What do you think?
Rate this book
The Scientist and the Spy: A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage
A riveting true story of industrial espionage in which a Chinese-born scientist is pursued by the U.S. government for trying to steal trade secrets, by a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction.
In September 2011, sheriff's deputies in Iowa encountered three ethnic Chinese men near a field where a farmer was growing corn seed under contract with Monsanto. What began as a simple trespassing inquiry mushroomed into a two-year FBI operation in which investigators bugged the men's rental cars, used a warrant intended for foreign terrorists and spies, and flew surveillance planes over corn country--all in the name of protecting trade secrets of corporate giants Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer. In The Scientist and the Spy, Hvistendahl gives a gripping account of this unusually far-reaching investigation, which pitted a veteran FBI special agent against Florida resident Robert Mo, who after his academic career foundered took a questionable job with the Chinese agricultural company DBN--and became a pawn in a global rivalry.
Industrial espionage by Chinese companies lies beneath the United States' recent trade war with China, and it is one of the top counterintelligence targets of the FBI. But a decade of efforts to stem the problem have been largely ineffective. Through previously unreleased FBI files and her reporting from across the United States and China, Hvistendahl describes a long history of shoddy counterintelligence on China, much of it tinged with racism, and questions the role that corporate influence plays in trade secrets theft cases brought by the U.S. government. The Scientist and the Spy is both an important exploration of the issues at stake and a compelling, involving read.
In September 2011, sheriff's deputies in Iowa encountered three ethnic Chinese men near a field where a farmer was growing corn seed under contract with Monsanto. What began as a simple trespassing inquiry mushroomed into a two-year FBI operation in which investigators bugged the men's rental cars, used a warrant intended for foreign terrorists and spies, and flew surveillance planes over corn country--all in the name of protecting trade secrets of corporate giants Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer. In The Scientist and the Spy, Hvistendahl gives a gripping account of this unusually far-reaching investigation, which pitted a veteran FBI special agent against Florida resident Robert Mo, who after his academic career foundered took a questionable job with the Chinese agricultural company DBN--and became a pawn in a global rivalry.
Industrial espionage by Chinese companies lies beneath the United States' recent trade war with China, and it is one of the top counterintelligence targets of the FBI. But a decade of efforts to stem the problem have been largely ineffective. Through previously unreleased FBI files and her reporting from across the United States and China, Hvistendahl describes a long history of shoddy counterintelligence on China, much of it tinged with racism, and questions the role that corporate influence plays in trade secrets theft cases brought by the U.S. government. The Scientist and the Spy is both an important exploration of the issues at stake and a compelling, involving read.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published February 4, 2020
290 people are currently reading
4103 people want to read
About the author
Mara Hvistendahl
11 books97 followersMara Hvistendahl is an award-winning writer and journalist specialized in the intersection of science, culture, and policy. A correspondent for Science magazine, she has also written for Harper’s, Scientific American, Popular Science, The Financial Times, and Foreign Policy, among other publications. Proficient in both Spanish and Chinese, she has spent half of the past decade in China, where she has reported on everything from archaeology to Beijing’s space program.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 213 reviews
February 29, 2020
What makes a bad book bad? This is a classic example. The author has an interesting premise and has mastered the mechanics of writing but the finished product leaves you wishing she had written a journal article instead of a book.
She had an interesting story to tell but the book goes wildly off the rails when she begins to include personal anecdotes in a failed attempt to bolster her credibility. Then to fill space she she pads her research with opinions and speculation. Hvistendahl has forgotten the journalist's maxim "abandon opinions to learn the truth."
I couldn't finish the book, instead I simply googled the incident. Far more satisfying.
She had an interesting story to tell but the book goes wildly off the rails when she begins to include personal anecdotes in a failed attempt to bolster her credibility. Then to fill space she she pads her research with opinions and speculation. Hvistendahl has forgotten the journalist's maxim "abandon opinions to learn the truth."
I couldn't finish the book, instead I simply googled the incident. Far more satisfying.
September 27, 2022
In 1876, Englishman Henry Wickham smuggled rubber tree seeds out of the Amazon ultimately dooming Brazil’s rubber boom. The stolen seeds were successfully germinated, leading to the British establishing rubber plantations in Malaya that broke Brazil’s monopoly and sent the states of Amazonas and Pará into rapid decline. The Opera House in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas, is a melancholy reminder of the luxury rubber profits once afforded. Much as rubber seeds once were, genetically engineered (or modified, ie GM) corn seeds have become valuable enough in the 21st century that some will resort to anything to get them.
