Researchers from Top U.S. Nuclear Lab Recruited by Communist China to Design Missiles and Drones

Researchers from a top U.S. nuclear weapons lab are now reportedly on China’s payroll, a newly-published report alleges.

The Epoch Times, citing a report from the strategic intelligence firm Strider Technologies, noted that some 162 scientists and researchers who worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) have been recruited by the Chinese Communists to work on Beijing’s military programs.

BOMBSHELL: China paid leading scientists at America’s Los Alamos National Laboratory hefty sums of money to conduct research, including military tech. https://t.co/UwP4fvd2vL

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) September 24, 2022

Over 160 Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have reportedly been recruited by the CCP and returned to Communist China for its hypersonic, missile, and submarine programs.

This scientific espionage poses a serious threat to our national security.

— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) September 24, 2022

China recruited top scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory to aid military, report says https://t.co/Nzhb1Qh4r7

— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 23, 2022

Natural News highlighted findings from the report:

The report’s foreword notes:

The inspiration for this report comes from a March 2017 article in the South China Morning Post titled “America’s Hidden Role in Chinese Weapons Research.” The article notes that so many former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have returned to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and are now working on military research programs that they are referred to as the “Los Alamos Club.” However, no specifics about this “Club,” its membership, or the programs these scientists are working on were reported.

The objective in conducting this study is to contextualize and document the ongoing efforts of the PRC government to send promising scientists to U.S. national laboratories for training while also recruiting leading scientists back to the PRC to advance its own military programs,” the foreword adds. “Former Los Alamos scientists have made, and continue to make, considerable contributions to the PRC hypersonic, missile, and submarine programs that present an array of security risks for the United States and the entire free world.”

The report itself documents the extensive effort by China dating back decades to recruit top nuclear talent for Beijing’s own nuclear and weapons programs under the rubric of a “Talent Superpower Strategy.”

“Between 1987 and 2021, at least 162 scientists who had worked at Los Alamos returned to the PRC to support a variety of domestic research and development (R&D) programs. Fifteen of those scientists worked as permanent staff members at Los Alamos,” the report says.

“Of those fifteen, thirteen were recruited into PRC government talent programs; some were responsible for sponsoring visiting scholars and postdoctoral researchers from the PRC, and some received U.S. government funding for sensitive research,” the report continued.

“At least one of these staff members held a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) ‘Q Clearance’ allowing access to Top Secret Restricted Data and National Security Information.”

NBC News had further details:

Many of the scientists were later lured back to China to help make advances in such technologies as deep-earth-penetrating warheads, hypersonic missiles, quiet submarines and drones, according to the report.

Scientists were paid as much as $1 million through participation in Chinese government “talent programs,” which are designed to recruit Chinese scientists to return to China. Such talent programs have long been identified as a source of concern, but U.S. officials said they had not previously seen an unclassified report that described the phenomenon in such detail, naming specific scientists and the projects they have worked on.

The talent transfer “poses a direct threat to U.S. national security,” said Greg Levesque, a co-founder of Strider and the lead author of the report. “China is playing a game that we are not prepared for, and we need to really begin to mobilize.”

Although a former Los Alamos scientist pleaded guilty in 2020 to lying about his involvement in a China recruitment program, most of the conduct described in the report appears to have been legal. Moreover, U.S. officials and experts say most Chinese scientists who immigrate to the U.S. remain here — and many have made significant contributions to U.S. defense technology.

But current and former U.S. intelligence officials said the Strider report shows how the Chinese government has been using talent recruitment programs to acquire insights into U.S. technology to help build a military that poses a significant threat to U.S. national security. The officials added that China’s hard-line turn under President Xi Jinping is sparking a re-evaluation of the long history of scientific exchange between the two countries.