FBI Urges Universities To Monitor Some Chinese Students And Scholars In The U.S.
（中文译本附后）
University administrators say the FBI, whose headquarters are shown above, has urged them to monitor some Chinese students and scholars. Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP hide caption
U.S. intelligence agencies are encouraging American research universities to develop protocols for monitoring students and visiting scholars from Chinese state-affiliated research institutions, as U.S. suspicion toward China spreads to academia.
Since last year, FBI officials have visited at least 10 members of the Association of American Universities, a group of 62 research universities, with an unclassified list of Chinese research institutions and companies.
Universities have been advised to monitor students and scholars associated with those entities on American campuses, according to three administrators briefed at separate institutions. FBI officials have also urged universities to review ongoing research involving Chinese individuals that could have defense applications, the administrators say.
"We are being asked what processes are in place to know what labs they are working at or what information they are being exposed to," Fred Cate, vice president of research at Indiana University, tells NPR. "It's not a question of just looking for suspicious behavior — it's actually really targeting specific countries and the people from those countries."
In a statement responding to NPR's questions, the FBI said it "regularly engages with the communities we serve. As part of this continual outreach, we meet with a wide variety of groups, organizations, businesses, and academic institutions. The FBI has met with top officials from academia as part of our ongoing engagement on national security matters."
While law enforcement agents have discussed university monitoring of other nationalities as well, these FBI briefings addressed visitors from China in particular who are involved in science, technology, engineering and math.
Such FBI requests are advisory, not mandatory. Administrators say the universities briefed by the FBI have not yet implemented additional monitoring protocols. They say they have pushed back because of skepticism of the threat level and because the FBI requests lack specificity in implementation.
Separately, intelligence officers have also briefed hundreds of American CEOs, investors and think tank experts on Chinese cybersecurity and espionage threats. "What we provide them is the classified information that we get from the collection priorities of China specifically：What they're trying to collect on, what they're interested in our campuses," William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, told NPR.
This March, U.S. intelligence officials briefed about 70 college administrators of the American Council on Education, according to university participants. The officials said the presidents should increase oversight of Chinese researchers and avoid research funding from Chinese firms like Huawei.
The presidents were "skeptical of many of the claims, but many of them receive U.S. government research money," says a participant briefed at the meeting and who is not authorized to speak publicly.
The nation's primary biomedical research agency, the National Institutes of Health, is now investigating grant recipients for not disclosing collaboration or funding from China and for sharing peer-review grant material with Chinese researchers. "Foreign entities have mounted systematic programs to influence NIH researchers and peer reviewers," warned NIH Director Francis Collins in a memo sent to more than 10,000 research institutions last August.
In May, the Commerce Department put Huawei on a trade blacklist, which prevents U.S. companies from selling products to the Chinese telecom firm without federal authorization. But the pressure to divest from research collaborations with Huawei and ZTE, another telecom company, began early last year, said three university administrators.
"For months up until [May], government officials were saying, 'We really don't think you should be doing business with Huawei,' " says Cate. "We said, 'Why don't you put them on a list and then we won't do business?' And they're like, 'Oh, the list process is way too slow.' "
The FBI visits have caused uncertainty among U.S. academics about whether to accept federal grants for research that may involve Chinese scholars. "We don't say you can't, because we don't have any legal authority to say they can't," Cate says. "But we say you should be aware there may be some sensitivity about this."
Several university presidents have issued statements this year reaffirming their commitment to Chinese researchers and students.
Last month, Yale University's president, Peter Salovey, said he was "working with my presidential colleagues in the Association of American Universities（AAU）to urge federal agencies to clarify concerns they have about international academic exchanges. The AAU has encouraged agencies to use the tools already in place, such as export controls, while affirming the principle of open academic exchange for basic research."
Salovey's office declined to comment further when contacted by NPR.
Universities and companies use software that automatically reviews international research collaborations, commercial transactions and other exchanges and then matches them up with existing blacklists to ensure they do not violate export control laws.
Numerous universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and the University of Illinois, have already cut off research collaborations with Huawei.
Besides Huawei, no other Chinese entities singled out to universities by the FBI are currently on a trade blacklist, according to the three university administrators.
That means any monitoring of specific Chinese individuals at the university level would have to be done manually, when admitting or employing them, possibly leaving a wide margin of error during evaluation.
"You're really looking at compliance systems that have to be rolled out on a department-by-department basis and person-by-person level to see if you're sticking research data in an envelope and mailing it to China," Cate says.
The Trump administration has long accused China of stealing American technology, a key factor behind the trade war between the two countries.
FBI Director Christopher Wray addresses the Council on Foreign Relations on April 26 in Washington, D.C. Wray spoke about "the FBI's role in protecting the United States from today's global threats." Alex Wong/Getty Images hide caption
As the mood in Washington, D.C., becomes more aggressive toward China, intelligence agencies have been visiting not just universities but also American tech companies to dissuade them from collaborations with Chinese entities.
