Applied mathematician Mingqing Xiao will enter a federal courtroom in Benton, Illinois, next week to face charges that he defrauded the U.S. government by failing to disclose his ties to Chinese universities alleged to have supported his research. Several of his colleagues at Southern Illinois University (SIU), Carbondale, where Xiao has been a faculty member since 2000, also plan to be there when his trial opens on 25 April, wearing buttons proclaiming: “We stand with Mingqing Xiao.”
Their presence will be a rare public expression of support for the 60-year-old Xiao, whose indictment 1 year ago made him the most recent of some two dozen U.S. academics to be prosecuted under a controversial 2018 law enforcement effort called the China Initiative. That campaign, which has yielded a mixed record of guilty pleas, dropped cases, two trial convictions, and one notable acquittal, is aimed at preventing the Chinese government from stealing intellectual property.
Most of the cases, however, have not involved charges that scientists improperly transferred any U.S.-funded research results. Instead, they typically focus on financial fraud and tax charges similar to those Xiao is facing.
Xiao’s case has largely flown under the media radar, with more attention going to cases involving researchers at higher profile institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University. But the trial will be another important test of the government’s hard-edged strategy of prosecuting academics whose actions are alleged to have undermined national security.
Many academics and civil rights groups have vehemently criticized the prosecutions, calling the China Initiative a witch hunt against U.S. scientists of Chinese origin and a misguided attack on legitimate research collaborations. Two months ago, the Department of Justice (DOJ) acknowledged such criticism and rebranded the initiative as a “strategy to counter nation-state threats.”
But opponents say they are still waiting for signs the government has changed course. “From where I sit, the demise of the China Initiative is greatly exaggerated,” says Peter Zeidenberg, an attorney for Franklin Tao, a University of Kansas, Lawrence, chemical engineer convicted earlier this month in a decision that some legal experts think could be overturned.
Legal observers say the outcome of Xiao’s upcoming trial could shape whether the government’s effort is ultimately seen as justified or unfair.
A matter of intent
Born and raised in Guangdong, China, Xiao came to the United States after the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising to complete his education. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 1997, and received tenure after only 2 years on the SIU faculty. He became a U.S. citizen in 2006 and a year later was promoted to full professor. In 2016 SIU named Xiao an outstanding scholar, and in 2020 the university’s public radio station gave him its “neighborly” award for community service in Carbondale.
Those accomplishments, however, are not likely to have a bearing on the outcome of his case. At issue for the federal jury is whether Xiao broke the law in obtaining a 2019 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop new mathematical tools for analyzing high-dimensional data sets. The government contends he failed to tell SIU and NSF about his ties to Shenzhen University and Guangdong University of Technology, and that he didn’t list compensation he received from those entities on his federal tax returns. Prosecutors will assert that he did so deliberately, with the intent to defraud the government. He is charged with seven felony counts and, if convicted, faces up to 20 years in prison and a sizable fine.
Xiao’s lawyer, Ryan Poscablo of Steptoe & Johnson, will argue that there’s insufficient evidence to prove the allegations and, moreover, that there was no criminal intent behind any incorrect statements Xiao might have made.
It is not illegal for U.S. academics to receive research funding from foreign sources. In fact, until recently most U.S. universities encouraged faculty to hook up with burgeoning scientific powerhouses such as China, and Xiao’s background was seen as a boon to building such ties. But any ties must be disclosed. How that was done—and whether some relationships were omitted or deliberately hidden—became a central issue as the China Initiative ramped up.
The government’s tactics in the Xiao case resemble those it has used against other academic scientists under the China Initiative. DOJ officials haven’t said how they got wind of Xiao’s alleged criminal violations. But early on 2 December 2020, FBI and Department of Homeland Security agents visited his home on the pretext of looking into a separate case involving a visa violation.
The agents spent 2 hours grilling Xiao on his interactions with several Chinese institutions. He complied with requests to hand over his passport and share his passwords for two phones, and he attempted to explain the various sources of funding for his research.
At some point, however, Xiao’s adult daughter realized her father was actually the target of the investigation and tried unsuccessfully to get the investigators to back off. “I’m uncomfortable with you … trying to put words in his mouth when he’s already said he was confused,” she said, according to a transcript of the interrogation. (Xiao’s lawyer sought unsuccessfully to have the transcript suppressed as evidence.) Four months later, Xiao was indicted, put under court supervision, and told he couldn’t leave the state.
Xiao’s friends say he has spent the past 20 years trying to improve the lives of people in the Carbondale community while pursuing his research and teaching SIU undergraduates. In 2013, for example, Xiao opened a free Saturday morning math academy for children of faculty members and their classmates because he felt the local public schools weren’t preparing them adequately for today’s high-tech economy.
“He did it out of the goodness of his heart, and because he was so committed to living in small-town America,” says Jonathan Wiesen, a history professor at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, whose children attended the Saturday academy when Wiesen was on the SIU faculty.
In 2015 Xiao accompanied SIU music faculty on an exchange trip to China. He hoped to help SIU reverse more than 10 years of declining enrollment by recruiting promising Chinese students, says Edward Benyas, the music professor who invited Xiao and who is helping organize the stream of visitors to the federal courthouse, some 35 miles from the SIU campus. “As unjust as the China Initiative is,” Benyas says, “it is particularly egregious that Ming is a victim. Everything he’s done has been to help SIU.”
Mounting legal bills
The university put Xiao on paid administrative leave immediately after his indictment and launched its own investigation. It has declined further comment on what it calls “a personnel matter.”
His SIU colleagues initially refrained from making any public statements on his behalf. Some apparently feared that, as state employees, they would face professional blowback. And Benyas notes that “We didn’t have any information beyond what the Justice Department had said, and we didn’t want to jeopardize his defense.”
In November 2021, the SIU Carbondale Faculty Association took a position on Xiao’s case, saying the government should drop all charges and asking the university to reinstate Xiao and finance his legal defense.
Asian American groups that have spoken out on behalf of other academics targeted by the China Initiative acknowledge they have done little on Xiao’s behalf. They say meager resources and a lack of bandwidth have prevented them from being more proactive.
Although Xiao has continued to receive his university salary, he has fallen well short of paying his legal bills despite draining his life savings. A GoFundMe campaign begun by Benyas’s spouse, Kara Benyas, a professional musician and SIU graduate, has raised $26,000 toward a goal of $350,000, although supporters say the real need tops $800,000.
In contrast, a GoFundMe campaign for Gang Chen, the MIT engineering professor whose case was dismissed before it went to trial, raised $400,000 in 1 day before MIT agreed to cover his legal bills. Organizers of Chen’s fundraiser say the money will be donated to support scientists like Xiao who are facing similar prosecutions by the government.
The Benyases don’t know whether the daily courtroom vigils will have any impact on the jury’s deliberations. “But we think it’s important to show that people are supporting him,” Ed Benyas says. “It’s the least we can do.”