Justice Department Moves to End Trump’s China Initiative

The Justice Department moved to end its controversial “China Initiative,” a Trump administration program designed to address Chinese efforts to steal American intellectual property. The policy faced serious backlash from civil rights advocates and organizations, who claimed it perpetuated a culture of suspicion and xenophobia towards Asians and Asian-Americans.

The “China Initiative,” which went into effect in 2018, was designed to identify and prosecute those engaging in “trade secret theft, hacking, and economic espionage.” Though the program led to the legitimate prosecution of Chinese spies charged with stealing US technology, it also convinced many Chinese students and professors that they are being racially profiled by the US government, according to a recent survey carried out by the Committee of 100. The program reportedly led to many students rethinking their postgraduate plans, whilst simultaneously discouraging more students from seeking higher education in the US.

Concerns regarding the program were renewed in the year since President Biden took office, with a letter written by Representative Ted Lieu (D-CA) and cosigned by almost 100 other members of Congress urging the Attorney General to investigate alleged racial profiling of Asians by the Justice Department. Rep. Lieu cited a number of cases in which false accusations led to innocent lives being “turned upside down.”

When asked about the program at a congressional hearing in October, Attorney General Merrick Garland claimed China represented a “threat to our intellectual property” and “a serious threat with respect to espionage,” but stressed that the Department does not investigate or prosecute individuals based on their ethnicity. 

Hoping to definitively refute accusations of bias, Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen then announced a formal review into the initiative. The review concluded with Olsen announcing his decision to terminate the program on Wednesday, acknowledging that while the review returned no evidence for racially-biased investigations or prosecutions, “Anything that creates the impression that the Department of Justice applies different standards based on race or ethnicity harms the department and our efforts, and it harms the public.”

In a speech given at George Mason University’s National Security Institute, the Assistant Attorney General reiterated his commitment to prioritizing the country’s national security, stating that the department intends on widening its efforts to tackle the espionage efforts of Russia, Iran and North Korea, as well as China.

Response to the decision has been mixed, with support and opposition divided along party lines. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK), for example, claimed in a statement the Chinese government “turned students and researchers into foreign spies.” On the other side of the aisle, however, Representative Judy Chu (D-CA) said the program would not be remembered for successfully curbing Chinese espionage, but for “ruining careers and discouraging many Asian Americans from pursuing careers in STEM fields out of fear that they too will be targeted.”

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, in which cases of discrimination against the AAPI community have increased dramatically, civil rights groups commended the decision, but reiterated that their work is far from finished.