[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 134 (Wednesday, July 29, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4576-S4577]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 China

  Mr. President, another aspect of the COVID-19 legislation is a part 
of the bill that focuses on how we deal with bringing back our personal 
protective gear production from overseas, particularly from China, and 
how to deal with the concern we have that other countries are taking 
the research we are doing on therapies and cures. By the way, there are 
substantial, more resources, billions of dollars that go into that in 
this bill. Right now, in labs all around America, some of the best and 
brightest minds are at work on therapies, cures, and vaccines for 
COVID-19. It has changed all of our lives in the past few months, and 
we stand to benefit from these medical breakthroughs, and we want them 
to have them. So, again, Congress has already appropriated billions of 
dollars. In the McConnell proposal, there are billions more for this 
purpose, and that is appropriate.
  Yet, as we work to find a cure, there are troubling reports emerging 
that China, in particular, is actively trying to take this research for 
itself. As the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security 
Agency warned in May, there has been a pattern of ``targeting and 
compromise of U.S. organizations conducting COVID-19-related research 
by PRC-affiliated cyber actors and non-traditional collectors.''
  FBI Director Wray was even more pointed about this threat earlier 
this month, stating on July 7: ``At this very moment, China is working 
to compromise American health care organizations, pharmaceutical 
companies, and academic institutions conducting essential COVID-19 
research.''
  Just last week, the Justice Department filed charges against a 
Chinese researcher who failed to disclose her ties to the People's 
Liberation Army while conducting medical research at Stanford 
University. While she was not accused of stealing the research in this 
case, this kind of arrangement, wherein scholars are essentially agents 
of the Chinese Government in order to gain access to our cutting-edge 
labs around the country to find research to sneak back into China, is 
all too common.
  That China would attempt to steal our research for its own benefit 
is, unfortunately, not surprising. As we have all seen over the past 
few months, China's failure to live up to its international commitments 
on critical issues like transparency and human rights have led to some 
of the issues we have had, particularly with regard to the lack of 
transparency on the unchecked spread of the coronavirus from Wuhan.
  Frankly, relations with China are not good right now, in part, 
because of that. Unfortunately, our problems with China extend to our 
labs and our universities. As chair of the Senate Permanent 
Subcommittee on Investigations, I led a bipartisan investigation last 
year into this issue. Over the course of a year, we learned how the 
Chinese Communist Party has used so-called talent recruitment 
programs--notably, its Thousand Talents Plan--to systematically target 
the most promising U.S.-based research and researchers and pay them to 
take their American taxpayer-funded research back to Chinese 
universities.
  While stealing this research is bad enough, what is worse is that it 
is not taken for academic purposes. Instead, according to the State 
Department witness at our hearing last November, ``the Chinese 
Communist Party has declared the Chinese university system to be on the 
front line of military-civilian fusion efforts for technology 
acquisition.'' That means there is a clear link between the research 
being taken from American labs and the latest advancement in China's 
military and its economy.
  There has been more recent attention to this topic of research theft, 
which is a good thing. We need to talk about it and we need to expose 
it and we need to deal with it. Recently, both FBI Director Wray and 
Attorney General Barr

[[Page S4577]]

have spoken about this threat. In fact, Director Wray announced that 
the FBI is opening a new China-related investigation on this topic 
every 10 hours--a new investigation every 10 hours--with around 2,500 
counterintelligence investigations now going on around the country.
  We have seen this type of research theft in my home State of Ohio, 
unfortunately.
  Just a couple of months ago, a National Institutes of Health-funded 
researcher, affiliated with both the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western 
Reserve University, was accused of hiding that he had received more 
than $3 million from the Chinese Government to effectively take and 
replicate his Cleveland Clinic research at a lab in China. He is 
actually accused of taking biological samples from Cleveland, OH, to 
Wuhan, China. And this was taxpayer-paid research by the NIH.
  He is not alone. The NIH has recently reported that 54 scientists and 
researchers have either resigned or been fired as a result of an NIH 
investigation into American taxpayer-funded grant recipients for their 
failure to disclose financial ties to foreign governments, particularly 
China. In fact, according to the NIH investigation, more than 90 
percent of the scientists had undisclosed ties to China.
  Unfortunately, as it stands, our law enforcement agencies can't go 
directly after these researchers for hiding their foreign conflict of 
interest--for not telling the truth--while taking taxpayer money.
  As important as it is that we speak out against these improper 
actions by China around the world, it is also critical that we take 
steps to clean up our own house right here in the United States and 
make America more resilient against China. One way we can do that is by 
stopping research developed in our labs and universities from going to 
benefit China's military and economy at our expense.
  I am pleased to say we have an opportunity to change that right now 
because this legislation is included in the COVID-19 legislation and in 
doing so take a stand in a bipartisan manner in defense of our values 
of research transparency, collaboration, fairness, and national 
security.
  Our legislation is called the Safeguarding American Innovation Act, 
and I introduced it, along with Senator Tom Carper and a group of 
bipartisan Senators, to ensure that individuals are held accountable 
for failing to disclose their foreign ties on Federal grant 
applications. It will also reform the State Department's vetting 
process for issuing visas to foreign researchers. It will require more 
safeguards on sensitive research from our research institutions and our 
universities and will help us better track who is working on taxpayer-
funded research.
  This bill is ready to pass the Senate. The Homeland Security and 
Governmental Affairs Committee voted to approve it last week with 
bipartisan and unanimous consent.
  I am pleased to say that, again, Leader McConnell has chosen to 
include this legislation in his phase 5 proposal, the CARES 2.0 
package, because it will help protect taxpayer-funded COVID-19 research 
and serve as a safeguard for the $150 billion that Americans give to 
scientists to conduct research every year. That is the taxpayer funding 
that goes into our research institutions. In that regard, including the 
Safeguarding American Innovation Act in this CARES 2.0 bill can and 
should be viewed as a fiscally responsible measure as we continue to 
take a firmer stance against behavior that China has gotten away with 
for way too long.
  Let's do all we can to put vulnerable American institutions on a 
solid footing as well. It is time to put an end to the Chinese 
Communist Party's theft of our taxpayer-funded research, including 
COVID-19 research.
  I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting the Safeguarding 
American Innovation Act.