An economic team was set up on April 1 in the National Security Secretariat of the Cabinet Secretariat to function as the "control tower" of the economic security policy. The team is tasked with examining Japan's economic and science and technology policies from a national security perspective, as well as reinforcing surveillance. Here, we look at the current state of the nation's economic security and its challenges.
Living in an apartment on the 22nd floor of a 25-story building about three kilometers from Tiananmen Square in Beijing is a 70-year-old Japanese man, a professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT). Most of the monthly rent of about 350,000 yen is paid by the Chinese government, and the building is also equipped with a heated swimming pool and a gym.
"Would you apply for the Chinese government's Thousand Talents Plan?"
About six years ago, when the man was a professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology specializing in artificial intelligence, he received an email asking him to take part in a state-run project in China. The sender was a Chinese professor at BIT who had once been engaged in a joint research project with him at Tokyo Tech.
The man, who was scheduled to retire at the end of that fiscal year but wanted to "still have something to do," accepted the Chinese professor's request.
The Thousand Talents Plan is a program established by China's central government for recruiting high-level scientists and talent from overseas, with the aim of making China the world's top science and technology power. The program, which has been in place since 2008, consists of several categories, including one that aims at repatriating a pool of high-quality Chinese researchers working overseas, and another exclusively targeting foreign scientists. For the latter category, the Chinese government has set a target of recruiting 500 to 1,000 foreign experts during the 2011-2020 period.
The provision of 100 million yen over five years includes research funding and salaries, and handsome welfare benefits. The Thousand Talents Plan is characterized by exceptionally good treatment. An informed source privy to the plan said, "There have been several thousand applications rushing in every year from across the world, making it as difficult to win a job as it is to win the lottery."
The Japanese man has a research lab measuring about 300 square meters at the university. Besides mentoring about 15 Chinese students, he has been engaged in 20-plus jobs at the request of the Chinese government over the past five years: publishing theses, applying for patents and holding international conferences.
China is trying to corral foreign researchers by offering superb treatment, because it aims to get possession of advanced technologies in foreign countries. Yet it is not only genuinely scientific motives that are at play.
"By making the first move and gaining advantageous positions in scientific, technological, economic and military fields, China will take the lead in future warfare." This is what China stipulated in its national strategy of "Military-Civil Fusion" announced in July 2016. For China, there is no line between the military and civilian sectors. Rather, the Chinese government has been frantically searching for ways to link technologies for civilian use to gaining military supremacy.
The "Military-Civil Fusion" strategy aims to vigorously advance the diversion of leading-edge civilian technologies for military use. The 13th 5-year program from 2016 to 2020 announced by the Communist Party of China in March 2016 stipulated the promotion of ever deeper fusion between the military and civilian sectors. In January 2017, China established the Central Commission for Integrated Military and Civilian Development with Chinese President Xi Jinping as its chair, and it has been modernizing the People's Liberation Army.
The research being conducted by the Japanese expert could also be diverted to military use.
"If there was a practical application, the research could be used for assaults with drones or for suicide attacks."
While admitting this, the man sidestepped the issue by saying, "I do not intend to get involved in military research myself, nor to give Japan any trouble." As to the Chinese side's aim, the man said: "Universities in China are keenly aware that they will conduct research to advance military technologies and produce results as a matter of course. The country is probably recruiting foreign researchers because it expects this will bring in technologies China does not have."
The United States, fearful of sensitive information being robbed through the Thousand Talents Plan, has been strengthening its surveillance and regulations.
The Thousand Talents Plan has rewarded "individuals for stealing proprietary information" and violating export administration regulations.
The U.S. Department of Justice in January referenced the plan in its materials for the indictment of Charles Lieber, a Harvard University professor and head of its Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department. The Justice Department claimed that Lieber made false statements to conceal from the U.S. government the fact that he had been involved with China's talent recruitment program at Wuhan University of Technology. Lieber is known as a world-class authority on nanotechnology and has also been entrusted with conducting research by the Department of Defense.
The report unveiled last year by the U.S. Senate's subcommittee, which examined in detail the potential risks posed by the Thousand Talents Plan and similar programs to U.S. economic security, also emphasized that the Thousand Talents Plan will harm the national interests of the U.S. economy and national security.
With regard to China's talent recruitment program, the report pointed out that it incentivizes individuals engaged in research and development in the United States to act against the principles of science and technology and research by 1) making false claims to the U.S. government and organizations that grant funds for their research, 2) creating "shadow labs" by reproducing exactly the same research labs that exist in the United States, and 3) transferring to China intellectual capital that is hard to obtain.
As a matter of fact, there has also been a case reported in which a U.S. researcher who applied for the talent recruitment program leaked data to China related to an engine for the U.S.-made F-35 cutting-edge stealth fighter jet of the U.S. Air Force.
In the contracts signed by researchers who take part in the recruitment program, there are cases in which a stipulation is included stating that they will not make public either their participation in the Chinese plan or their research results in China.
The Thousand Talents Plan is just one of the more than 200 talent recruitment programs being run by China. The number of foreign scientists, technical experts and investors who have taken part in these programs is said to have topped 7,000 by 2018.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
