The wife of the data confidentiality professor Xiaofeng Wang, who was dismissed from his titular employment at the University of Indiana, Bloomington (IU) on the same day when the couple’s houses were searched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation last month, said on Monday that she believed that her family had been targeted by the American government and is victim of what she described as ” placed with disadvantaged academic ”and the victim of what
“Our family is determined to fight, not only for ourselves, but also for the wider research community that would be impacted if this type of allegation is not disputed,” said Nianli MA.
This is the first time that my publicly spoke since the FBI research has occurred at the end of March. She appeared in a webinar hosted by the Asian American Stock Exchange (AASF), a non -profit group formed at the beginning of 2021 to defend the rights and recognition of Asian American researchers. MA worked as a library analyst at university before she was also suddenly dismissed from the IU a few days before the FBI searches two of the couple’s houses, Indiana Daily Student reported.
“I just can’t understand how the university, to which we devoted two decades of our lives, could treat us like that, without even telling us why or go through a regular procedure, especially for my husband,” said my. “I lost weight and I had trouble sleeping. I feel trapped in a state of concern and constant sadness. ”
The Wang’s affair has raised concerns among academics that a closed program of the Ministry of Justice called the Chinese initiative is relaunched in the new Trump administration. The campaign, which was launched during President Trump’s first mandate, with the declared objective of fighting economic spying, was accused by criticisms of having unjustly targeting researchers of Chinese origin and other university communities of Asian and Asian-American origin. The MJ then abandoned the program under the Biden administration after losing or withdrawing a certain number of associated cases.
One of the most publicized among them was the case of Professor Gang Chen du MIT, who was charged in 2021 under the Chinese initiative for having pretended to disclose links to several Chinese institutions in subsidy requests. Chen also spoke on the webinar on Monday. The accusations brought against him were abandoned the following year after disclosure is not required by the federal government.
“The story of Nianli is heartbreaking. The images of the Nianli FBI raid and the house of Professor Xiaofeng Wang brings chills to our thorns,” said Chen. “This brings the fear that my family and many others have gone through in the context of the Chinese initiative. By reading the report on your subject, one cannot stop asking if the Chinese initiative has in fact returned,” he said, addressing MA directly.
Brian Sun, a member of the AASF legal advisory council, said on the webinar that there seems to be “any evidence that the case of Xiaofeng implies any type of illegal transfer of technology or all that would imply the type of concerns that led to the Chinese initiative.”
The American representative Grace Meng of New York, who delivered an opening speech at the event, said that she was concerned about the efforts of the current American presidential administration to restore the Chinese initiative, which “did nothing to respond significantly on the concerns of national security and rather created a deep scary effect on research and scientific innovation, as well as the breakdown who were charity. “
