CNN reports the Director of National Intelligence is telling us that China is using students in the US to steal technology. That would be interesting if it hadn't been going on for more than 40 years, and it is much harder to do anything about than "being aware" would suggest. That doesn't do much.
We used to be concerned about the Russians being in schools, taking engineering courses and getting access to source materials that were export restricted. The Chinese were already here then, at least at the University of Wisconsin where I was. They were working in our computer department (such that it was) and in the computer test labs where much of the research was going on. When I started doing Industrial Security inspections in that area when I was older, I already knew what to look for.
A professor cannot decide which of his students get what material. Most of them don't even think about that when the classes are small and the courses are advanced. You cannot give an assignment to a student and say to that person, "You can't take that book because it has a lot of export restricted material in it. You can't go this plant we are visiting because there is proprietary information on the assembly line." One of the professors invited me to a class and told me to tell him when there was material our foreign students were not allowed to have. Even if you know the subject well, and I didn't know advanced networks all that well, it was impossible to tell.
It was possible to keep those students from working on sensitive research that was funded by the Federal government, providing they had the clauses in the contract that banned it. Most didn't. That is a US problem, not the students'. Those were Vietnam War days and we didn't want Russian and Chinese knowing where our advanced research was going to be used over there. We have more to worry about these days.
Many of those students go on to jobs in this country, encouraged by business leaders who want cheap, highly qualified labor. Can you blame them? They get work permits and remain. Now you have foreign business people with ties to their home country working right in the places where they shouldn't be. But they are cheap labor, don't forget. These business people work with Chinese, Russian, Iranian, et al businesses, some set up just to handle all the data these people can send back. Yes, some of them are recruited into spying, but most are not. Even when not, they are working with people who are. It is difficult to separate the motivations of a working person, but we allow it because the price is right.
And last, the Chinese especially are becoming US citizens though a number of illegal programs that allow them to come to the US to birth babies, grow businesses that give them EB-5 visas, and just wait out our long and tedious system made more complicated by the number of illegal immigrants in the US. It must be frustrating for them to wait. Being a US citizen wipes away most of the difficulties they have getting into more sensitive areas where real secrets are kept. I did see last week that the Department of Energy has finally taken action on having foreign nationals work at their labs. where have they been?
There are a lot of things that need to be cleaned up to stop tech transfers here in the US. It is harder in China where businesses still think it is a good idea to swap technology for commercial business, a strategy that fails in the long term. Long after the Board is retired.
I told you it was complicated, and that is not the half of it.
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