Mara Hvistendahl’s The Scientist and the Spy is a riveting true crime read that uses the case of Robert Mo, an employee of the Chinese agricultural company DBN, to investigate how the theft of trade secrets is now a major battlefield in the Cold War between China and America. The book raises a number of questions which do not have simple answers. Do these thefts across a range of industries constitute threats to national security? How can one prevent rational reactions to theft from spiralling into panic and xenophobia?
The story starts in 2011 when an Iowa farmer spots a Chinese man in a field owned by agri-giant Monsanto and calls the police. American companies Monsanto and Dupont Pioneer have developed hybrid seeds that produce bumper crops, are resistant to pesticides and, of considerable commercial importance, only germinate once (requiring farmers to repurchase seed each season). In 2010, indeed, China limited the import of GM seeds partly to stop American companies from dominating the Chinese domestic market. Corn is big money in China: as people get richer and eat more meat, there is more demand for corn as animal feed. If Chinese companies like DBN could develop quality hybrids, they could gain control of the domestic market and offer cheaper alternatives to western strains in the international market.
As hybrid corn seeds are the result of some serious research and development, they arguably qualify as intellectual property, something the FBI and the Justice Department are tasked with protecting; whether GM seeds qualify as a national security interest is another topic. On the Chinese side, food is a matter of national security; when it comes to science and technology, the government has shown little compunction about taking shortcuts.
"No wonder, then, that some companies hire hackers to tunnel into the servers of their American competitors and then swipe designs for their latest product, or that some researchers are tempted to steal work from elsewhere, particularly if it has commercial potential."
DBN needed the inbred parents of a strain. The female inbred can be reverse-engineered, but the male needs to be collected from the field; this is where Robert Mo comes in. Should DBN’s hair-brained scheme be considered “espionage” as the corn giants and the FBI call it, or just one company stealing from another? This issue was debated in Robert Mo’s trial, but the answer is still not clear cut: seeds are not weapons.
Robert, whose Chinese name is Hailong, grew up in a tiny village in Sichuan Province. In America, despite having two PHDs, he can’t make ends meet in an academic research job and so, through a family connection back in China, gets a well-paid job at DBN. Along with the legitimate part of his work, sourcing pig feed, he is tasked with stealing corn seeds and sending them back to China marked with code numbers. Hvistendahl builds the tension nicely. Mo first becomes a person of interest for the FBI and as they begin to close in, she works scientific and judicial details into a narrative that has just enough action to hook the reader.
The FBI continues a cat and mouse game with the Chinese driving through Iowa filching seeds and the rural Midwest comes to life through Hvistendahl’s descriptions.
"They passed diners that served sandwiches smothered in Thousand Island dressing, drinking establishments with neon signs in their windows that simply said BAR and corn paraphernalia of all kinds."
Agent Mark Betten is in charge of the investigation codenamed Purple Maze which uses local police, border patrol and customs officers. The other DBN employees leave for China, but Roger, whose life in America, is trapped. He is not street smart enough to save himself; his ruthless boss Dr Li sees him as expendable. The author visits Robert in federal prison and adds to her nuanced portrait of him by including a translation of one of the poems he wrote there.
Hvistendahl’s story is not so much about China stealing but also about America’s problematic reaction. The post-Cold War Clinton administration passed an industrial espionage act, but after 9/11, the war on terror took the FBI’s attention away for another decade. When the FBI got around to dealing with Chinese espionage, the approach was troublesome.
"One trope in particular cropped up again and again. This was the idea that China commanded an army of amateur intelligence collectors of which Robert was just one part—or, as Newsweek columnist Jeff Stein put it, that Robert was among the “locusts in a swarm feasting on American technological secrets.”"
Hvistendahl takes exception to this blanket labelling — the majority are not “locusts” — so she investigates the history of the FBI's approach to Chinese espionage. Hvistendahl includes a number of dubious cases brought against Chinese scientists. America relies on Chinese talent in its labs and so the possible risk here is that the FBI is playing into the Chinese government’s hands and forcing these scientists back to China as they feel persecuted in the US. The FBI has, in her view, been overzealous in suspecting Chinese scientists and students in the USA, the agency’s rationale being that the Chinese government targets all ethnic Chinese to collect information. In the 1990s, FBI analyst Paul Moore came up with the thousand-grains-of-sand theory to describe Chinese intelligence gathering. Moore claims that while Russia and the US use James Bond-style tactics, the Chinese utilize a large number of amateurs loyal to the motherland sending through tidbits of information that are somehow pieced together. However, the truth is the Chinese incentivize a small number to become agents through money and sex like any other country’s intelligence operation.
Nor is American interest clear. The Monsanto name was retired as it carried negative connotations, brought about by its cancer-causing pesticides. And Bayer, a German firm, recently bought the company itself. So 'Monsanto' is not even American anymore. Nor is it clear that corporate profits brought about by higher seed prices are in the public interest.
