We’re living in the dumbest timeline. This week we learned that former chair of Harvard’s Chemistry Department Charles Lieber has defected to China. Now he could be helping the PLA make super soldiers. Cool cool cool.
Charles Lieber is a brilliant scientist. Fifteen years ago, Reuters named him the world’s top chemist.
But at some point he started working with China’s “thousand talents” program, the idea of which is to lull the big brains of the West into collaborative research that ultimately helps the CCP’s interests.
In 2021, Charles Lieber was convicted in the US for lying about his ties to China and hiding payments linked to the thousand talents program. His punishment was…just two days in prison, six months of house arrest, and a $50,000 fine.
Now, Lieber has resurfaced in Shenzhen, where he leads a state-backed high tech science lab.
This lab comes with cutting-edge nanofabrication tools, generous Chinese government funding, and even access to primate testing facilities. Harvard closed its primate testing facility a decade ago, due to ethical concerns. That’s why China is such an attractive place for scientists to work. No rules, baby! (Except to obey the CCP, obviously.)
The technology he’s working on in Shenzhen is brain-computer interfaces. My optimistic spin: These devices could help patients with ALS. My dystopian spin: The CCP will use this to create cognitively enhanced super soldiers.
This is the problem with collaborating with China on any research. All research becomes part of the CCP’s “military-civil fusion” strategy, where civilian breakthroughs can be used by the military. Your intentions don’t matter. The CCP is using you.
An example of this would be the NIH-funded gain-of-function research on coronaviruses in Wuhan. American scientists may have at first believed their research would help prevent the next global pandemic. Ha. Ha. Ha.
As for Charles Lieber, he may think that by defecting to China he can have a better life, and maybe he can even help make the world a better place. (We’re all the heroes of our own story.) But eventually, the CCP will use him, and toss him out with the trash. And it’ll be his own fault.
Hellbound and Down 