Thread by @BaldingsWorld

Due to the fact I am not working in academia and that academics are spouting such absolute self serving gibberish about the Lieber China case let's review the key points and lay ruin to the bull dung being slung. First, Lieber was not charged with "espionage" and the case 1/n

Was about lying on income taxes, concealing foreign assets, and lying about foreign contacts on official documents. So when you read an academic say things like "The US government hasn't proven he was a spy" they might as well be saying "The government hasn't proven he 2/n

was a purple dinosaur" because the case had nothing to do with proving espionage any more than it had to do with purple dinosaurs. Second, there is no espionage here because to the best of my knowledge Lieber never had or conducted research requiring security clearance. 3/n

So Lieber never had secret government material. So when an academic makes that argument just know they are arguing in bad faith or towering ignorance. Third, some have argued these are just meaningless process crimes. These are basically the same types of crimes they laid 4/n

On a variety of people from Paul Manafort to Meng Wangzhou. The fundamentals of the crime are actually pretty simple: don't lie on official forms and documents. That's it. Don't lie on official forms and documents. Fourth, some have argued this is politically motivated 5/n

Abuse of prosecutorial discretion and didn't warrant charges. Let's start with the implication that the Boston DOJ is a hotbed of Trump racists. The same office that did the same thing when Russians were all over Boston. To call that BS is an insult to perfectly good BS 6/n

Then let's consider whether the offense was egregious enough to warrant charges. To give a personal example, over time, I have received government changes to my filed taxes and documents on overseas asset holdings. However, my adjustments were literally for $40 once. 7/n

The reason the FBI didn't show up to my office is that I didn't smuggle a manilla envelope with a $100k in Benjamins through customs and not declare on my taxes. You see the difference? I didn't receive $19 million (Chen Gang at MIT alledgedly) and fail to disclose that to 8/n

Government funding agencies who were giving me money. I hope you're seeing a little bit of the differences academics are WILLFULLY leaving out. Those are the basic key facts of the case. There are a couple of bigger picture issues that need to be hit before I close. 9/n

First, this is NOT normal practice how global research is done. That again is simply insulting to perfectly good BS to call that argument BS. Imagine any other line of work, what would we say about someone who literally smuggles suitcases of cash or sells research you fund 10/n

To a competitor/adversary. This is NOT normal practice. Second, China is literally getting what it wants by getting this many compromised academics to argue this is normal and we should be able to behave like this. In addition to getting technology they are influencing 11/n

Academia and the policy discussion at large by engaging in this behavior. Academics are literally lobbying to be able to sell China advanced technology!. Third, in 2021 in what world is being able to collaborate with a genocidal authoritarian state something we should 12/n

Consider good and positive? Why should we be advising the CCP on how to gain technology and work for their research outcomes? The list of how US academic and corporate research has aided in atrocities like Xinjiang and other oppresive practices is already very long 13/n

Why are academics fighting to make it longer? Even if it isn't against the law, if we wouldn't do it for Russia, IRan, or North Korea, why should we be doing it for China? We cannot simply have business as normal going forward. That's not racist. That's reality. 14/n

Third and finally, China targets professors and technology very VERY clearly. I've personally written on databases they maintain where they literally list professors as "important" and "not important". Let me emphasize, those are just the databases I've written about 15/n

Publicly. Let me state 100% clearly: China seeking out professors or other researchers is absolutely NOT, no way, no chance an accident. They seek maybe technology, influence, or other specific goods. Professors from Chinese universities have specific orders. So just because 16/n

It isn't "espionage" don't think for one second that CCP at your China center doesn't have a very clear objective. They have databases and databases about all this. It is towering naivety to believe it's business as normal. Balding out.