CSET Events

Legal, Illegal and Extralegal: China’s Pursuit of its Tech Future

Research Analysts Ryan Fedasiuk and Emily Weinstein joined Senior Fellow Anna Puglisi for a discussion on China's efforts to acquire technical know-how.

China has acquired technical know-how through legal, illegal and extralegal means. Its methods include directly hiring staff to work at Chinese universities, engaging in academic collaboration or joint venture activities, and establishing overseas professional associations to exchange technical information and recruit talent plan participants. 

CSET Senior Fellow Anna Puglisi moderated a panel with CSET Research Analysts Ryan Fedasiuk and Emily Weinstein. Fedasiuk outlined the breadth and scale of these activities, as highlighted in CSET’s new Chinese State Council Budget Tracker. Weinstein, author of CSET’s Chinese Talent Program Tracker, proposed risk assessment strategies to mitigate the threat, support the research community, and promote academic collaboration that benefits the United States.

Recording and Discussion

Participants

Ryan Fedasiuk is a research analyst at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET). His research explores military applications of artificial intelligence, as well as China’s efforts to acquire foreign technical information. Prior to joining CSET, Ryan was an intern at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Arms Control Association, the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, and the Council on Foreign Relations, where he authored research on air and missile defense systems and nuclear stability. His writing has appeared in Foreign Policy, the Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief, and the Brookings Institution’s Global China series. Ryan holds a B.A. in International Studies and a minor in Russian from American University (cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa). He is enrolled as an M.A. candidate in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, where he also studies Chinese.

Emily Weinstein is a Research Analyst at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), focused on Chinese innovation and domestic S&T policies and development. Before joining CSET, Emily was an Analyst at Pointe Bello, a strategic intelligence firm, where she conducted research on Chinese domestic and foreign policy. Independently, Emily has contributed to research projects at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, including the China Defence Universities Tracker and the March 2020 “Uyghurs for sale” report. Her writing has appeared in the University of Nottingham’s Asia Dialogue, the Global Taiwan Brief, Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief, and the Project 2049 Institute’s Asia Eye Blog. Emily holds an M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown University and a B.A. in Asian Studies from the University of Michigan.

Anna Puglisi is a Senior Fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET). Previously she served as the National Counterintelligence Officer for East Asia, advising senior U.S. and foreign government officials at the highest levels, academia and the private sector on counterintelligence (CI) issues. She played a prominent role in drafting the recently released U.S. National Counterintelligence Strategy, and in designing mitigation strategies for both the public and private sectors to protect technology.

As a member of the Senior Analytic Service, she developed multidisciplinary efforts to understand global technology developments and their impact on U.S. competitiveness and national security, as well as efforts to target U.S. technology. Anna also started a government-wide working group looking at developments in biological sciences and has worked on several bio-security issues. She has received numerous awards including the FBI Director’s Award for Excellence. Anna holds an MPA, an MS in environmental science and a BA in Biology with honors, all from Indiana University. She studied at the Princeton in Beijing Chinese language school and was a visiting scholar in Nankai University’s Department of Economics, where she studied China’s S&T policies, infrastructure development and university reforms. She is a co-author of the 2013 study Chinese Industrial Espionage, the first book-length treatment of the topic, as well as countless related proprietary studies.