Houston Asians meet with D.C. FBI about economic espionage, racial bias

Members of Houston's Asian community met with the FBI in Washington, D.C. earlier this month to voice concerns about potential racial bias in economic espionage investigations.

The meeting comes over two months after a forum on the topic was held with the Houston FBI field office.

"The community leaders acknowledged the serious threat posed by trade secret theft within the U.S. where intellectual property has found its way to foreign nations, including China," a press release on the meeting said.

"At the same time," it continued, "the community leaders spoke about the fear and suspicious created by certain actions by the FBI, particularly related to cases where apparent innocent parties were involved."

According to a study conducted by Andrew Kim, a local attorney and visiting scholar at South Texas College of Law who attended the FBI's Dec. 7 meeting, the rate of people of Chinese heritage charged under the Economic Espionage Act has tripled to 52 percent between 2009 and 2015 — making up the majority of EEA defendants. The rate of defendants of other Asian heritages was 10 percent.

In addition to the disproportionate number of charges, convicted defendants of Asian heritage had sentences twice as severe as those with Western names — 22 months on average. And 1 in 5 of those of Asian heritage accused of economic espionage have yet to be proven guilty — again, double the rate of those with Western names falsely accused.

"We believe it is possible (and necessary) to distinguish between those cases that should be investigated and brought, with credible claims of illegal behavior, and the lawful actions of millions of Chinese Americans who are no different than their co-workers, neighbors, and friends," Frank Wu, president of Committee of 100, wrote to the FBI in advance of the meeting.

Steven Pei, a professor at the University of Houston's Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, brought up concerns about "a large number of Chinese American researchers in Houston investigated for espionage and put on administrative leave with or without pay over the law year" — mainly individuals working for the University of Texas-Houston.

Keping Xie, a former MD Anderson Cancer Center scientist, was one such case.

The 56-year-old researcher in pancreatic cancer resigned from the hospital in April, some three months after University of Texas-Houston police launched their investigation into contents of his work computer.

Xie was arrested Aug. 20, on allegations that his computer had five child pornography images and faced a maximum of 10 years in prison if convicted. He vehemently denied the accusations, and his case was dismissed on Nov. 28, after a Harris County grand jury declined to indict him on charges brought by university police.

Last year, six technology experts in the Houston area were charged by the FBI with stealing trade secrets from a Houston engineering company and slipping them to a manufacturer in China in what investigators said was an effort by the Chinese government to become a worldwide marine power.

Those in attendance of the forum the local community held in September voiced many concerns about racial bias in economic espionage, citing personal confrontations with the FBI and the cases taking place locally.

But FBI Special Agent Michael Morgan dissented.

"We conduct our investigations based on threat, which is defined by vulnerabilities it brings," he told the audience of over 100 repeatedly. "It's not based on ethnicity or the individual."

Despite his assurances, the crowd's concerns remained intact. Most of the questions posed were about steps they could take to avoid being scrutinized by the FBI, whether they could participate in talent programs, whether it's dangerous to work or do research for companies in the U.S. and abroad, and even how to go about reporting other people.

Also in his letter, Wu made the point that "Chinese Americans work daily across the U.S. in government, industry and academia, making invaluable contributions to the nation's portfolio of intellectual property and its robust economy."

He continued, "C100 remains gravely concerned that the ethnicity of Chinese Americans, by itself, will render them unfairly vulnerable to suspicion, racial profiling and discrimination."