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The Justice Department has formally dropped the China Initiative, which started during the Trump administration as a way to find out if scholars in the U.S. (among others) were lying about or not revealing ties to China. “The key question was whether this framework still best serves the strategic needs and priorities of the department. While I remain focused on the evolving, significant threat that the government of China poses, I have concluded that this initiative is not the right approach,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen in a speech Wednesday.
“I want to emphasize my belief that the department’s actions have been driven by genuine national security concerns,” he added. “But by grouping cases under the China Initiative rubric, we helped give rise to a harmful perception that the department applies a lower standard to investigate and prosecute criminal conduct related to that country or that we in some way view people with racial, ethnic or familial ties to China differently.”
Olsen stressed that the department would continue to monitor China. “Make no mistake, we will be relentless in defending our country from China. The department will continue to prioritize and aggressively counter the actions of the [People’s Republic of China] government that harm our people and our institutions. But our review convinced us that a new approach is needed to tackle the most severe threats from a range of hostile nation-states,” he said.
