I told you I found some spies.

***THREAD***

I told you I found some spies.

This information is peanuts compared to what lies ahead in this story, but this is a tiny window into how it all started from the academic angle.

This series is NOT about Konnech.

Get the full 10m read here:
https://t.co/S759Jhld2v https://t.co/5zp7qaqLf7

2/

2006 was quiet for Eugene Yu in the US, save for his new “K-12 platform” company, Jinhua Konnech who launched and moved into a CAS science park in Zhejiang Province, China.

Eugene Yu also registered SchoolBrief-com and BestBrief-com domains.

https://t.co/S1wLzCxKsC

3/

Also not so quiet for who I call the grandfather of Konnech, Lionel Mingshuan Ni (NI Mingshuan).

Ni became involved with the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) 973 Program of China. It is very intimately linked with the Chinese military.

https://t.co/VZUllkojCE https://t.co/2gyF3WPyLP

4/

With Ni Mingshuan at HKUST (partner of the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks) it provided a prime position between ready-for-market military technologies and a major vein of global capital markets.

https://t.co/ejwFQqAraM https://t.co/tN0lnsaaHL

5/
Konnech CEO Eugene Yu was an officer of an American foundation that flew Professor Charles Lieber, the head of Harvard’s Chemistry Department, to Zhejiang University.

https://t.co/2UAMlzG5W3

6/

Also in 2002, (with the beginning of a new Five-Year Plan), Microsoft wrote to the American Zhu Kezhen Education Foundation (AZKEF) to inform that they would match AZKEF’s academic contributions for the year.

https://t.co/DQhr7QkaCx https://t.co/jPCsyMoRKC

7/

The AZKEF lecture series continued for well over a decade after Eugene Yu’s departure from the organization.

Notice in Qian Zhou's lecture announcement, the Party Secretary named the position of visiting professor, and that contact was made with the Party directly by AZKEF. https://t.co/xqGwFlXeA1

8/

In late March of 2008, another Harvard Professor, Raymond Erikson, was sent by AZKEF for a ZU lecture.

In October 2008, U-M Professor Otis Dudley Duncan accompanied AZKEF academician Xie Yu to lecture at Zhejiang University. https://t.co/C2RKUSwIpG

9/

Wharton Business School’s Marshall Meyer visited ZU in 2008 for a lecture titled “China’s Second Economic Transition.” https://t.co/CBTdAKCneL

10/

On May 1, 2009, AZKEF changed its name to the Zhejiang University Education Foundation USA, or ZUEF-USA.

https://t.co/0jo0Y4UU18 https://t.co/enFdTBOvV1

11/

After the formal transition from AZKEF to ZUEF, a 2009 ZUEF publication announced the 2009 Zhejiang-Hangzhou International Talent Exchange and Cooperation Conference.

https://t.co/oeaO0tu6mr https://t.co/sQrKdiEE8N

12/

2011 was an intensely busy year for the newly coined Zhejiang University Education Foundation.

Muming Pu was among several scholars who traveled to Zhejiang on ZUEF’s dime that year, and was also the director of a CAS Institute.

https://t.co/95uZWrzOIl https://t.co/rrjuWd0Mun

13/

Two lectures were held in 2011, “Resolving International Business Disputes—Arbitration as a Path to Economic Development,” and, “Cap and Trade Border Measures and WTO Law,” and both featured Cornell’s John J. Barcello, III, also a Harvard Law grad.

https://t.co/IsLhTDsWRY https://t.co/rWdH6q5JGZ

14/

In 2012, Wayne State University’s Guo Xiaofeng held a lecture at ZU. Wayne State plays a pivotal, enabling role in this series as well.

https://t.co/QQiMbeoT4s https://t.co/UnntmFBmJO

15/

ZUEF enjoyed Seneca Lake as much as Hunter Biden.

https://t.co/oeaO0tu6mr https://t.co/cDs5W2ojrH

16/

Stepping back to 2003, UC-Berkeley professor and foreign member of the CAS, Chenming Hu, went to Zhejiang University to conduct a lecture on nanoscale semiconductors — tiny computer stuff — as a part of AZKEF’s Overseas Scholars Lecture Series.

https://t.co/6YXJuRlD8H https://t.co/NDLxGKYQLO

17/

According to Hu’s LinkedIn page, he was awarded the US National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Obama, and the Medal of Honor Award from the IEEE - the most elite of electrical scientists in the world.

