NASA has potentially funded or supported hundreds of scientific collaborations since 2015 that might involve Chinese researchers, a new Congressional report says.
The House Select Committee on China’s report, released Thursday, says these collaborations may violate the Wolf Amendment, which is a law that prohibits NASA from working with Chinese researchers.
Context: NASA and OSTP cannot use government money to collaborate with China or Chinese-owned companies under the amendment, unless Congress and the FBI authorizes an exception. The amendment is named after former Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-VA), who led its adoption in 2011 and who also wrote the new report’s foreword.
Yet NASA is at risk of violating the law, the report states. Academic coauthorships have “included entities within China’s defense research and industrial base, many of which are designated on publicly available US government lists identifying entities posing national-security risks.”
The report recommends creating a task force—composed of Department of Justice and NASA’s Office of the Inspector General officials—to scrutinize potential violations. It also urged NASA to “pursue suspensions and debarments” for universities who repeatedly violate the amendment by working with China.
Changes at NASA: The space agency originally did not have a system to monitor contracts for compliance with the amendment, the report stated, but that is changing. The agency has since implemented an office for research security, and is updating its award requirements and monitoring tools, earning praise from the committee for its ability to “adapt quickly when gaps are identified.”
University targets: The new report comes after an August bulletin, led by the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, alleging China is using US-funded academics, labs, prepublications, and more “to target and attempt to acquire all manner of critical and enabling US technologies.”
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