A Lesson in Protecting our Innovation Ecosystem from China and Some Fungus

The affidavit is 24 pages and it’s worth the read. It includes clumsily translated text messages, weaponized fungus, and border crossing tradecraft. The document accompanied the arrest of two Chinese nationals on suspicion of bringing Fusarium Graminearum (FG) into the United States to allegedly conduct research at the University of Michigan. The affidavit alleges that the two Chinese nationals, Yunqing Jian and her boyfriend, Zunyong Liu brought a deadly wheat and barley toxin into the United States illegally. Since the news broke, the headlines focused on “agroterrorism ” as a suggestion for motive. The unsatisfying truth is that we may never know the actual motive for Jian and Liu to bring FG samples into the United States. Whether that action broke the law is not in question. According to the affidavit this action violates Title 18, United State Code, Section 545 , Smuggling Goods into the United States. Their innocence or guilt will be established in time, but there’s a bigger lesson from this incident that cuts beyond terms like “agroterrorism.” This case is really about the protection of our innovation ecosystem. It’s about protecting intellectual property (IP) and what we mean by IP. Regardless of motive, there is one thing we can see clearly: China is using US research facilities to further its goals. What those goals are is up for debate. While the trial plays out, officials and leaders should look at these actions as a violation of the innovation ecosystem the US has built over the last century and that has historically attracted the best scientists, researchers, and innovators from around the world. The world looks different today and so does what it means to protect ourselves. Intellectual property enforcement and protection efforts should be immediately expanded to include protection of our R&D infrastructure. But if we are all looking for an agroterrorism threat, we might miss the strategic imperative: define our innovation ecosystem and secure it in a moment when great powers are seeking to exploit it. Subscribe now Terrorism Language I’m a Millennial, which means that acts of terrorism have been an unfortunate feature of most of my life. The Twin Towers fell just a week after I graduated boot camp. I was 12 when the federal building in Oklahoma City was brought down by a bomb. Terrorism incidents can be galvanizing, and they can be dividing. Not even 30 years of normalization can insulate readers when they read “agroterrorism.” Particularly as our integration of smart and connected technologies proliferates, the vulnerabilities of our agricultural systems are growing in ways we could not have previously imagined. This Substack has previously covered how the timing of a cyberattack against smart agriculture could result in long-term effects that are entirely different than attacks on urban systems. Threats against our agriculture should be taken seriously and we should be considering how they could convert into direct actions by adversaries as we should with all critical infrastructure . While it is true that scientific literature cited the potential for FG to be used as a “agroterrorism weapon,” it is also true that FG exists 32 states as of June 2025 and has been present in the US for over 125 years. The FDA has specific guidance for finished wheat products to inspect for the toxins that result from wheat infected by FG. Experts mostly agree that these standards would prevent harmful wheat getting to consumers but would adversely impact the ability for farmers to sell their crops. FG causes head blight on wheat and barley, and it should be investigated whether the intent was to concentrate and deploy FG in a way that would wipe out macroeconomically significant portions of those crops. While we investigate, we cannot have blinders on. As of 2020, China was the world’s largest producer of wheat at 134 million tons or 17% of global production. In the same year, the US accounted for 8.4%. Image Credit This shows that China also has motive to do research on mitigating FG-induced head blight for the preservation of its own significant wheat crop just the same as the US. This does not absolve them from smuggling a known plant pathogen into the US without a permit but combined with the broad presence of FG in the US already, gives a different spin to the agroterrorism headlines that thus far dominate the telling of this story. Share Innovation Ecosystem Doing research and development (R&D) is always expensive and often frustrating. You need large laboratory facilities with cutting edge equipment. You need post-doc researchers that publish papers. You need grant writers, support staff, computers, health insurance, boxes of latex gloves, and a host of other things that let you do effective R&D. One of the features of geopolitical struggle today is that the global power(s) that control emerging technology development, operationalization, and monetization will wield real global hard and soft power. It is why Russian, China, the EU, and the US have all passed laws and policies aimed at dominance in emerging technology. But some problems are pesky, and they take a long time to solve. Since the reemergence of FG in the US in the 1990s, R&D has been ongoing giving the US significant research facilities and infrastructure specific to FG. Why build your own when you are use someone else’s for free? Regardless of the motive for bringing the FG samples into the US (which was absolutely a crime), we should recognize this as an attack on our innovation ecosystem. In February of 2023, the US government announced the establishment of the Disruptive Technology Strike Force , a joint effort between the Departments of Justice, Commerce, and Homeland Security. The strike force was created to stop and deter theft of critical technology intellectual property (IP). The risk of IP theft to the US homeland is significant and it can take place through cyberattacks or in person by individuals sent to the US to collect the information. While we need to pay attention to cyber threats targeting IP and to individuals tasked by home governments to steal it directly from the homeland, we also need to think about the use of our R&D infrastructure for the benefit of adversary nations. R&D infrastructure, and all of its components, have value in developing everything from weapons to treatments for wheat blight. Being able to use someone else’s cuts corners both in terms of time and economics. Leave a comment Adding it Up Jian and Liu are accused of serious crimes. Bringing plant-based pathogens into the US without a permit is illegal and the evidence to suggest the pair engaged in this activity is strong. If they are found guilty, the motives matter. Right now, the story is framed as two Chinese nationals with ties to the Chinese Communist Party bringing an agroterrorism weapon into the US. FG is potentially devastating and could be utilized as a weapon, but it has been present in the US for 125 years. At least 32 states have reported the presence of FG before this incident. China produces more wheat than the US and would likely have an interest in ways to mitigate damage to the crop. The seriousness of bringing this pathogen into the US illegally should not be dismissed . While the motives are worked out in court, leaders and policy makers should be focusing on our innovation ecosystem: The use of US R&D infrastructure to achieve goals of a foreign adversary. Vulnerabilities to our agriculture from a technological and biological perspective. The bullet has been underway for some time. But the first requires real policy maker action. The Disruptive Technology Strike Force is focused on cyber and human-enabled theft of IP. The strike force should be expanded to include protection of R&D infrastructure to ensure that adversaries are not using those facilities and resources to accomplish their own goals, nefarious or otherwise. Allowing shortcutting of R&D at a moment when the US government is cutting back on R&D funding is a recipe for a gap in the emerging technology race that we may not close. No matter how the court case plays out, China is absolutely using US R&D infrastructure for its own gains. The bureaucratic processes that govern that use matter, but we first need to recognize it is occurring. What part of the Chinese government directed this work matters significantly as we measure the homeland security implications. But there is an exchange from the clumsy text messages that stands out. Jian and Liu are supposedly in a romantic relationship, but the following exchange over WeChat gives a clue as captured in the affidavit: JIAN: It’s a pity that I still have to work for you LIU: Once this is done, everything else will be easy JIAN: My seedlings are not usable yet LIU: It’s okay JIAN: A batch just passed. The new one is not good yet This could be a loss in translation, but that sounds an awful lot like a subordinate reporting to a boss. That implies organization and we should be acting. One affidavit is a start but this is bigger. We will be off on Thursday June 19th in observance of the Juneteenth holiday. We will be back next week with our normal posting cadence. Thank you to our wonderful community! Connect with us: Substack , LinkedIn , Bluesky , X , Website To learn more about the AI products we offer, please visit our product page. Nick Reese is the cofounder and COO of Frontier Foundry and an adjunct professor of emerging technology at NYU. He is a veteran and a former US government policymaker on cyber and technology issues. Visit his LinkedIn here .