Summary of findings
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has developed a sophisticated strategy to transfer knowledge and technologies from abroad. Its implementation includes recruiting scholars and entrepreneurs for short-term or permanent positions in China or from abroad. As has been documented elsewhere, talent recruitment programs are often associated with misconduct and intellectual property theft.
This study — the first devoted to PRC talent recruitment in France — has identified extensive networks within the French science and technology ecosystem with close links to the PRC party-state and its technology transfer bureaucracy. These networks may create channels for China (including its military) to obtain technology key to France’s innovative edge and national security. In some cases, these channels may also be used for political influence purposes.
Our research focuses on a sample of 20 French-based associations active in transferring knowledge and technology to China. Members of these associations (claimed to number over 10,000) work for top French companies and research institutions.
We have also identified 71 talent-recruitment “work stations” run by French-based entities — including associations in our sample — on behalf of PRC united front agencies, local governments, companies and universities. The leaders of some of those associations — which thus render services to PRC agencies — simultaneously hold permanent posts in French research institutions.
These organizations assist China’s talent recruitment bureaucracy to facilitate the transfer of scientific knowledge and technology to China — including its defence system — in ways that evade France’s economic security policy tools, such as export controls and foreign investment screening. Some have targeted dual-use technologies. In one case, an association in our sample introduced laser specialist and Nobel Prize winner Gérard Mourou to a Peking University advisory committee which includes He Xiantu, who designed China’s first neutron bomb.
All the associations studied maintain significant links with China’s party-state, notably united front agencies. However, their status as French associations has allowed them to gain acceptance as legitimate partners of French institutions and access to senior officials. One association in our sample has run the official China program of Station F, France’s largest start-up incubator, for several years, while its president was invited to join Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s 2018 delegation during a China visit.
As partners of PRC agencies, these associations could serve the CCP as political influence instruments. Highlighting this potential, 4D China, a group linked to our study’s associations that seeks to fight “misconceptions” about China in French society, was co-founded by a senior expert at France Stratégie, a French agency advising the prime minister.
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