https://t.co/TaW2s1sTU4 https://t.co/AL6G6CebSS

18/

By examining an AZKEF member directory, it becomes more apparent the depth of infiltration at the behest of the Party. Email addresses lay clear that members leveraged their own academic departments to send Chinese money to American professors through the lecture series. https://t.co/kcnUjPhJo8

19/

Fei-Yue Wang was President of AZKEF 2007-2008. He essentially runs Institute of Automation at CAS, and was simultaneously employed by both Univ. of Arizona and CAS for ~3 years. Wang was also part of the Hundred Talents.

https://t.co/2B5tDYM0pn

https://t.co/GGUROoXVio https://t.co/RG5xN3jBsJ

20/

There was one AZKEF member — Yizhou Yu.
https://t.co/HpKgV7zG4Y

Notice that Yu was “visiting researcher” at Microsoft Research Asia for one month in 2008.

https://t.co/N6gbUOPOJB

This is where Lionel Ni was Dir. of a Chinese Min. of Ed. program.

https://t.co/F1TNOZUNBS https://t.co/Q8eke87rWZ

21/

Don’t forget about Dos Equis, Xipeng Xiao!!!

Xipeng Xiao, who now fills a senior role with Huawei Europe, studied under Lionel Ni in the eLANS laboratory at Michigan State.

https://t.co/rb3jLDAtm0 https://t.co/QIYoLRHN7Z

22/

The lab operated thu 2011 and supported w funding from NSF, DARPA, NIH, U.S. USAF, NSA, Microsoft, IBM, HP, and TARDEC.

Lionel Ni’s departure from the U.S. didn’t end his involvement w MSU while they received federal dollars.

https://t.co/HO2SgEoy2W
https://t.co/Wx7JAc6iTg https://t.co/SG4OpfGSKE

23/

In fact, in 2008, MSU filed for a patent, citing Lionel Ni as the inventor, along with two former colleagues from MSU’s eLANS.

https://t.co/W2KzHTXIFh https://t.co/482t98wnJx

24/

In 2007, Lionel Ni landed a monster deal with Boeing. It had no ceiling and no term - a professor’s dream.

Naturally, it, too, was run in conjunction with Tsinghua University.

https://t.co/VMgOQaATcw https://t.co/lasUEL7Ysx

25/

At any rate, weeks following MSU’s patent filing, Eugene Yu copyrighted BestBrief, followed by Pollchief in Novemeber of 2008.

https://t.co/BH6Ht5uPTg

https://t.co/c2rn9254ZO https://t.co/q2bj6YIndT

26/

In 2004, Michigan State University opened its Confucius Institute and financial advisor the CAS President, Jonathan Choi donated $5 million to the school to support the chapter.

It was this money that inevitably funded Konnech building and launching ChineseBrief, built by Yu on Lionel Ni’s technology.

In the fall of 2003, Choi was on the board of Advisors at HKUST (then called University of Science and Technology - Hong Kong) to where “grandfather” Lionel Ni moved his employment.

Choi would retain the post through 2008, and remained current on his foundation’s former website “sunwahgroup2021-com” as well.

https://t.co/TxNulHatTj

https://t.co/zllDnP9Smp

27/

Keep in mind that the NSF had recently opened its office in Beijing — there were open lanes of talent, intellectual property, and money between Lionel Ni, AZKEF, Michigan State University, the Chinese government, Microsoft, HKUST, and Zhejiang University since the 1990’s.

Here is just a sample of grants that came into Michigan State University between 2006 and 2009 while the university employed talent from Zhejiang University:

28/

(cont.) https://t.co/k9BkaNJ3Qm

29/

Zhejiang University is one of several Chinese universities plainly stated by the FBI to be a risk to national security.

So why is the FBI hanging out at MSU and saying nothing about...really anything??

https://t.co/gNIjpczR4e

Remember, this is still setting the stage for the most egregious disregard for national security in articles to come.

30/

Read the full article here:
https://t.co/S759Jhld2v https://t.co/yTBwgSJDS8

24.5/

Perhaps this co-op w/ HKUST and Boeing was result of Frank Wang’s 2006 success in drones, which turned into the drone company called DJI, known for global mischief.

Forbes reported signs that Wang may have utilized one of the local science parks.

https://t.co/RryFV1qWEL https://t.co/XD6fOnOk2T

Gah, I'm an idiot for flying through these deleting words so recklessly 😆😆😆