American professor arrested for hiding ties with China

Simon Saw-Teong Ang, 63 years old, electrical engineering professor and researcher at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville (UA) in Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA, was arrested by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents last week

The FBI alleges Ang `defrauded NASA and UA by failing to disclose that he held other positions at a Chinese university and multiple Chinese companies,` violating conflict of interest policies.

`Ang lied and failed to report his outside employment to UA, which allowed him to continue working at the school and receive research funding from the US government,` according to the filing.

According to regulations, Ang’s close ties to the Chinese government and Chinese companies made him ineligible for grants issued by US government agencies.

Professor Simon Saw-trong Ang, researcher at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville (UA), Arkansas, USA.

John Thomas, a UA spokesman, said Ang has been suspended without pay and the university is actively cooperating with investigating authorities.

FBI records say authorities discovered Ang’s ties to China after a UA employee sought to identify the owner of a missing hard drive in the school library.

In the email, Ang wrote that `Just look online and you will see what the US plans to do with the scholars of the ‘Thousand Talents’ program. Not many people here know that I am part of that program, if it were to be revealed, my work

The FBI said China’s `Thousand Talents` is a program that entices people to work and study abroad in high-priority research fields.

Ang once revealed to UA that he was a Thousand Talents scholar in 2014, but did not declare his connection to other programs in which he also participated from 2012 to 2018.

In 2016, he applied for funding to NASA for a contract worth half a million USD, without disclosing conflicts of interest related to his positions in China.

FBI National Security Director John Brown last year told the US Congress that through investigation, they discovered that Thousand Talents scholars were encouraged by China to transfer back to the country the research they conducted in the US.

Mai Lam (According to CNN)