WASHINGTON - A former University of Kansas professor avoided prison on Wednesday for making a false statement related to work he was doing in China in the latest setback for a Trump-era US Department of Justice crackdown on Chinese influence within American academia.
Judge Robinson instead sentenced Tao to time served, saying there was no evidence he shared proprietary information with anyone in China and that the chemical engineering professor did research that was “freely shared in the scientific community.” Tao, who was indicted in 2019, was among about two dozen academics who were charged as part of the “China Initiative”, which launched in 2018 during former Republican president Donald Trump’s era and aimed to counter suspected Chinese economic espionage and research theft.