FPI / May 15, 2025
Geostrategy-Direct
Charles Lieber, a former Harvard chemist and nanoscientist who was convicted of lying to investigators about secret work he did for communist China, has been hired by Tsinghua University as a professor.
Lieber signed a three-year contract in China which includes a salary of $50,000 per month and living expenses of up to $150,000. He also received $1.5 million to set up a research laboratory in Wuhan.
In his new position, Lieber “is likely bringing valuable expertise from Harvard to the Chinese military-civilian fusion program,” security correspondent Bill Gertz noted.
Lieber, former chairman of the Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department, was found guilty in 2021 of hiding his role in China’s “Thousand Talents” program that recruited Americans with expertise, the Washington Times reported.
Harvard currently is a target of the Trump Administration, which has cut federal funding for the elite university.
As head of a special unit at Harvard, Lieber was paid more than $15 million in federal research grants between 2008 and 2019.
At the same time, he worked secretly as a “strategic scientist” in Wuhan and had a contract with the Thousand Talents program.
“China’s Thousand Talents Plan is one of the most prominent Chinese talent recruitment plans designed to attract, recruit and cultivate high-level scientific talent in furtherance of China’s scientific development, economic prosperity and national security,” the Justice Department said.
In February 2020, Geostrategy-Direct.com reported that the U.S. Department of Justice arrested Lieber for allegedly collaborating with researchers in China. A Chinese military officer linked to Lieber was also indicted but was able to flee to China before being apprehended.
People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Lt. Ye Yanqing was charged with spying while posing as a student at Boston University, but was able to flee the U.S. after FBI agents interviewed her about her links to the PLA.
Lieber was arrested on Jan. 28 and charged with lying about receiving tens of thousands of dollars from a Chinese university and lying to the Pentagon about the foreign money.
Nanotechnology is among the most significant dual-use technologies with both civilian and military applications.
The late WorldTribune.com columnist Lev Navrozov, a Soviet émigré who died in New York City on Jan. 22, 2017, warned of China superweapons that made use of nanotechnology.
“When I mention, say, the development in China of nano super weapons, capable of winning war without waging it (as Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese strategist would have put it),” Navrozov wrote.
“I have been told by a Chinese that the Chinese ‘Manhattan Projects,’ developing post-nuclear super weapons, are located deep in rocky mountains” in China.
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