More than 1,000 Chinese researchers have left the US amid a crackdown on alleged technology theft, US security officials have said.
It is also claimed they had already been targeting the incoming Biden administration.
John Demers, chief of the justice department’s national security division, said the researchers left the country when the department launched several criminal cases against Chinese operatives for industrial and technological espionage.
Another Justice Department official said the Chinese nationals were a different group to those mentioned by the State Department in September – when the US revoked visas for more than 1,000 Chinese nationals under a presidential measure, denying entry to students and researchers deemed security risks.
The Chinese researchers are believed to be affiliated with China’s People’s Liberation Army and left the US after the FBI conducted interviews in more than 20 cities and the State Department closed China’s Houston consulate in July.
“Only the Chinese have the resources and ability and will” to engage in the breadth of foreign influence activity that US agencies have seen in recent years, Mr Demers said, during a discussion hosted by the Aspen Institute think tank…
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