Chinese scientists

ams paired that campaign with one for police reform. A former officer himself, he often found himself in trouble while in uniform for his vocal criticism of the department. He protested against police brutality on the same streets he patrolled. His pick for top cop, Keechant Sewell, came from outside the department’s rankandfile; she was chief of detectives for Nassau County, on Long Island, and will be the city’s first female commissioner.

Reforming the world’s biggest police force while also making the city safer will be a difficult task. Already he has enraged progressives by vowing to restore the city’s plainclothes anticrime units, which were notorious for stopping and searching nonwhite people with inadequate pretexts. Hawk Newsome, a vocal Black Lives Matter activist, warned, “there will be riots, there will be fire and there will be bloodshed” if those units return.

Mr Adams also vowed to restore solitary confinement in the city’s jails. If he successfully walks the tightrope he has strung for himself, the city will be better for it. Unlike his predecessor, he has good relations with the state’s governor, Kathy Hochul, which will help with funding and reduce turf wars (Mr de Blasio and Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in disgrace, famously loathed each other).

To show support for the city’s allimportant hospitality industry, Mr Adams intends to hit the town every night. New York has not had a true carousing mayor since Jimmy Walker in the 1920s, who was a fixture at speakeasies and boxing matches. Like Ed Koch, who headed the city during when it was broke in the 1970s and 80s, Mr Adams seems to love being around ordinary New Yorkers. He drew crowds of enthusiastic supporters during the campaign, many of whom shared concerns about crime or stories of economic hardship.

Unlike his two predecessors, Mr Adams is personally familiar with such stories. He talks of carrying his clothes to school in a rubbish bag, afraid his family would be evicted. He has a learning disability, and was beaten by police when he was 15 years old. He joined the police force before serving in the state legislature and as Brooklyn’s borough president. Once a Republican, he now considers himself a liberal.

During the campaign, it was unclear where he actually lived: in his office in Brooklyn’s Borough Hall, in a basement apartment he owned in the borough or in New Jersey, where his partner lives. One morning after a late night, he was filmed driving on the sidewalk. And he can be prickly and defensive. Questioned over his decision to restore solitary confinement, he sputtered, “I wore a bulletproof vest for 22 years and protected the people of this city. When you do that, then you have the right to question me.” None of this bothered voters too much. “His quirks are what make him a beloved figure,” says Michael Hendrix of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative thinktank.

Mr Adams had better get used to tough questions. In a democracy, people can challenge or be openly rude to elected officials anytime they like. When Mr Koch walked the streets, he would ask people, “How’m I doin’?” New Yorkers, not known for their restraint, told him. n

Labs and the law Scientific suspicion

W ASHINGTON, DC Charles Lieber and the conflict between America and China over science

Charles lieber, a renowned chemistry professor at Harvard, tried to avoid jail by lying to federal investigators about his work in China over the past decade. It may have seemed a reasonable if unethical gamble; the federal probe was investigating allegations that China was stealing scientific insights. No evidence suggests that Mr Lieber stole anything. But sometimes the coverup is not just worse than the crime—it is the crime. On December 21st Mr Lieber was found guilty of lying to federal authorities and failing to declare both income earned in China and a Chinese bank account. He could face up to 26 years in prison and $1.2m in fines, though as a firsttime offender he will probably not be punished so harshly. Still, Mr Lieber is 62 and has latestage lymphoma. A few years behind bars could prove a life sentence.

His downfall is a cautionary tale. America’s intensifying geopolitical rivalry with China has made previously innocuous relationships with Chinese academics suspect. As in similar cases the Department of Justice (doj) has pursued, proving that Mr Lieber or his associates engaged in espionage was a tall order. His hubris made their job easier. Yet as the crackdown on Chinese economic espionage continues apace, American science could suffer.

Ambitious scientists such as Mr Lieber depend on large research budgets and access to top talent. Despite having received more than $15m in grants from the National Institutes of Health (nih) and the Department of Defence (DOD) between 2008 and 2019, the chance to get significantly more funding, this time from China, proved irresistible. Partnerships with foreign universities, including Chinese ones, were hardly unusual. In 2011, Mr Lieber signed an agreement with the Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) to collaborate on fundamental research in nanotechnology, his area of expertise. He also signed a threeyear contractin 2012 to participate in China’s Thousand Talents Programme, a government recruitment scheme to attract foreign scientists, that would provide $1.5m in funding for a new lab at WUT. Mr Lieber himself would receive up to $50,000 a month, some of which was deposited in a Chinese bank account, along with compensation for living expenses.

Mr Lieber failed to confess these details, both to the irs in his tax filings, and to investigators from the DOD and nih when they came knocking on his door in 2018 and 2019. Although partnerships with foreign universities are legal, America’s government requires scientists receiving federal funding to disclose ties to foreign universities. And China’s organised efforts to obtain valuable technologies through espionage are no secret. China has committed billions to acquiring them in key sectors identified as priorities, including nanotechnology. While some areas, such