Defected Doctor: Chinese Trained to Steal US Lab Research

Researchers becoming agents for CCP

Yan fled China in April 2020 to the United States, bringing with her claims that the COVID-19 virus was “produced in a laboratory” by Chinese scientists. She published several unreviewed papers with her arguments that were widely criticized by the U.S. medical establishment. Since Yan first came forward, evidence has emerged that at least one U.S. intelligence agency has determined that the virus was likely manufactured in a laboratory, Just the News previously reported.

FBI advisor: "Quiet infiltration"

The case involved two Chinese-born researchers, Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, who were charged by the Justice Department with an attempt to smuggle a fungus called Fusarium graminearum through customs. The fungus is classified in the scientific literature as a “potential agroterrorism weapon” because it affects wheat, barley, maize, and rice by causing “head blight,” according to the Department of Justice.

The scientists were working for the laboratory, which is headed by lead researchers, Chinese-born scientists Ping He and Libo Shan, who received funding from the National Institutes of Health for their work. The laboratory conducts research on plant immunity, according to its website. NIH records show Libo Shan and Ping He received more than $7.6 million in total funding between two sponsored projects, one awarded to each scientist.

As many as 1,000 scientists identified in NIH alone

The effort, which only recently kicked into high gear, contrasts sharply with the loose screening measures that prevailed during the prior leadership of the NIH, Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci, who both departed before Trump became president, the officials told Just the News.

That lax system remained under Biden despite multiple warnings from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) about the risks of undue foreign influence or theft of federal research.

GAO, the investigative and auditing arm of Congress, has issued more than a half-dozen reports in the last decade warning that federal agencies lack the necessary safeguards to protect intellectual property from foreign theft and research from foreign influence, especially from threats affiliated with China.

Wider concerns emerge

“U.S. research may be subject to undue foreign influence in cases where a researcher has a foreign conflict of interest,” the GAO added in a 2021 report that specifically highlighted vulnerabilities at the research universities that partner with NIH.

The three recent scientists charged in Michigan for their attempts to smuggle in dangerous plant pathogens are part of wider concerns about China’s ability to threaten the United States from within.