Buildings in the main technical area TA-3 at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M., in 2016. (John Benner/CC BY 2.0 via Flickr)
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In the wake of an alarming report on China’s decades-long effort to recruit scientists from the top nuclear lab in the United States, House Republicans are calling on the Biden administration to take action to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from further exploiting American research and technology.
In a letter (pdf) sent Wednesday to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar, a group of 11 Republican members of Congress said they have “serious concerns” over the national security threat unveiled in the new report.
The report (pdf), published last month by strategic intelligence company Strider Technologies, claims that the CCP has been recruiting “leading scientists” from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, an institution known for producing the first atomic bombs used in World War II.
According to the report, at least 162 scientists who had worked at Los Alamos returned to China between 1987 and 2021 to support a variety of domestic and military research programs. Collectively dubbed the “Los Alamos Club,” many of those individuals have helped the CCP to advance “key military and dual-use technologies in areas such as hypersonics, deep-earth penetrating warheads, unmanned autonomous vehicles, jet engines, and submarine noise reduction.”
The report further noted that at least 90 of the 113 Los Alamos postdoctoral researchers and permanent staff members that returned to China were selected through CCP talent programs. In addition, 59 of those scientists were recruited as part of the communist regime’s Thousand Talents Program and the Youth Thousand Talents Program.
“‘The Los Alamos Club’ confirms the concerns surrounding malign talent recruitment programs, clearly demonstrating that the [CCP] had been successful at stealing and capitalizing on our research and development,” the Republicans wrote in the letter. “As a result, these malign talent recruitment programs have now resulted in a tangible national security threat to the United States.”
Specifically, they asked the Energy Department and the White House to explain if they’re aware of the issues discussed in the report, as well as what steps they are taking to prevent federally funded U.S. research and development from being stolen by the CCP in light of the report.
The FBI has repeatedly warned about the Thousand Talents Program, an initiative designed to lure scientists into secretly bringing their knowledge and innovation back to China.
In 2020, former Los Alamos scientist Turab Lookman pleaded guilty to a charge of making a false statement to a federal investigator about his involvement in the Thousand Talents Program. An India-born U.S. citizen who had worked at the laboratory for over two decades, Turab was sentenced to a $75,000 fine and five years of probation, during which he is forbidden to leave New Mexico.