This is John Batchel, conversation with colleague Jack Burnham, research analyst China program, FD,

the revelation by Czech academics that Chinese scholars in universities, well known, have been publishing

in English and in Chinese and other languages, papers identifying the U.S. electric grid system

in a fashion that can be interpreted as benign, but also looks malevolent.

Here's Jack to explain.

Chinese scholars, military civil fusion, Chinese universities,

the electric grid of the United States of America,

identified, vulnerabilities identified.

Jack explains more of this tonight.

There's certainly some aspects that may be benign,

but there's also certain aspects that are very disconcerting.

So part of this is, part of these publications are using Western models simply as the baseline model that is often used in academic journals and publications.

Often the US grid, the grid infrastructure system is very well mapped, and so it can be used for simulations because it is one of the most widely used in international English and even Chinese language publications.

At the same time, the disconcerting aspect of this type of work is showing that while Western scholars often model grid failure as a way to propose solutions,

these Chinese scholars are modeling grid failure but are not proposing solutions or are not applying those lessons to the Chinese grid, but rather seem very focused on emphasizing ways to both take down and maintain the destruction of U.S.

grid infrastructure.