"We have to wake this country up to what China is doing," Sen. Mark Warner, Va.-D, said at the Brookings Institution last month. "For this reason, I have been convening meetings between the intelligence community and outside stakeholders in business and academia to ensure they have the full threat picture and, hopefully, make different decisions about Chinese partnerships."
Chinese students have come under particular suspicion. More than 340,000 were studying in the U.S. last year, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Since last July, Chinese students studying, in particular, science and technology fields must undergo additional screening, resulting in delayed visas for hundreds of students.
In May, Republicans introduced legislation in the House and Senate that would deny visas to Chinese researchers affiliated with Chinese military institutions.
"The Chinese intelligence services strategically use every tool at their disposal — including state-owned businesses, students, researchers and ostensibly private companies — to systematically steal information and intellectual property," FBI Director Christopher Wray said at the Council on Foreign Relations in April.
Former FBI agents say the bureau's recent visits to universities are merely an extension of long-running efforts to collaborate with the private sector and academia on national security issues.
"What the FBI has been doing is really more of an outreach and education program," says Todd K. Hulsey, a former counterintelligence official who retired from the FBI in 2014. Hulsey explained that such meetings began as early as two decades ago over concerns that Chinese student associations were fronts for Chinese intelligence recruiting："It's to let these universities know that there is an existing threat to our economy."
National security concerns at universities increased after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, which sent a wave of former Soviet bloc researchers to the U.S., says Edward Shaw, a former FBI special agent who retired in 2014.
Even back then, however, government agencies contacted universities with specific individuals of concern rather than presenting a broad list of institutions.
"It's casting a wide net," says Shaw. "When you're getting information from various government agencies and other trusted sources that a specific person is in the country and you are more targeted, you're using your resources better."
NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre contributed reporting.
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随着美国对中国的不信任态度波及到学术界，美国情报机构已开始着手敦促美国各研究型大学达成协定，要求这些大学对中国留学生以及来自中国科研机构的访问学者加强审查监控。
01 针对中国的特殊审查
自去年以来，联邦调查局带着一份关于中国研究机构及公司的非机密名单，已至少访问了美国大学协会（Association of American Universities , AAU）中的10所大学。众所周知，AAU这个由62所知名高校构成的组织，目前已是北美乃至全世界规模最大、学术性研究范围最广的大学组织。FBI伸手向AUU，表明联邦政府对学界的干预正在逐渐浮出水面。
