On February 23, 2022, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the end of the China Initiative, ending a three-year campaign by the Department of Justice and the FBI to address perceived threats of foreign influence in U.S. based research. This comes just weeks after the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston announced that they were dropping charges against Gang Chen, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering who was criminally charged last year for failing to disclose information about his ongoing affiliations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to the U.S. Department of Energy.

In November 2018, the DOJ led by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions revealed the well-known “China Initiative.” Launched as a Trump-era program, the China Initiative purportedly targeted threats of economic espionage, theft of trade secrets, and undue influence and infiltration of US-based research from the PRC. Over the past three years, the DOJ has brought over 70 prosecutions under the controversial program with varying levels of success.

On February 23, Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew G. Olson announced the end of the Initiative during remarks made at the National Security Institute at George Mason University. Olson reiterated that the DOJ’s “first priority is to adhere to the Constitution and pursue equal justice under the law. Olson remarked that while the DOJ’s actions under the China Initiative were “driven by genuine national security concerns,” the DOJ “[by] grouping cases under the China Initiative rubric, helped give rise to a harmful perception that the department applies a lower standard to investigate and prosecute criminal conduct related to that country or that we in some way view people with racial, ethnic or familial ties to China differently.” He commented that “it’s important to end that perception.”

Whether a perception or a reality, the DOJ has announced that it will now focus more broadly on countering espionage, cyber-attacks, and other threats posed by a range of countries, which includes not only China, but Russia, Iran, and North Korea as well. According to Olson, “the current threats demand a broader approach.” Organizations and individuals engaged in foreign collaborations – with China and beyond – should stay vigilant to avoid getting caught in the cross-hairs of government scrutiny as we wait to see how the DOJ rolls out this modified program.