Talk:China Initiative

Reference says the opposite of what is paraphrased in the article
Reference 2 does not say "with every individual investigated under the China Initiative never found to be affiliated with China." In fact, it says "Some of the initiative’s most high-profile and troubled cases have involved criminal charges against professors and researchers working in the U.S. over accusations that they illegally hid their involvement in Chinese government scientific development programs known as “Thousand Talents” or by similar names. The cases have typically involved allegations that the targets lied or omitted information on disclosure forms accompanying grant applications. Some such cases have led to convictions and guilty pleas. Last December, a jury found the former chair of Harvard’s Chemistry Department, Charles Lieber, guilty of making false statements to federal officials as well as filing false tax returns." Prosaicpat (talk) 22:51, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Recent deleted quote is best left deleted
The following was recently deleted, here is the diff:. Since the quote was inflammatory and there is some contention over this article, I checked the source. I think it is best to leave the quote out. Here is the deleted text:


 * Even though Hu was not charged with espionage, one of the prosecutors said during the trial that part of the reason for prosecuting scientists and professors was "to teach these Chinese spies a lesson."

The reference, an article in the South China Morning Post, says: "The fact that the DOJ has decided to retry the case 'shows their continuing intent in their unrelenting campaign to punish innocent scientists and professors essentially 'to teach these Chinese spies a lesson', as one of the prosecutors screamed out during the trial', [Patton] said." where Patton is a representative of the Committee of Concerned Scientists.

The sourcing for the inflammatory quote is quite weak. It seems to have been a reporter talking to Patton, who may or may not have attended the trial. Patton claims that one of the prosecutors "screamed out" the offending quote "during trial." In other words, somebody overhead something unoffically during the trial and Patton heard about that and is now telling the reporter. Furthermore the description "prosecutors said during the trial" is deceptive, it sounds like a quote from the trial record. Best to leave this quote out -- M.boli (talk) 12:33, 28 November 2022 (UTC)


 * I think other material from the source can be used however. That the Committee of Concerned Scientists and other groups took an interest in the trial and is among the organizations accusing the government of bias and/or misconduct is possibly noteworthy for this article. My problem is only with the one quote.  -- M.boli (talk) 14:36, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Gender, Race and Computing
— Assignment last updated by Racoon dolphin (talk) 08:30, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Request to add: a section listing notable cases/events of China Initiative?
I am new to editing but as a student I often use Wikipedia. To me, one thing that is missing from this page is a list of examples of the prosecutions that were done toward Asians in America. For instance, notable authors will have a list of books they wrote, voice actors a list of media that they were featured in, musical artists a list of discography.... So I am asking if it's okay to add a table/list section like this. Cyngao (talk) 06:13, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Some sentences in 'Origin' section contradicting what is mentioned in 'Ineffectiveness' subsection
This sentence in particular "Despite the initiative's goal of combating espionage, no one was convicted or even charged with spying in any China Initiative case. " is misleading since later on in the article it states that eight people were convicted of X action. Maybe just change from "no one was" to "very few were." Cyngao (talk) 21:43, 15 October 2023 (UTC)


 * The article does not state that the eight were charged with spying or convicted for it and the article for no one being charged with spying or convicted post-dates it. To my knowledge, not a single case of the China Initiative has been confirmed to be for spying, so to assume that the eight cases were for spying would be original research. Qiushufang (talk) 22:48, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Adding some photos
Hi all, is it alright if I add some photos to the Wikipedia page? I am thinking no more than 5 since the length of the article is not too long currently. They would be photos relevant to the content, such as a picture of one of the scientists that was "under investigation" or of legal figures. If any photos of the cases/trials/press conferences themselves are available I can find those too. Cyngao (talk) 07:35, 26 November 2023 (UTC)


 * I think it's reasonable to have pictures of scientists who are/were under trail. However, adding images to Wikipedia is a bit tricky. WP:UPIMAGE has a comprehensive explanation. The short version is to be careful with copyright status. If the image is under a free license (public domain, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA), you can upload it to Wikimedia Commons and use it on Wikipedia. If the image is not under a free license, you will need a compelling reason to establish the necessity of using that image in a Wikipedia article (see WP:NFCI and fair use). I personally think these rules are too complicated and so I don't upload images unless necessary and I'm not familiar with the rules. If you have more questions, you can probably get help from the teahouse. PetraMagna (talk) 08:03, 26 November 2023 (UTC)