How Do We Know When Someone Is a Spy?

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

President, Barack, News, Politics, Wnyc, Obama, Lizza, Washington, Wickenden

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2022

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2019, Franklin Tao, a professor of chemistry at the University of Kansas, was arrested on suspicion of spying for the Chinese government. Tao’s case was the first under a program called the China Initiative, a collaboration between the Justice Department, the F.B.I., and other federal agencies to combat what was perceived as a growing vulnerability to Chinese espionage, particularly in the realms of economics, technology, and academia. But Tao was never charged with espionage, and his became one of many controversial cases undertaken by the China Initiative, whose critics accuse it over pursuing unsubstantiated and overblown cases, and of stoking anti-Asian sentiment. Gideon Lewis-Kraus joins the guest host Evan Osnos to discuss Tao’s case, the origins and impacts of the China Initiative, and the complexities of battling international espionage.

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0:00.0	Hi there, I'm Lale Arikoglu, and this podcast is brought to you by Wilderness, a conservation-driven
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0:42.5	Yeah, eBay.
0:44.0	Things people love.
0:47.6	This is the political scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and guests about politics.
0:53.1	It's Thursday, March 17. I'm Evan Osnos, a staff writer with The New Yorker writers and guests about politics. It's Thursday, March 17.
0:55.0	I'm Evan Osnos, a staff writer with The New Yorker, filling in for Dorothy Wickenden.
1:00.0	As the cases I have discussed have shown, Chinese economic espionades against the United States
1:07.0	has been increasing and it has been increasing rapidly. We are here today to say, enough is enough.
1:15.6	In 2018, Jeff Sessions, President Trump's then Attorney General,
1:20.6	announced the creation of what the administration called the China Initiative.
1:25.6	The program, a collaboration between the Justice Department,
1:29.3	the FBI, and other federal agencies, was tasked with countering Chinese espionage.
1:34.3	This Department of Justice and the Trump administration have already made our decision.
1:40.3	We will not allow our sovereignty to be disrespected, our intellectual property to be stolen,
1:48.2	or our people to be robbed of their hard-earned prosperity. We want fair trade and good relations
	...

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