United Chinese Americans (UCA) calls for Federal prosecutors to stop prosecuting Dr. Anming Hu, the first trial under Department of Justice’s China Initiative, after the jurors are deadlocked in a hung jury. This deadlocked jury, assembled in Knoxville, Tennessee, exposed serious flaws and a shaky foundation of prosecutions against Chinese American scholars under the DOJ’s controversial China Initiative. Given the troubling new exposure throughout the trial of how the government has conducted itself in this case and several other similar cases, UCA calls for an immediate investigation into any violation of Chinese American scholars’ civil rights by the inspector general of the Department of Justice and Congressional oversight committees. UCA furthermore calls for a moratorium on the prosecution of Chinese American scholars until a White House review of the DOJ’s China Initiative is completed.
“This trial has literally put the federal government’s China Initiative on trial. I believe the government must fully investigate the whole range of disturbing problems by our own law enforcement agencies revealed throughout this trial,” says Jinliang Cai, chairman of UCA, who is also a local Tennessee resident.
Haipei Shue, president of UCA, echoed, “Once again we have come to a crossroads: to continue with the China Initiative or change course. Our government must stop racial profiling Chinese American scholars, stop overzealous prosecution of them and stop weaponizing our whole justice system for routine paperwork mistakes or omissions.”
With fanfare, the Trump Administration launched the China Initiative under DOJ in 2018 with the expressed goal of catching Chinese spies and perpetrators who steal US trade secrets and intellectual properties and that threaten US industrial competitiveness and national security. Nearly three years into it, after a sweeping dragnet searching for Chinese spies and perpetrators in US universities and other research facilities, the China Initiative has brought charges to about a dozen Chinese American professors and scholars, among others, who are neither spies for China nor have shared or stolen any trade secrets. Instead, Federal charges against them have been mostly based on incompletion or omissions in paperwork filled by those charged, such as a university’s routine conflict of interest disclosure forms.
United Chinese Americans (UCA) has advocated for the civil rights of Chinese Americans ever since its founding four years ago in Washington DC. It has defended the civil rights of Sherry Chen and Xiaoxing Xi who had been wronged by the US government. UCA calls for a White House review of the DOJ’s China Initiative, a moratorium on China Initiative until a White House review is completed, and investigation into government conduct by inspector general of DOJ and Congressional oversight committees.
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