics professor XI XIAOXING in 2015. "The China Initiative has been an accelerant … for this bias that's internal and has a significant impact on our security because Asian Americans get targeted by insider threat investigations unfairly," German said. Former FBI and DOJ officials interviewed by China Watcher, including some who personally led China Initiative investigations, dispute that. They insist the program hinged on a colorblind criterion of evidence of wrongdoing rather than ethnicity or national origin. "It's not racial profiling. I can tell you that we never chose a [China Initiative] case based on race [and] I'm confident that was true for other U.S. attorneys who did these cases," said ANDREW LELLING , former U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts and now a partner at Jones Day. "The Chinese professional ranks are almost 100 percent Han Chinese ... but it doesn't mean you're looking for people who are Chinese or of Chinese ethnicity. You're looking for the conduct, but you will not be able to avoid a disproportionate number of your targets being Chinese." Olsen echoed FBI Director CHRISTOPHER WRAY 's assessment of the peril posed by Chinese state efforts to steal U.S. technology and information. "When we tally up what we see in our investigations — over 2,000 of which are focused on the Chinese government trying to steal our information or technology — there is just no country that presents a broader threat to our ideas, our innovation, and our economic security than China," Wray said in a speech last month. Those stats prompt eye rolls from critics who note that FBI assertions of huge numbers of China Initiative investigations don't translate into actual prosecutions. "After over three years of investigations, over 150 defendants, and at least 77 cases, the DOJ's China Initiative has secured one single conviction in a court of law," Chu said last month. TRANSLATING WASHINGTON — BLINKEN, WANG YI TALK UKRAINE CRISIS: Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN called Chinese Foreign Minister WANG YI on Tuesday to seek China's support "to preserve Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," State Department spokesperson NED PRICE said in a statement. A Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said Wang responded by noting that "the situation in Ukraine is tending to deteriorate" and called for a resolution based on "dialogue and negotiation." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson HUA CHUNYING adopted a sharper tone Wednesday, accusing the U.S. of being "the culprit of current tensions surrounding Ukraine." — BLINKEN'S AUKUS MEETUP IN MUNICH: Blinken reinforced the importance of the AUKUS technology-sharing working group in a Saturday meeting with U.K. Foreign Secretary ELIZABETH TRUSS and Australian Foreign Minister MARISE PAYNE on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. The readout from the meeting made no mention of China, despite AUKUS' focus as a thinly veiled bulwark against Beijing, but stressed what State Department spokesperson NED PRICE described as the grouping's emphasis on "sustaining peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang responded by slamming AUKUS as "nothing short of the law of the jungle in the 21st century." — MAINE LAWMAKERS URGE USTR LOBSTER RELIEF: Independent Sen. ANGUS KING and Democratic Reps. CHELLIE PINGREE and JARED GOLDEN of Maine on Friday called on U.S. Trade Representative KATHERINE TAI to hold China accountable for failing to increase Maine lobster purchases in line with the Trump Phase One trade deal . Maine's lobster producers "have lost years of promising market growth — and hundreds of millions of dollars — due to continued tariffs and our government's continued inability to hold China accountable," the lawmakers complained in a letter to Tai. "We have engaged the PRC on its shortfalls for months, but have not seen real signs towards making good on the purchase commitments and our patience is wearing thin," ADAM HODGE , assistant U.S. trade representative for media & public affairs, told China Watcher in a statement. — YELLEN URGES CHINA DEBT RELIEF ASSISTANCE: U.S. Treasury Secretary JANET YELLEN urged the Chinese government last week to deliver on commitments to provide debt relief to poor nations through the G-20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative . "We certainly need [China] to move more expeditiously ... to facilitate faster and more effective relief of debt through the common framework," Yellen told Agence France-Presse. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang disagreed. "Multilateral financial institutions and commercial creditors … bear a greater responsibility in helping developing countries reduce their debt burden," Wang said. — USTR: WECHAT JOINS 'NOTORIOUS MARKETS LIST': USTR announced last week that it had placed China's social media platform WeChat along with online marketing site AliExpress on the agency's 'Notorious Markets List' for alleged involvement in "trademark counterfeiting or copyright piracy." The two firms join Chinese online marketers Taobao, Pinduoduo, DHGate and Baidu Wangpan for what USTR's Tai called practices damaging to "critical U.S. innovation and creativity." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang responded by accusing USTR of "politicizing economic and trade issues." Hot from the China Watchersphere The missile defense system called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, is seen at a golf course in Seongju, South Korea, Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2017. | Choo Sang-chul/Newsis via AP — S. KOREAN CANDIDATE SEEKS SECOND THAAD: South Korean presidential hopeful YOON SUK-YEOL, will deploy an additional U.S.-supplied Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system if elected, his foreign policy adviser KIM SUNG-HAN said Wednesday. That possible move by Yoon, who has positioned himself as a China hawk in the upcoming March 9 election, will infuriate China, which imposed punitive economic sanctions against South Korea over its deployment of its first THAAD in 2016. South Korea's arms acquisition drive may not end there — the results of a Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey published Monday indicated that 71 percent of South Koreans want the country to become a nuclear power. — PUTIN'S UKRAINE DREAM IS BEIJING'S NIGHTMARE: Putin's war against Ukraine is putting Beijing in a very awkward position, reports POLITICO's STUART LAU. China is happy to issue vague pro-Kremlin statements while grumbling about Western aggression and the dangers of a new Cold War. But the fundamental geopolitical dynamics underlying Putin's invasion of Ukraine are anathema to sovereignty-obsessed Beijing, given that it is perennially worried about dissent in regions such as Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong. Read more from Lau here. — AUSTRALIA SLAMS 'RECKLESS' PLA LASER PLOY: Australian Prime Minister SCOTT MORRISON on Monday decried a People's Liberation Army Navy use of a laser to "illuminate" an Australian military jet last week off the country's north coast. Morrison called the act "dangerous … unprofessional and … reckless." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang responded with a counter accusation that Australia was "maliciously disseminating China-related disinformation." — CHINA SANCTIONS RAYTHEON AND LOCKHEED: The Chinese government on Monday delivered on its threatened " strong measures" in response to a U.S. arms sale to Taiwan earlier this month by imposing unspecified sanctions against contractors Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin. Beijing targeted the two firms because they "have long participated in the US' arms sales to China's Taiwan region," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang said. It's unclear what the sanctions might cost the two firms in terms of their bottom lines. Raytheon Professional Services operates in China, but the Lockheed Martin website suggests its most recent China sale was two rescue helicopters to the Ministry of Transportation in 2015. — BEIJING OFFICIAL SHUSHES IOC, TALKS POLITICS: A representative of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games silenced an International Olympics Committee spokesperson at a Beijing press briefing last week and held forth on China's claims to Taiwan and denial of human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Those statements by BOCOG spokesperson YAN JIARONG came despite weeks of warnings by 2022 Beijing Olympics organizers of a zero tolerance approach to "politicization" of the games. IOC President THOMAS BACH responded Friday to Yan's outburst by stating that BOCOG had restated its "unequivocal commitment to remain politically neutral." That same day, Swedish gold medal winning speedskater NILS VAN DER POELalso went political by declaring that the choice of Beijing as an Olympics host city was "extremely irresponsible" due to China's human rights record. — REPORT: IFC FUNDING XINJIANG RIGHTS ABUSERS: The World Bank's private sector lending arm, the International Finance Corp., is funding the operations of companies in Xinjiang that are "active participants in the implementation of China's campaign of repression against the Uyghurs," an Atlantic Council report published last week concluded. An IFC spokesperson pushed back by telling China Watcher that the lender observes strict standards that which "prohibit discrimination and the use of forced labor." Our favorite spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, dismissed the report as "maliciously fabricated." Translating China — CHINA BLAMES U.S. FOR UKRAINE INVASION: The Chinese government today avoided any criticism of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and instead blamed the U.S . for the conflict. "When the U.S. drove five waves of NATO expansion eastward all the way to Russia's doorstep ..., did it ever think about the consequences of pushing a big country to the wall?" Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson HUA CHUNYING said in response to questions about the invasion. Hua's comments are an extension of her assertion Wednesday that the U.S. is "the culprit of current tensions surrounding Ukraine." Wang, China's foreign minister, hammered home Beijing's position by telling Russian Foreign Minister SERGEI LAVROV that China "understands the Russian side's legitimate concerns on security issues" in Ukraine. China's response underscores the futility Blinkin's call with Wang on Tuesday seeking China's support for Ukraine's "territorial integrity." — NIXON AND MAO WHO? The 50th anniversary of President RICHARD NIXON'S historic 1972 trip to China got short shrift by both China's Foreign Affairs Ministry and the U.S. State Department this week. Blame Putin's moves on Ukraine and the closing of the 2022 Beijing Olympics, but Monday's anniversary of Nixon's arrival in Beijing went unremarked on the State Department website and underplayed by China's Foreign Ministry. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang delivered a terse 333-word statement Monday noting the anniversary but devoted 81 words to reproach alleged U.S. government perception of China as an "imaginary enemy." In contrast, Wang marked Friday's 65th anniversary of China-Sri Lanka diplomatic relations with an effusive 360-word paean that followed a 305-word letter of congratulations from Chinese President XI JINPING a day earlier. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi noted the anniversary in passing during a Tuesday call with Secretary of State Blinken. The Chinese Ambassador in Washington D.C., QIN GANG , mirrored the minimalist anniversary commemoration on Tuesday by limiting comment to two tweets totaling 77 words. "My guess is that Xi and company don't want to acknowledge that the US has had any role in China's reemergence after Mao. That would not fit the narrative that the US is fencing in China," DEREK SHEARER, professor of diplomacy and world affairs at Occidental College, told China Watcher in a statement. The normally effusive self-promoter Vipp Jaswal is tight-lipped on the results of his Beijing Games' social media promotion campaign. | VippJaswal.com/POLITICO screenshot — OLYMPIAN MAN OF MYSTERY: VIPP JASWAL emerged in December with a $210,000 contract with the Chinese government to — in the words of his PR handler — "help China better understand how to communicate with America" through an Olympics-focused TikTok social media campaign. Although he advertises himself as a "masterful speaker and emotive storyteller," he's tight-lipped on what that cash actually produced. Jaswal told China Watcher on Monday via WhatsApp text message that his campaign — involving 8-10 "social media stars" and a reality TV star, all of whom he declined to identify — "achieved 150% of what we hoped to achieve," without providing any details. That's despite NBC data released Monday showing that the Beijing Games had the lowest average prime time U.S. viewership of any Olympics in decades. Jaswal said he had reaped "a variety of death wishes/death threats" from anonymous critics irked at his perceived propaganda assists for the ruling Chinese Communist Party. Sen. RICK SCOTT (R-Fla.) suggested as much in January when he urged Newsweek to "reconsider its relationship" with Jaswal, a contributor to the magazine's "Expert Forum," on the basis that his work for Beijing "compromised his ability to publish in American media outlets that focus on reporting the truth and exposing abuse." Within a day, Newsweek pulled the plug on Jaswal's profile page. Jaswal insisted the show must go on. "I'm still in the midst of the campaign and working on the Paralympics," he said, without elaborating. One Book, Three Questions The cover of Terry Lautz's "Americans in China" is pictured. | Oxford University Press The Book: "Americans in China: Encounters with the People's Republic" The Author:Terry Lautz, Moynihan Research Fellow and interim director of the East Asia Program at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and former chair of the board of the Harvard-Yenching Institute. What is the most important takeaway from your book? The American men and women profiled in my book helped to define U.S.-China relations. They came from different walks of life and had different reasons for engaging with China. One was a staunch anti-communist while others were idealists who believed in the promise of China's revolution. Still others, including three Americans of Chinese descent, were more realistic about the PRC. Each of their perspectives bring a much-needed human dimension to our understanding of today's China. What was the most surprising thing you learned while researching and writing this book? The biggest [surprise] was the story of two American soldiers who were prisoners during the Korean War. When the war was over, they decided against returning home and went to China instead, believing that communism would offer them better lives. One was an African American from Memphis, and the other was a white from upstate New York. Both attended Chinese universities, married Chinese women, had children and jobs, and eventually came back to the United States. What does your book tell us about the trajectory and future of U.S.-China relations? Forecasting China's future is risky business. The Cultural Revolution was unforeseen, the Tiananmen massacre was unimaginable, Deng Xiaoping's reforms were unexpected and Xi Jinping's authoritarian turn was unpredicted. No one thought China would become a global power in only a few decades. Not many of us imagined that millions of Chinese students would study in the United States. My book suggests that China will continue to change in ways we cannot predict. Thanks to: Ben Pauker, Matt Kaminski, Josh Gerstein, Betsy Woodruff Swan, Josh Gerstein, digital producer Setota Hailemariam and editor John Yearwood. Do you have tips? Chinese-language stories we might have missed? Would you like to contribute to China Watcher or comment on this week's items? Email us at chinawatcher@politico.com.   Follow us

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