The Scientist and the Spy is broken down into thirty-nine short chapters, which leads to readability but some fragmenting of the many strands of the Mo case. However, this is a fascinating, well-written and well-researched book. In the end, it teaches us more about America—its institutions and what big business can get away with - than it does about China, this perhaps being a welcome surprise.
Mara Hvistendahl’s The Scientist and the Spy is a riveting true crime read that uses the case of Robert Mo, an employee of the Chinese agricultural company DBN, to investigate how the theft of trade secrets is now a major battlefield in the Cold War between China and America. The book raises a number of questions which do not have simple answers. Do these thefts across a range of industries constitute threats to national security? How can one prevent rational reactions to theft from spiralling into panic and xenophobia?
The story starts in 2011 when an Iowa farmer spots a Chinese man in a field owned by agri-giant Monsanto and calls the police. American companies Monsanto and Dupont Pioneer have developed hybrid seeds that produce bumper crops, are resistant to pesticides and, of considerable commercial importance, only germinate once (requiring farmers to repurchase seed each season). In 2010, indeed, China limited the import of GM seeds partly to stop American companies from dominating the Chinese domestic market. Corn is big money in China: as people get richer and eat more meat, there is more demand for corn as animal feed. If Chinese companies like DBN could develop quality hybrids, they could gain control of the domestic market and offer cheaper alternatives to western strains in the international market.
As hybrid corn seeds are the result of some serious research and development, they arguably qualify as intellectual property, something the FBI and the Justice Department are tasked with protecting; whether GM seeds qualify as a national security interest is another topic. On the Chinese side, food is a matter of national security; when it comes to science and technology, the government has shown little compunction about taking shortcuts.
"No wonder, then, that some companies hire hackers to tunnel into the servers of their American competitors and then swipe designs for their latest product, or that some researchers are tempted to steal work from elsewhere, particularly if it has commercial potential."
DBN needed the inbred parents of a strain. The female inbred can be reverse-engineered, but the male needs to be collected from the field; this is where Robert Mo comes in. Should DBN’s hair-brained scheme be considered “espionage” as the corn giants and the FBI call it, or just one company stealing from another? This issue was debated in Robert Mo’s trial, but the answer is still not clear cut: seeds are not weapons.
Robert, whose Chinese name is Hailong, grew up in a tiny village in Sichuan Province. In America, despite having two PHDs, he can’t make ends meet in an academic research job and so, through a family connection back in China, gets a well-paid job at DBN. Along with the legitimate part of his work, sourcing pig feed, he is tasked with stealing corn seeds and sending them back to China marked with code numbers. Hvistendahl builds the tension nicely. Mo first becomes a person of interest for the FBI and as they begin to close in, she works scientific and judicial details into a narrative that has just enough action to hook the reader.
The FBI continues a cat and mouse game with the Chinese driving through Iowa filching seeds and the rural Midwest comes to life through Hvistendahl’s descriptions.
"They passed diners that served sandwiches smothered in Thousand Island dressing, drinking establishments with neon signs in their windows that simply said BAR and corn paraphernalia of all kinds."
Agent Mark Betten is in charge of the investigation codenamed Purple Maze which uses local police, border patrol and customs officers. The other DBN employees leave for China, but Roger, whose life in America, is trapped. He is not street smart enough to save himself; his ruthless boss Dr Li sees him as expendable. The author visits Robert in federal prison and adds to her nuanced portrait of him by including a translation of one of the poems he wrote there.
Hvistendahl’s story is not so much about China stealing but also about America’s problematic reaction. The post-Cold War Clinton administration passed an industrial espionage act, but after 9/11, the war on terror took the FBI’s attention away for another decade. When the FBI got around to dealing with Chinese espionage, the approach was troublesome.
"One trope in particular cropped up again and again. This was the idea that China commanded an army of amateur intelligence collectors of which Robert was just one part—or, as Newsweek columnist Jeff Stein put it, that Robert was among the “locusts in a swarm feasting on American technological secrets.”"
Hvistendahl takes exception to this blanket labelling — the majority are not “locusts” — so she investigates the history of the FBI's approach to Chinese espionage. Hvistendahl includes a number of dubious cases brought against Chinese scientists. America relies on Chinese talent in its labs and so the possible risk here is that the FBI is playing into the Chinese government’s hands and forcing these scientists back to China as they feel persecuted in the US. The FBI has, in her view, been overzealous in suspecting Chinese scientists and students in the USA, the agency’s rationale being that the Chinese government targets all ethnic Chinese to collect information. In the 1990s, FBI analyst Paul Moore came up with the thousand-grains-of-sand theory to describe Chinese intelligence gathering. Moore claims that while Russia and the US use James Bond-style tactics, the Chinese utilize a large number of amateurs loyal to the motherland sending through tidbits of information that are somehow pieced together. However, the truth is the Chinese incentivize a small number to become agents through money and sex like any other country’s intelligence operation.
