Criminal complaint against Chinese nationals underscores U.S. government’s funding of research tied to CCP

The criminal complaint against two Chinese nationals charged with smuggling a “potential agroterrorism weapon” into the United States is being viewed by lawmakers and officials as both “just the tip of the iceberg” and closely related to the discovery during COVID investigations of the federal government’s funding of research by scientists with loyalty to China, rather than to America.

As the Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed this week, Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, citizens of the People’s Republic of China, were charged with smuggling into America a fungus called Fusarium graminearum, a “noxious fungus” known to cause “head blight.”

The disease affects wheat, barley, maize, and rice, and, according to the DOJ, has caused “billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year.”

The toxins in Fusarium graminearum “cause vomiting, liver damage, and reproductive defects in humans and livestock,” the agency states.

As Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel posted to the X platform Tuesday, the two Chinese nationals allegedly smuggled the fungus into the U.S. to conduct research at the University of Michigan where Jian works.

“Evidence also indicates Jian had expressed loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] and had received funding from the Chinese government for similar work on this pathogen in China,” Patel wrote. “Jian’s boyfriend, Zunyong Liu — also charged in the complaint — works at a Chinese university where he conducts research on the same pathogen. Liu is alleged to have first lied, then admitted, to also smuggling Fusarium graminearum into America—through the Detroit Metropolitan Airport—so that he too could conduct research the University of Michigan.”

The FBI director added that both Jian and Liu were charged with “conspiracy, smuggling goods into the United States, false statements, and visa fraud.”

“This case is a sobering reminder that the CCP is working around the clock to deploy operatives and researchers to infiltrate American institutions and target our food supply, which would have grave consequences... putting American lives and our economy at serious risk,” Patel added. “Your FBI will continue working tirelessly to be on guard against it.”

“Surely this is just the tip of the iceberg,” U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) said in a press statement. “We cannot afford to view this incident as an isolated matter, but part of a pattern of Chinese Communist Party unrestricted warfare activities that threaten the health, safety, and security of our nation and its people.”

The co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Smith called upon the Department of Homeland Security to quickly “implement additional screening measures and other safeguards to prevent a similar incident.”

“We must also look to cancel any existing visas held by any CCP members currently in the United States,” the congressman urged. “We cannot allow the CCP to exploit our visa system to conduct activities that threaten the safety and well-being of American citizens.”

In a piece published Wednesday at Just the News, the two Chinese scientists were revealed to have “worked at an American laboratory led by more senior Chinese scientists funded by the U.S. government, according to federal spending records and the researchers' own disclosures.”

“The incident is again raising concerns about the tendrils of Chinese Communist Party influence inside U.S. research institutions and broader society, just five years after the COVID-19 pandemic exposed federal funding to a lab in Wuhan, China where the virus is believed to have escaped and where dangerous gain of function research was being conducted,” the report observed.

In comments to Just the News, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said the discovery of the alleged smuggling of the bioweapon is another example of China’s involvement in dangerous research that is funded by the U.S. government – a situation that was first unearthed during investigations into COVID-19.

“It has been obvious for years that Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins not only funded dangerous research, but directed funding to scientists loyal to China, not America,” Johnson reportedly said. “My hope is that we can uncover and expose the extent to which their blatant actions harmed our nation and the world.”

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. spoke on May 5 about the dangers of gain-of-function research in the Oval Office as President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled, “Improving the Safety and Security of Biological Research.”

Kennedy described gain-of-function research as “a kind of weapon that always has blowback.”

“There's always bad news,” he asserted, adding that “the justification for this kind of weaponry” was always in order to be able to “develop vaccines to counter a future pandemic.”

“In all of the history of gain-of-function research, we can't point to it a single good thing that's come from it,” the secretary concluded.