Interview: Innocent Chinese-born U.S. professor on spying case: "absolutely a nightmare"

A Chinese-born U.S. professor who was recently cleared of spying charges by the U.S. Justice Department has called the case against him a "nightmare" and said he didn't know whether the prosecution was due to his Chinese-American identity.

In a phone interview with Xinhua, Xi Xiaoxing, a world-renowned physicist in the field of magnesium diboride thin film superconducting technology, said he's "glad" and "relieved" that his lawyers have convinced the U.S. government that they have made a "big mistake" in accusing him of sharing sensitive U.S. company technology with Chinese entities.

"It's absolutely a nightmare," 57-year-old Xi, professor of physics at Philadelphia-based Temple University, said of the charges. "We have suffered a lot mentally and it has also seriously hurt my reputation and left the impression that I'm doing something wrong."

Xi was arrested and charged on May 21 with four counts of wire fraud that could sentence him to a maximum of 80 years in prison with a fine of up to 1 million U.S. dollars.

U.S. federal prosecutors initially alleged that Xi planned to provide schematics about a device known as a pocket heater in exchange for "lucrative and prestigious appointments in China." But his case was dropped on Friday after "additional information came to the attention of the government."

Xi, a father of two girls, still has lingering fears. It was at about 6:30 in the morning when he awoke to loud knocking at the door of his home in the Philadelphia suburbs, Xi recalled. "I came downstairs to see FBI agents bursting into my home, some with guns in hands. After asking my name, they handcuffed and arrested me. They also ordered my wife and daughters to raise their hands and walk to a place (within the house)."

Ironically, U.S. federal prosecutors and FBI agents, as The New York Times wrote, "did not understand -- and did not do enough to learn -- the science" at the heart of the case: the so-called pocket heater.

Xi's lab used various heaters, including the pocket heater, for the thin film superconducting research. Although his work with Chinese entities had nothing to do with such a device, U.S. federal prosecutors thought "they are all the same," Xi said.

And contrary to the indictment's claim that such a device "revolutionized the field of superconducting magnesium diboride thin film growth," it's only a modified version of a 1993 invention by German scientists.

"Nothing revolutionary about it," Xi said, citing one of the device's co-inventors, whose statement was allegedly critical in helping persuade the U.S. government to dismiss the case.

"All the materials I made were not sensitive. I did not do any sensitive research," Xi noted. "The pocket heater is completely open and methods on how to make it can be found online."

After his arrest, Xi voluntarily stepped down as chairman of Temple's physics department but remained a faculty member. He said he would like to return to Temple to continue his research.

It's the second time this year that the U.S. government has wrongly accused Chinese-American scientists of spying for China. U.S. federal prosecutors had similarly charged Sherry Chen, an employee of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and dropped the case without explanation earlier this year.

The charges against Chen backfired as 22 U.S. Congress members urged the country's Attorney General Loretta Lynch in May to investigate whether there is a practice of targeting federal employees based on their race or national origin.

Xi said he has no idea what triggered his investigation. "I don't know whether this is because I'm from China. I don't have such evidence. But one after another case against Chinese-Americans will certainly make such an impression," he said. "If this is the case, I think it actually is not in the interest of the United States. We Chinese-Americans contribute a lot to the country, to everything."

When asked about his future plans, Xi said he has not yet had time to consider it but he hopes to travel to see his mother as soon as possible, after missing her 90th birthday in June.

"I have never done anything related to technology transfer or selling technology to China, never," Xi repeated at the end of the phone interview. "Everything I did was just routine academic collaboration. We do basic research together and publish the results openly, which is normal and practiced by so many colleagues every day. I didn't do anything wrong." Endit