US' Cold War mentality behind economic espionage charges

The US Department of Justice charged five Chinese, including Zhang Hao, a professor from Tianjin University, with economic espionage and stealing state secrets in an indictment released on Tuesday. Comments:

The absurdity of inviting a scholar to attend a forum in the United States and putting him into custody at entry on an accusation is based on US' deeply rooted Cold War mentality. As long as this mentality continues, nations that hold different values to the US will always be considered adversaries and their citizens a potential threat to US interests. This accusation is just one of the many ridiculous things some boneheads in the US have done, and it seems they will do more until mutual trust is ruined, or until they are otherwise stopped.

china.com.cn, May 22

The case reflects the US government's sensitivity not just to issues with China, but also cyber affairs. The boundary between individual rights and state secrets is becoming vague in the information age and that's a big problem for the US to solve.

Guo Xiangang, deputy dean of the China Institute of International Studies, May 24

By doing this, rather than diplomatically, the US is obviously going to damage relations with China... It could potentially be looking to curtail trade, but I don't know where that gets them because supply chains are so complex. It could really bring the whole global supply chain to a standstill. What you have is a bunch of people in Washington not thinking things through. It could totally boomerang in the US' face.

Ann Lee, an adjunct professor of economics and finance at New York University, May 19

This is not the first time that Chinese scholars even Chinese-American scholars have been accused in this way, most of whom proved innocent in court and received compensation later. Behind the repeated false accusations is a whole industrial chain that includes US intelligence agencies, right-wing bureaucrats, US companies that compete with Chinese companies, as well as some experts that make wild speculation in order to gain influence. This is why such false accusations keep being repeated.

youth.cn, May 22