China's Houston consulate has been the "epicenter" in terms of stealing U.S. biomedical research, and it's known that "they're actively trying to steal" the coronavirus vaccine, Rep. Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House GOP task force on China, said Thursday.
"We're going to have a classified briefing tomorrow," the Texas Republican said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "We have three scientists at MD Anderson that were fired due to allegations of espionage. We also have a lot of vaccine research going on at the Texas Medical Center. We know that they're actively trying to steal that vaccine so they can claim to the world that they saved them from the very virus they are responsible for."
Houston is a "hub for a lot of technology" and research, he added, as in San Francisco, where a Chinese biologist has taken refuge in the consulate amid FBI accusations that she lied about her connections to the Chinese military to obtain a visa and gain access to the United States.
"It's been going on for a long time," said McCaul of the Chinese activity. "We just now have an administration that's taking them head-on."
The researcher has said that she did not know the meaning of insignia that she'd worn on her uniform at a military university she attended, but McCaul said her potential military link is significant because she's likely in the United States to steal medical research.
"Their highest priority now is to steal our research on the vaccine, on the COVID-19 that they're responsible for," he said. "I applaud the FBI worked in the Justice Department many years ago. I had the Johnny Chang case in 1997 that led us to the director of Chinese intelligence and Chinese aerospace putting money in the Hong Kong bank account to influence the Clinton campaign. My point is this is nothing new, they have been doing this for decades but they ramped up their game."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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