On Wednesday, Republicans led by U.S. Congressman Mike Waltz (R-FL) sent a letter noting a report alleging that 162 scientists who had worked for the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which performs research to support America’s nuclear weapons program, had went on to support the Chinese Communist Party.
Strider Technologies, Inc. issued the report, titled “The Los Alamos Club,” asserting that the scientists who had worked at the lab over a period of over 30 years had later returned to China to support the Chinese Communist Party.
“The Chinese Communist Party has been stealing our research and technology for decades through its foreign talents programs and it’s critical to our national security that we put an immediate stop to their espionage efforts,” Waltz wrote to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Arati Prabhakar.
“Over the years, we have seen numerous examples of the CCP practicing this tactic at our institutions of higher education through their Thousand Talents Program and their Youth Thousand Talents Program,” he continued. “These programs are part of the CCP’s overarching Military-Civil Fusion (MCF) national strategy. Under the MCF, the CCP targets seemingly innocuous key civilian technologies, acquires them illicitly, and exploits the ‘dual-use’ potential of these technologies to build up their military capabilities.”
According to the report, the scientists had returned to China to allegedly support the CCP in various domestic and military research and development programs.
“Republicans on the Science, Space, and Technology Committee specifically crafted policies to prohibit China’s recruitment programs and the Biden Administration must be transparent in its implementation of these policies,” he added.
Waltz also took aim at what he called “malign talent recruitment programs.”
“’The Los Alamos Club’ confirms the concerns surrounding malign talent recruitment programs, clearly demonstrating that the CCP’s had been successful at stealing and capitalizing on our research and development,” Waltz declared. “As a result, these malign talent recruitment programs have now resulted in a tangible national security threat to the United States.”
The Republicans also demanded answers about if the Department of Energy was aware of attempts to infiltrate the lab through recruitment programs, and if there were any precautions put in place to protect U.S. research.
