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Chinese military scientist accused of obstructing DOJ investigation into her visa fraud at Stanford

By  Jerry Dunleavy

The Justice Department broadened its charges against a Chinese military scientist who concealed her ties to the People’s Liberation Army as a researcher at Stanford University, accusing her of attempting to obstruct the investigation into her student visa fraud.

Federal prosecutors announced a superseding indictment against Chen Song, 39, this week, charging her with “visa fraud, obstruction of justice, destruction of documents, and false statements in connection with a scheme to conceal and lie about her status” as a member of China’s military while she was inside the United States.

Song had already been hit with charges in July 2020 and an indictment in January, but the details were laid out over how she lied about her Chinese military service ending in 2011 when she applied for a work-and-study-based exchange visitor program visa and allegedly study brain diseases at Stanford University. In reality, she was still secretly a part of the Chinese military, prosecutors said.

“Song was a member of the People’s Liberation Army, the Chinese military, when she entered and while she was in the United States, and that the hospital she listed on her visa as her employer was a cover for her true employer, the PLA Air Force General Hospital in Beijing,” the DOJ said, adding in the indictment that during her time in the U.S., Song was also receiving funds from the Chinese government through its China Scholarship Council, including $1,000 per month her first year, and that Song “sent updates to CSC detailing the nature, results, and value of her research work at Stanford.”

America engaged in a crackdown during the summer of 2020 on Chinese military members who had lied on their visa applications to study or conduct research at U.S. colleges and universities.

One Chinese military researcher, Tang Juan, reportedly hid out in the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco before being arrested on charges of visa fraud. It was reported that Tang was being harbored by China and was wanted by U.S. authorities the same day that America ordered the Chinese government to shut down its consulate in Houston. China retaliated by ordering the U.S. to shut down its consulate in Chengdu. The FBI’s assessment that China had been harboring a fugitive from U.S. authorities was revealed in a detention memo for Song in 2020.

The charges detailed Song’s alleged obstruction of the U.S. investigation, claiming that when Song learned of a case against another Chinese military member charged with visa found in California in June 2020, she attempted to delete a digital folder of documents on an external hard drive that contained records revealing her Chinese military service and visa fraud. They included a digital version of a Chinese-language letter from Song to China’s consulate in New York (where she admitted her stated hospital employer was a false front), an image of her military credentials, a picture of her in a military dress uniform between 2016 and 2020, and a copy of her Chinese-language resume with another military uniform photo and her employer listed as China’s Air Force General Hospital.

“We allege that while Chen Song worked as a researcher at Stanford University, she was secretly a member of China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army,” U.S. Attorney David Anderson for the Northern District of California said. “When Song feared discovery, she destroyed documents in a failed attempt to conceal her true identity. This prosecution will help to protect elite institutions like Stanford from illicit foreign influences.”

Song “lied to FBI agents when interviewed, denying any affiliation with the PLA after 2011,” the Justice Department alleged, and that “information associating Song with the PLA or Air Force General Hospital began to disappear from the Internet after the FBI’s investigation of Song was known to her.” Investigators also said that after Song had been criminally charged, she “selectively deleted relevant emails … including certain emails relevant to her military service, employment, and affiliations.” She faces up to 10 years in prison.

John Demers, the head of DOJ’s China Initiative, said in December 2020 that more than 1,000 foreign researchers affiliated with the Chinese military left the U.S. following a crackdown that summer that resulted in a half-dozen members of China’s People’s Liberation Army studying in America being arrested and charged with lying on their student visa applications.

The DOJ official argued that “our prosecutions were just the beginning of that, but they allowed us to message to the Chinese government that if you’re going to send individuals here, you’ve gotta do so honestly, and you can’t do so hiding their affiliation to the PLA and Chinese military universities.” He also said that “what we’re trying to do in the cases is not just arrest that individual but disrupt a broader course of activity.”

The U.S. has arrested and charged a host of researchers and scientists for concealing their China ties, including connections to the Chinese government’s Thousand Talents Program. The Justice Department said in November 2020 that in the past year, it had also brought fraud, false statements, tax, smuggling, and other China-related charges against 10 academics working at U.S. research facilities.

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