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Laura Zhou

A Chinese-American neuroscientist has pleaded guilty to US tax charges, in a saga highlighting US concerns about Chinese intellectual property theft.
Li Xiaojiang, a former professor at Emory University’s school of medicine, was sentenced to one year of probation after pleading guilty in a US district court in Atlanta to under-reporting his income on federal tax returns, according to the US Department of Justice.
Li was also ordered to pay more than US$35,000 in restitution and other penalties to the Internal Revenue Service and file lawful income tax returns for the years 2012-2018.
Science magazine quoted Li’s lawyer, Peter Zeidenberg, as saying that the ruling would allow Li “to get back to his research” on Huntington’s disease.

 
Zeidenberg told the South China Morning Post that Li “intends to conduct his future research in China”.
The decision comes one year after the university closed the laboratory he led with his wife, Li Shihua, and fired the couple for allegedly undisclosed funding ties with China.
The couple, who had worked for Emory for 23 years and are both US citizens, denied the accusation at the time, with Li Xiaojiang telling the magazine that he had reported his research activities in China to the university every year since 2012.
China’s Thousand Talents Plan fuels US suspicions about overseas students, warns leading ex-Harvard academic Wei Yingjie
The case focused attention on China’s Thousand Talents Plan, a state-backed drive set up in 2008 to attract leading professionals to work in China. Critics see the programme as part of Beijing’s ambitious efforts to catch up with the West in the race for scientific and technological supremacy.
The programme has increasingly fuelled concerns in the US, especially over the potential espionage threats from China, one of the key issues in US President Donald Trump’s rancorous trade war with China.
John Demers, assistant attorney general for national security, said the department remained vigilant over schemes such as the Thousand Talents Plan.
US attorney Byung Pak said the defendant “thought that he could live two, separate lives – one here at Emory University and one in China as a Thousand Talents Programme participant”.
US-China trade war suspicions have had chilling effect on Beijing’s Thousand Talents Plan
Li Xiaojiang began working for the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences for five years from 2012.
Last May, in an interview with Zhishi Fenzi, or The Intellectual, a Chinese news website, Li said he signed up for the programme because it helped get access to bigger animals for tests.
In an explanatory note for a 2018 study published in the journal Cell , he said the research was financed by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
After they were dismissed by Emory, the couple went to work for Jinan University in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, but Li Xiaojiang has been detained in the US awaiting resolution of his case since November 2019, according to Science.
A number of other scientists with links to the programme have also come under investigation in the US.
Simon Ang, a 63-year-old engineering professor with the University of Arkansas and a member of the Thousand Talents Programme, was arrested and charged with wire fraud on Friday, after the prosecutors claimed that Ang received more than US$5 million in federal funding for research projects but failed to disclose payment from Chinese universities and Chinese companies, violating the university’s policy, the Arkansas Times  reported.
Neither Li nor Ang could be reached for comment.



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Former Emory University neuroscientist ordered to serve one year of probation and pay penalties in relation to under-reported income
Case highlights US concerns over Beijing’s Thousand Talents Programme


Former Emory University neuroscientist ordered to serve one year of probation and pay penalties in relation to under-reported income.


Chinese-American professor pleads guilty to tax charges in China research saga

Former Emory University neuroscientist ordered to serve one year of probation and pay penalties in relation to under-reported income Case highlights US concerns over Beijing’s Thousand Talents Programme

Former Emory University neuroscientist ordered to serve one year of probation and pay penalties in relation to under-reported income

Case highlights US concerns over Beijing’s Thousand Talents Programme