Tom Cotton: Ban Federally-Funded Researchers from Taking Chinese Government’s Money

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., interrupts a fellow senator during a confirmation hearing of the
Alex Brandon/AP Photo

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) said during an appearance on Fox News this week that he plans to introduce legislation that would prevent American professors working on federally-funded programs from accepting money from the Chinese government and China-affiliated organizations.

According to a report from Fox News, Sen. Tom Cotton announced plans to introduce legislation that would prevent American researchers from accepting funds from the Chinese government if they are already participating in a federally-funded research program.

“I’m going to propose legislation that would ban any researcher from accepting Chinese-affiliated funds if they are also working on federally funded programs,” Cotton said on Sunday.

In January, the chair of Harvard’s chemistry department was arrested on fraud charges after accepting millions in payments from the Chinese government. Harvard Chemistry Department Chair Charles Lieber reportedly accepted $1.5 million from a laboratory that is funded by the Chinese government between 2012 and 2017 to work on “collaborative experiments.”

Cotton argued on Sunday that Chinese officials are bribing American professors in exchange for access to American research. He noted that the Department of Homeland Security has encouraged laboratories to enact security precautions that could prevent the theft of research data by the Chinese government.

“China’s using the exact techniques they’ve used in agriculture, in semiconductor or computer chip technology to try to steal our most cutting edge life science knowledge to include coronavirus information,” Cotton said during an appearance of Fox News. “Whether companies are working on therapeutic drugs or vaccines, the Department of Homeland Security just issued a warning recently cautioning laboratories of companies and universities to keep their guard up for cybertheft.”

Last week, Cotton argued that China made a “conscious decision” to let coronavirus get outside of its borders. “Once China realized how deadly this virus could be to some people and how contagious this virus was, that they made the conscious decision to let it get outside of their borders,” Cotton said. “They didn’t stop international air travel. They pressured countries not to impose travel restrictions.”

Breitbart News reported this week that a professor at the University of Arkansas was arrested on Monday on wire fraud charges connected to his alleged financial ties with the Chinese government.

Stay tuned to Breitbart News for more updates on this story.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.