据三位来自不同大学的负责人介绍，联邦调查局的官员曾向这些大学建议，如果留学生和访问学者跟FBI名单上的中国机构有关系，则需要对其进行审查。此外，联邦调查局还敦促大学着重审查那些有中国人参与的、涉及到国防应用的研究项目。
印第安纳大学研究部副主任Fred Cate称，为了能够获知这些被审查对象正在进行何种实验、接触到了哪些信息，联邦调查局问了他很多流程上的问题。他说：“这不是单纯地在检视可疑行为，他们实际上是在针对特定国家和来自这些国家的人们。”
面对人们的质疑，联邦调查局回应称，“这跟我们的一项长期工作有关。作为该工作的延展部分，我们广泛会见了各个团体、组织、企业，当然也包括学术机构。并且，联邦调查局已经和学术界的高级官僚会晤，这是我们负责的国家安全事务的一部分。“
虽然联邦调查局的发言人做出了声明，称他们对其他国家的人士也采取了同等的审查举措。但是从FBI的简报看，还是能明显地看出其对中国的针对性。而这种针对又尤以对自然科学、技术、工程和数学领域的人才为甚。
02 学界态度
不过，联邦调查局的这项要求是建议性而非强制性的。负责人们称，FBI简报中的大学尚未执行这些附加审查协定。大学方面普遍怀疑联邦调查局口中的安全威胁的严重程度，并称联邦调查局的协定建议缺乏明确的可操作性，因此对该协定予以延宕执行。
2019年3月，美国教育委员会（American Council on Education，ACE）的七十余位大学负责人被邀请参与会议，美国情报官员则在会上公开表示，学院负责人应加大对中国研究人员的监控力度，避免研究经费流向像华为这样的中国企业。一位未被授权公开发言的参会者说，负责人们虽然“对这种说法持保留态度，但他们中的许多人都握有美国政府拨发的研究资金。”言下之意，是说负责人们多少也有点“吃人嘴软，拿人手短”。
实际这种说法并非耸人听闻。美国国立卫生研究院（National Institutes of Health，NIH）所采取的一些行动就能看出这种说法的合理性。在2018年8月，NIH怀疑存在一些研究项目正在接受他国政府的重大财政资助而未披露相关情况，并由此展开调查。美国国立卫生研究院院长 Francis Collins在致函近万家研究机构，称：“外国势力已经采取系统性措施，对NIH研究人员和同行评议制度施加影响。”2019年3月，NIH又致函全美数十所研究型大大学，要求其提供个别获得NIH资助的教职工信息，因为这些人被认为与外国政府有所关联。NIH为何能向这些研究项目施压，个中缘由，读者应当一目了然。
2019年5月，美国商务部将华为列入交易黑名单，禁止美国公司在未经政府授权的情况下向其销售产品。不过三位大学负责人透露，与中国企业华为和中兴的研究合作，其实早在2018年初就已经遭遇压力。Cate回忆说：“几个月下来，政府官员总是说，‘我们真的觉得你不应该再和华为合作’，我们回答，‘那你把它列上黑名单，我们就不能和它合作了啊’。然后他们的表情就像在说，‘噢，列名单要走的程序实在太慢了’。”
显然，联邦调查局的介入在美国学界产生了连锁效应，让美国学者开始犹豫是否还要接受与中国学者有关的联邦资助项目。Cate说：“我们不会说你不能接受联邦资助，我们也没有任何合法性指责联邦政府有何不妥，但是你毕竟应该清楚，接受这类型的资助项目极可能会惹上一些敏感性。”
另一方面，数位大学校长今年都发表声明，重申了他们对中国研究人员和中国学生的承诺。上个月，耶鲁大学校长Peter Salovey表示，他正与美国大学协会的负责人一起，敦促联邦政府回应他们对国际学术交流前景的担忧。而AUU在鼓励各机构使用如“出口管制”等既定工具的同时，也肯定了开放式学术交流的原则。这里说的“出口管制”是一种电脑程序，它被大学或公司用来自动审查国际研究合作、国际贸易和其他国际交流是否合规，该程序会在审查时将审查对象与政府黑名单进行核对，以确保它们不违反出口管制法律。
目前，包括麻省理工学院、斯坦福大学和伊利诺伊大学在内的众多大学，都已经停止了与华为的研究合作。不过，根据三位大学负责人的说法，除了华为之外，目前还没有其他的中国实体被列入联邦调查局的合作黑名单。不在黑名单上，就意味着不能使用“出口管制”的程序自动核对。换言之，对审查对象的审查工作就必须人为完成，由人审查、由人举报。毫无疑问，这极可能造成巨大的误差。
Cate说到：“你得指望这么一个审查机制，它必须要一个部门一个部门、一个人一个人地挨个审查，看看人们是否将研究数据打包寄去了中国。”
03 背景与成因
长期以来，特朗普政府一直指责中国窃取美国技术，这也是两国贸易战的发端之一。随着华府对中国的负面情绪愈发激进，情报机构不仅登门拜访了大学，也找上了美国各大科技公司，以阻止他们与中国企业或机构进行合作。
联邦调查局还向数百名CEO、投资者和智库专家介绍了来自中国的网络安全和间谍威胁问题。对于这些信息公布活动，美国国家反情报与安全中心主任William Evanina 解释道：“我们提供的信息，仅仅是关于中国在美国所收集信息的优先级，即，中国想要收集什么信息，他们对我们校园中的什么东西感兴趣。”
上个月，美国参议员Mark Warner在布鲁金斯学会上宣称：“我们必须提醒国家此刻中国的所作所为。为了这个目的，我一直在邀请情报机构和商界、学界的利益相关者参加会议，以确保他们清楚我们面临的威胁，并期望他们能对与中国的合作关系作出不同的决定。”
在这个大背景下，中国留学生群体成为了重点怀疑对象。自去年7月以来，中国留学生，尤其是自然科学和技术领域的留学生，必须接受额外的审查。这最终导致数百名学生的签证被推迟发放。
前联邦调查局特工Edward Shaw 解释道：“1991年苏联解体后，大学加剧了国家对安全的担忧。然而，即使是在那个时候，政府机构也会与大学沟通，直接与被审查者沟通，而不是列出一份广泛的机构名单。”如今华府广撒网的审查姿态，也必将更深刻地影响学界的未来走向。
2019年5月，共和党人向参众两院提出了立法议案，期望停止向来自中国军事附属机构的研究人员发放签证。联邦调查局局长Christopher Wray更是公开声称：“中国情报部门利用他们掌握的一切工具，系统地窃取美国的机密信息和知识产权，这些‘工具’包括他们的国有企业、学生、研究人员和那些看起来是私人公司的机构。”
前联邦调查局特工Todd K. Hulsey表示，联邦调查局最近对大学的访查行为，只是他们与私营部门和学术界在国家安全方面进行的延伸合作。Hulsey说：“联邦调查局在做的事情更多的是延伸工作和教育计划。此类会议在二十年前就已经开始，发起的原因是当时担心中国留学生协会是中国情报机构的前锋。” Hulsey表示，这样做是为了让这些大学知道，我们的经济存在着威胁。”
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