The Hoover Institution’s Project on China’s Global Sharp Power (CGSP) has released a new report, Eyes Wide Open: Ethical Risks in Research Collaboration with China.
Co-authored by Glenn Tiffert, Hoover Institution research fellow and executive director of CGSP, and Jeffrey Stoff, a former senior US government official focused on critical technology issues, the report presents an original case study about the risks to research ethics and integrity that arise when American research institutions and companies collaborate with partners in authoritarian nations, such as China.
The report examines the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Automation (CASIA). Although CASIA is a global leader in education and research on artificial intelligence, biometrics, and neuroscience, it also works closely with the Chinese Communist Party’s public security organs on the development of mass surveillance technologies, which have been associated with human rights violations against Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang region.
Eyes Wide Open builds upon previous successful reports from the Hoover Institution. In 2020, CGSP released Global Engagement: Rethinking Risk in the Research Enterprise, edited by Tiffert, which examines more than 250 US research collaborations with seven Chinese universities integral to that country’s defense and industrial base, and recommends how sensitive data from American institutions can be protected from exploitation by adversaries.
In 2019, Senior Fellow Larry Diamond, the project chair, co-edited with Orville Schell of the Asia Society the comprehensive 2019 report, China’s Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance, which describes how US political, academic, and media organizations can protect themselves from the PRC’s influence operations.
In Eyes Wide Open, Tiffert and Stoff assert that the collaborations between American and Chinese institutions do not receive sufficient scrutiny, and may compromise America’s democratic values, as well as US government policies — including sanctions and export controls – made in response to repressive behavior by authoritarian regimes.
Key findings of this report demonstrate that CASIA has focused on the collection, processing, and analysis of large biometric data sets and has a significant role in enhancing the capabilities of the nation’s public security and mass surveillance apparatuses. CASIA’s research also supports China’s defense R&D and industrial base. One of CASIA’s subordinate divisions claims to be China’s largest research institute specializing in biometric identification. Other divisions focus on human gait and facial recognition, as well as targeting and tracking of suspects and suspicious activity.
Tiffert and Stoff maintain that CASIA’s international collaborations are extensive and include work with foreign academia and major multinational firms.
The report makes the following recommendations:
- Research institutions and governments should revise existing concepts of research integrity to ensure consistency with democratic values and define a common standard or set of conditions for ethical reviews of research that consider legal and political contexts and ethical and human rights risks.
- Federal agencies should deny or remove funding for research projects that involve collaboration with entities, based in authoritarian nations, that support mass surveillance and human rights abuses.
- The US Department of Commerce should place CASIA, and its affiliates discussed in this report on the Entity List of Export Controls.
- Academia and private sector organizations should scrutinize their partnerships with CASIA and its affiliates for potential human rights abuses and breaches of ethics and integrity.
- To uphold ethical standards and protect human rights, civil society institutions should work together to develop knowledge and promote robust due diligence and information sharing on suspect entities based in authoritarian nations.
“Our hope is that this report raises vigilance among leaders of liberal democracies —in government, academia, the business community, and civil society — so that they can take the appropriate measures to uphold high ethical standards in the research enterprise and protect human rights and democratic values,” Tiffert said.
On December 15 at 10am PT, Tiffert and Stoff will present their research in a virtual briefing at Hoover.org, which will also feature Hoover Senior Fellow Larry Diamond and Sophie Richardson, China director at the Human Rights Watch.
Click here to read the entire report, Eyes Wide Open: Ethical Risks in Research Collaboration with China.
About Glenn Tiffert
Glenn Tiffert is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a historian of modern China. He co-leads the Hoover project on China’s Global Sharp Power and works closely with government and civil society partners to document and build resilience against authoritarian interference with democratic institutions. Most recently, he co-authored and edited Global Engagement: Rethinking Risk in the Research Enterprise (2020).
About Jeffrey Stoff
Jeffrey Stoff is the founder of Redcliff Enterprises, a start-up that seeks to build public-private partnerships to protect research and intellectual capital. Stoff spent eighteen years in the US government as a senior analyst focused on critical technology protection issues. He has advised the White House, departments of Defense and State, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
About the Hoover Institution’s Project on China’s Global Sharp Power (CGSP)
The Hoover Institution’s project on China’s Global Sharp Power (CGSP) tracks, documents, and analyzes how China’s Communist party-state operates in the shadows to shape and control information flows, coerce governments and corporations, infiltrate and corrupt political systems, and exploit, disrupt, and debase civic institutions, particularly in open and democratic societies. Through its research and global partnerships, CGSP produces papers, lectures, conferences, workshops, publications, and web-accessible resources to educate opinion leaders and policy makers so that they may pursue diverse, balanced, and vigilant relationships with China, tailored to their circumstances.
About the Hoover Institution
With its eminent scholars and world-renowned Library and Archives, the Hoover Institution is a public policy think tank that seeks to improve the human condition by advancing ideas that promote economic opportunity and prosperity, while securing and safeguarding peace for America and all mankind.
For coverage opportunities, contact Jeffrey Marschner, 202-760-3187, jmarsch@stanford.edu.
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