A Chinese scientist charged in Michigan with smuggling biological materials pleaded guilty on Wednesday, but was given no additional time in jail beyond the five months she already spent in custody. Yunqing Jian, who was a temporary researcher at a University of Michigan lab, will be released and quickly deported. A judge called it a “very strange” case involving an “incredibly accomplished researcher”. Jian, 33, was arrested in June and accused of conspiring with a boyfriend to study and nurse a toxic fungus at a campus lab. A pathogen known…
Tag: Research
How China is trying to silence UK academics – podcast
Laura Murphy is a professor of human rights and contemporary slavery at Sheffield Hallam University. She investigates how the Chinese government exploits the country’s Uyghur community to mine rare minerals and make consumer goods for the west, something the Chinese state denies. Murphy describes to Helen Pidd how in 2024, strange things began to happen. “I started receiving emails – journalists, other researchers, and companies who relied on our research to help them do due diligence, were writing to me and calling and saying: hey, I noticed that your reports…
China-critical UK academics describe ‘extremely heavy’ pressure from Beijing
UK academics whose research is critical of China say they have been targeted and their universities subjected to “extremely heavy” pressure from Beijing, prompting calls for a fresh look at the sector’s dependence on tuition fee income from Chinese students. The academics spoke out after the Guardian revealed this week that Sheffield Hallam University had complied with a demand from Beijing to halt research about human rights abuses in China, which had led to a big project being dropped. One UK-based China scholar has since described being a victim of…
Counter-terror police investigate claim UK university halted research after Chinese pressure
An investigation into allegations that a British university was subjected to pressure from Beijing authorities to halt research about human rights abuses in China has been referred to counter-terrorism police. The Guardian reported on Monday morning that Sheffield Hallam University, home to the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice (HKC) research institution, had ordered professor Laura Murphy to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in the country in February. Murphy’s work focuses on Uyghurs, a persecuted Muslim minority in China. A South Yorkshire police spokesperson said the force…
UK university halted human rights research after pressure from China
A British university complied with a demand from Beijing to halt research about human rights abuses in China, leading to a major project being dropped, the Guardian can reveal. In February, Sheffield Hallam University, home to the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice (HKC), a leading research institution focused on human rights, ordered one of its best-known professors, Laura Murphy, to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in China. Murphy’s work focuses on Uyghurs, a persecuted Muslim minority in China, being co-opted into forced labour programmes. Her research,…
How China Went From Clean Energy Copycat to Global Innovator
A single red rectangle with a patent drawing. 18 red rectangles. A grid of 5,206 red rectangles. A line chart that spans the years 2000 to 2022, with lines in different colors showing the trends in annual high quality patent filings from China, Japan, Europe, Korea, and the United States. Smart Grids Supercapacitors Methodology NYT
In One Key A.I. Metric, China Pulls Ahead of the U.S.: Talent
When it comes to the artificial intelligence that powers chatbots like ChatGPT, China lags behind the United States. But when it comes to producing the scientists behind a new generation of humanoid technologies, China is pulling ahead. New research shows that China has by some metrics eclipsed the United States as the biggest producer of A.I. talent, with the country generating almost half the world’s top A.I. researchers. By contrast, about 18 percent come from U.S. undergraduate institutions, according to the study, from MacroPolo, a think tank run by the…
Scientist fed classified information to China, says Canada intelligence report
A leading research scientist at Canada’s highest-security laboratory provided confidential scientific information to Chinese institutions, met secretly with officials and posed “a realistic and credible threat to Canada’s economic security” according to newly released intelligence reports. The dismissal of Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng has been shrouded in mystery ever since the couple were escorted from Winnipeg’s National Microbiology Laboratory in 2019 and formally fired two years later. Intelligence assessments released late on Wednesday afternoon alleged that Qiu’s “close and clandestine relationships” with Chinese institutions which showed a…
Chinese Influence Campaign Pushes Disunity Before U.S. Election, Study Says
A Chinese influence campaign that has tried for years to boost Beijing’s interests is now using artificial intelligence and a network of social media accounts to amplify American discontent and division ahead of the U.S. presidential election, according to a new report. The campaign, known as Spamouflage, hopes to breed disenchantment among voters by maligning the United States as rife with urban decay, homelessness, fentanyl abuse, gun violence and crumbling infrastructure, according to the report, which was published on Thursday by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit research organization…
The Biggest Ape That Ever Lived Was Not Too Big to Fail
Standing nearly as tall as a basketball hoop and weighing as much as a grizzly bear, Gigantopithecus blacki was the greatest ape to ever live. For more than a million years during the Pleistocene, Gigantopithecus roamed southern China. But by the time ancient humans reached the region, Gigantopithecus had vanished. To determine why these prodigious primates died out, a team of scientists recently analyzed clues preserved in Gigantopithecus teeth and cave sediment. Their findings, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, reveal that these nearly 10-foot-tall apes were most likely doomed…