UCA Renews Call for Termination of the China Initiative Following Acquittal of Dr. Anming Hu

Washington, D.C. – On Thursday, September 9, 2021, after at least four years of investigations and trials, Dr. Hu Anming, a nanotechnology expert who was a professor at the University of Tennessee (UT), was acquitted by a federal judge, following a mistrial this year. Dr. Hu is the first to go to trial from the China Initiative, a program started by the Trump Administration in 2018 to maintain U.S. economic advantages over China.

“We want to thank United States District Judge Thomas A. Varlan for upholding equal justice,” said United Chinese Americans (UCA) Board Chairman Jinliang Cai. “Thank you to the many Chinese American community groups and individuals for the strong support of Dr. Hu, and we send condolences to Dr. Hu and his family for this whole ordeal.”

For two years, the federal government dragged Dr. Hu through investigations for espionage, which caused him to lose his job as professor at UT. Last year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) did not have enough to file charges of espionage and instead filed charges of wire fraud and false statements against the Chinese Canadian.

Judge Varlan wrote that no reasonable jury could have inferred that holding a professorship at Beijing University of Technology disqualified him from working on NASA-funded research and that the federal government’s latter charges failed the test of common sense.

The National Security Division of the Department of Justice has detailed components of the China Initiative program, stating that some of the purposes of the China Initiative is to counter espionage of the Chinese government and protect American “national assets.” But as many critics have pointed out, with overzealous prosecutors and insufficient oversight, the China Initiative program has turned into a witch hunt of racial profiling for theater and show, ruining careers and turning peoples’ lives upside down. It causes fear and anxiety for many Chinese Americans, as well as academics and scientists working in the U.S. who are of Asian descent, who have been incorrectly scapegoated for COVID-19 and who are continuing to make important contributions to U.S. science, technology and innovation.

“We demand that the Department of Justice investigate misconduct by the involved government agencies, enact a moratorium on all pending cases of the China Initiative, and for the White House to terminate the China Initiative,” said UCA President Haipei Shue