[xjwm]

Looking at the linked article[0], it looks like this is the result of a broader investigation into any undisclosed foreign ties, but it that the Chinese influence has been disproportionately large.

Lelling rejects criticism that the department has unfairly targeted ethnic Chinese people and other Asian Americans. “Dr. Lieber is probably the most prominent academic charged in this kind of case so far,” Lelling says, “and he is not a Chinese national, nor is he of Chinese descent.” But Lelling says China’s aggressive efforts to become the world leader in many high-tech fields has meant devoting more resources to tracking those of Chinese ancestry.

[0] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/us-prosecutor-leadin...

[coliveira]

Of course this investigation was only started because they already had the goal of targeting supposed "Chinese influence". I wonder if this would even be news if they finally found that there was a lot of American researchers with ties British universities.

[cgriswald]

You wonder about British universities, because you are arguing under the assumption that race is the relevant factor, but your argument is weak. If you thought your argument was strong, you'd normalize across other significant variables, including the adversarial nature of the relationship between the United States and China. Then you'd pick a place like Russia instead, whose people are largely white, like in Britain, but whose government has an adversarial relationship with the United States.

Of course, you know the response to finding out about undisclosed ties to Russia would be roughly the same.