User:Cyngao/China Initiative

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When first reading this article, I found it difficult to gain an understanding of what exactly the China Initiative was. Description is summed up as the persecution of Asians in America, and I thought there would be a more detailed explanation of what that persecution looked like. The article introduction should include a list of known and notable cases resulting from the China Initiative, such as that of the MIT professor Gang Chen.

The China Initiative was a series of efforts by the United States Department of Justice to prosecute perceived Chinese spies in American research and industry, in order to combat economic espionage. Launched in November 2018, it has been criticized as racially biased and ineffective. Some of the cases under the China Initiative were based on false evidence provided by the FBI. The Department of Justice announced the end of the program on February 23, 2022, amid criticism of racial profiling of Chinese American citizens and other residents of Chinese origin or ancestry.

Origin
The China Initiative was launched to prosecute scientific researchers and academics affiliated with China. It was set in motion by the Department of Justice (DOJ) under then-US President Donald Trump's first Attorney General Jeff Sessions in November 2018, with the goal of preventing industrial espionage. The China Initiative was one of Session's last actions as the official Attorney General of the US, in which the DOJ promised aggressive pursuit of Chinese commercial theft. Trump and his administration believed that China was using researchers and students to steal American technological innovations. The program gained momentum amidst rising tensions between the US and China due to trade wars and exchanging tariffs.

The DOJ maintains that there is no strict definition of what a China Initiative case is, but most of the cases involve researchers who failed to disclose Chinese funding on grant applications and many involve professors at US institutions. Despite the initiative's goal of combating espionage, very few were convicted or even charged with spying across the collection of cases.