Since 2018, the US Department of Justice has been pursuing a ‘China Initiative' – a Trump-era program created in response to allegations of national security threats by Chinese state-affiliated entities and agents. According to DoJ data, some 80% of economic espionage prosecutions and 60% of trade secret theft cases are allegedly linked to Beijing.
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent Kujtim Sadiku admitted under oath to a court in Knoxville, Tennessee, that he falsely accused Dr. Anming Hu, a former associate professor at the University of Tennessee (UT) at Knoxville, of being a spy for the Chinese military.
“It was predicated on information Anming Hu was part of another government's talent plan,” Sadiku told jurors in court last week, as reported by the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Per Sadiku's translation, the flier allegedly detailed that, in 2012, China's Thousand Talents Program awarded Hu a short-term contract to teach students at the Beijing University of Technology. It also allegedly said Hu had an upcoming speaking engagement in China.
Hu, who began teaching in the US in 2013, recounted his first meeting with Sadiku during his testimony, calling the April 2018 experience “startling”. The FBI agent was allegedly accompanied by an agent from the US Department of Energy.
While the DoJ has been pursuing a ‘China Initiative' to prosecute crimes relating to “economic espionage” by Beijing, Sadiku told the court that he had been unaware of the…