NASA Says Ban on Chinese Nationals Was a Mistake
October 22, 2013 Leave a comment
Oct 21, 2013
NASA Says Ban on Chinese Nationals Was a Mistake
NASA says it mistakenly banned Chinese scientists from attending a science conference next month, blaming the mix-up on a “misinterpretation of the agency’s policy.” It was reported earlier this month that NASA had decided to exclude Chinese nationals from the Kepler Science Conference taking place at the Ames research center in California next month. The ban provoked outrage from U.S. scientists and an angry letter from a U.S. congressman who said Congress had never authorized such a policy.“Unfortunately, the initial decision was based on a misinterpretation of the agency’s policy related to foreign nationals’ access to NASA facilities,” said NASA spokesman Allard Beutel on Monday. “The interpretation was clarified and the decision corrected once the federal government reopened last Thursday.”
Mr. Beutel told Law Blog that the confusion had do with a “moratorium on granting any new access to NASA facilities to individuals” from China, Iran, North Korea, and several other countries while NASA conducted a review of security processes at its facilities.
He said organizers of the conference didn’t realize that the moratorium is no longer in place.
After the Guardian published an article about the ban, Frank Wolf, a Republican from Virginia, wrote to NASA chief Charles Bolden on Oct. 8 telling him that nothing in the law prevented the agency from allowing Chinese nationals from going to the conference.
He thought there could be confusion over a law that Congress passed in 2011 forbidding NASA from using federal funds “to develop, design, plan, promulgate, implement or execute a bilateral policy, program, order, or contract of any kind to participate, collaborate, or coordinate bilaterally in any way with China or any Chinese-owned company.”
As you know, the congressional provision – which has been in place since early 2011 – primarily restricts bilateral, not multilateral, meetings and activities with the Communist Chinese government or Chinese-owned companies. It places no restrictions on activities involving individual Chinese nationals unless those nationals are acting as official representatives of the Chinese government.
The measure was intended to make sure that the United States wasn’t cooperating with the People’s Liberation Army on developing China’s space program. But Mr. Wolf said any additional restrictions against Chinese nationals on NASA centers “is entirely an agency policy and not covered under the statutory restriction.”
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