Chinese state programs incentivize intellectual property theft globally
The CCP has several recruitment programs, which seek to acquire technology and intellectual property, often through illegal or non-transparent means. Researchers targeted by these programs often continue their work outside of China, remunerated by their institution, supplemented by Chinese payments. By employing scientists in laboratories around the world, the CCP benefits from the structural, financial, and technological resources of those laboratories. However, host institutions’ ignorance of these programs means that they are unwittingly using their resources to fund a foreign government. Additionally, the CCP’s emphasis acquiring dual use technology, means that much of the research conducted in institutions abroad is eventually used by the PLA or enables the repression of minorities in China. Many of the talent recruitment agencies also work with the United Front and the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology’s State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs. China uses “United Front” work to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP’s United Front Work Department (UFWD)—the agency responsible for coordinating these kinds of influence operations—mostly focuses on the management of potential opposition groups inside China, but it also has an important foreign influence mission.