History Repeats Itself: Appalachia, the China Initiative, and Qian Xuesen

When my dad told me that he had been accused of being a spy for the Chinese Communist Party and had been under investigation for years, twelve-year-old me couldn’t believe it. How could anyone think my dad was loyal to the CCP? He was a US citizen, spoke great English, loved rock music, and had lived in West Virginia for over twenty years. As a young man, he had marched with his fellow students in the streets of Beijing, calling for democracy and an end to the authoritarian regime.

My dad explained that it wasn’t just him. Many other Chinese-American professors and staff at West Virginia University had come under suspicion from the government. His case was just one of many in the wider China Initiative. Launched in 2018, the China Initiative was an effort to root out “Chinese spies,” mostly targeting scientists, professors, and other academics. It was a wide, sweeping series of investigations across the nation, with virtually every Chinese-American in academia regarded with a degree of suspicion. My dad was one of the lucky ones. He was able to clear his name of any wrongdoing. He didn’t lose his job or face criminal prosecution.

Many others were not so fortunate. An estimated 250 people lost their jobs, and many more were put on trial. One person, former Northwestern professor Jane Wu, committed suicide after her lab was shut down.

Of course, since the China initiative was a national-level project, Appalachia was no exception to the paranoia and anxiety about potential Chinese espionage, and WVU wasn’t the only university involved. On February 27, 2020, University of Tennessee, Knoxville professor Anming Hu was arrested for alleged failure to disclose connections to the CCP. Hu was immediately fired from his job, jailed, and charged with fraud. Even after FBI agents admitted to falsifying evidence against Hu, his first trial ended with a hung jury. Hu was not acquitted until September 9, 2021, during his second trial. It was later revealed that the university had handed over Hu’s private documents without a warrant, concealed the investigation from him, and lied to NASA about Hu’s alleged ties to China.

Anming Hu [Source: University of Tennessee, Knoxville]

But the China Initiative wasn’t the first time America’s fear of foreign infiltration led to racial profiling. Although Chinese immigrants in Appalachia have felt America’s distrust and prejudice particularly strongly due to their small percentage of the population, Asian-Americans and immigrants as a whole have been targets of suspicion for a long time in America’s history. The history of Japanese internment camps is an all-too familiar stain on our country’s past. Another notable case, however, is that of Qian Xuesen.

Born in Shanghai in 1911, Qian arrived at MIT in 1935 to pursue his master’s degree in aeronautical engineering. Qian had a fascination with rockets, and was a firm believer that one day, man would achieve space travel. After his master's, Qian went to Caltech for his doctorate. In 1943 he became a professor there. At Caltech, he co-founded NASA’s famous Jet Propulsion Laboratory. There, he played a crucial role in the war effort, helping to develop missiles that could compete with the Nazis and their V-2’s. After the end of World War II in 1945, Qian began working on designing an early model of “space plane,” which would serve as inspiration for the Space Shuttle.

In 1947, Qian married opera singer Jiang Ying, and the couple moved to Boston where Qian took up a teaching position at MIT. A year later, their son, Qian Yonggang was born. In 1949, the family moved to Pasadena so Qian could return to Caltech, where he became a professor of Jet Propulsion. Their daughter, Qian Yongzhen, was born a short time later.

It seemed to many that Qian Xuesen was at the peak of his career. But the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War created an uneasy feeling in the West. Soon, Qian’s overseers began looking at him differently. In 1949, Qian applied for US Citizenship but was denied. The following year, his security clearance was revoked. Despite no evidence against him, Qian was placed under house arrest for five years. Federal agents raided his home, and he was forced to resign from Caltech. Finally, in 1955, Qian Xuesen, his wife, and his American-born children were all deported to Hong Kong. When asked about the deportation, Secretary of the Navy Dan Kimball, a personal friend of Qian, said “It was the stupidest thing this country ever did. He was no more a communist than I was, and we forced him to go.”

Qian Xuesen and his family, about to be deported [Source: Los Angeles Times]

Qian never returned to the United States. He eventually joined China’s space program, helping to develop the Long March rockets, and retiring in 1991. Though he was invited to the US several times for certain events, he always refused, feeling that America had betrayed him. He died in Beijing in 2009, at the age of 97.

Though Qian’s deportation occurred seventy years ago, his story parallels those of many Chinese immigrant scientists today, especially in Appalachia. Many of these academics have chosen to return to China, triggering a mass exodus from the United States. Appalachia in particular cannot afford to allow such a large brain drain when the region consistently ranks at or near the bottom in terms of education. Unfortunately, lawmakers and politicians have placed paranoia and xenophobia over science and academics, a choice that will surely have consequences for the future.

Ethan Liu