Nor is American interest clear. The Monsanto name was retired as it carried negative connotations, brought about by its cancer-causing pesticides. And Bayer, a German firm, recently bought the company itself. So 'Monsanto' is not even American anymore. Nor is it clear that corporate profits brought about by higher seed prices are in the public interest.
The Scientist and the Spy is broken down into thirty-nine short chapters, which leads to readability but some fragmenting of the many strands of the Mo case. However, this is a fascinating, well-written and well-researched book. In the end, it teaches us more about America—its institutions and what big business can get away with - than it does about China, this perhaps being a welcome surprise.
February 25, 2020
Hvistendahl presents a thoroughly researched and engaging account of a case of economic espionage against a Chinese citizen. She does an excellent job factually breaking down the components of the case while providing background and context that caution the US against being overzealous in its application of law enforcement methods. However, the overall message of this book breaks down as Hvistendahl tries to reconcile the dangers of ethnic profiling versus the actual economic espionage going on in the world today. At times Hvistendahl's insight is excellent, but she falls short of the admittedly challenging task of tying the whole story together.
Hvistendahl does an adequate job highlighting the potential pitfalls of conducting an investigation into a politically sensitive issue that can result in racial profiling. However, it is difficult to see where this narrative fits in with the main story about a Chinese citizen who was caught red-handed in corn fields and mailing seeds in pursuit of the theft of trade secrets. On the one hand, the example Hvistendahl uses to highlight the threat of economic espionage from Chinese citizens was started in a legitimate and traditional way (a tip from local authorities) and used traditional law enforcement and investigation techniques (surveillance, confidential human source, interviews, etc.). However, Hvistendahl then describes other cases where racial profiling was present or law enforcement techniques in appropriately used to accuse innocent people of serious crimes. In the end, Hvistendahl does not reconcile these competing narratives. Has the FBI overcome the mistakes of the past, or is it making the same mistakes again? The reader gets a sense that Hvistendahl brings up the previous abuses of law enforcement in investigating law-abiding scientists and students to serve as a warning, but she, again, does not reconcile this with the straightforward case of the theft of seeds.
One major gap in this book is that Hvistendahl does not reconcile her suggestion that law enforcement overreached in the main case with the publicly available resources on how federal law enforcement investigations are conducted. She suggests that the use of an airplane and a FISA warrant overreach, but she does not address that these are perfectly acceptable techniques in any investigation as long as they are limited in scope and obtain information that is not available in any other source. To suggest that law enforcement overreached is to suggest that the information being sought could have been obtained in a less obtrusive manner, or that the information being obtained was irrelevant to the prosecution. Hvistendahl suggests neither.
One of the most insightful points that is not followed up on enough comes when Hvistendahl talks about how China scholar Peter Mattis has described how we can view Chinese espionage, both state-sponsored and that of private companies, as similar to traditional espionage conducted by any country or company. This perspective provides the solution to the problems of racial profiling and law enforcement overreach. That is, the government should simply treat a Chinese spy as they would a Russian spy and the theft of trade secrets of a Chinese company as that of a German company.
The biggest weakness of Hvistendahl's book is that she does not address how several of the points she explores can be true at the same time. Chinese state and non-state actors have a strong interest in both stealing US state and trade secrets and undermining mitigation efforts by any means possible, including inflating concerns about racial profiling. This is not to suggest that racial profiling does not exist though. Where it does, it should be confronted by supervisors, politicians, and judges for individuals to be held to account.
Hvistendahl could have also discussed about how inexperience and incompetence are possible factors in the failure of some investigations. Also, Hvistendahl should have considered what the posture of the US government and the public should be towards bringing investigations to trial. If only the strongest cases are brought to trial, the US would end up with a system like Japan that is criticized for its high conviction rate and low possibility of success for the defense at trial. If all investigations are brought to trial, too many innocent people have their lives upended unfairly. The unfortunate result is that some people found to be innocent will have their lives upended. Many of these people will truly be innocent, but in some cases criminals will get away with crimes thanks to incompetence by the investigators and prosecution or thanks to a tight defense. The balance has to be drawn in a way that protects the innocent while challenging potential criminals who are actually good enough at their schemes to minimize the evidence left behind while securing a good defense.
Hvistendahl does an adequate job highlighting the potential pitfalls of conducting an investigation into a politically sensitive issue that can result in racial profiling. However, it is difficult to see where this narrative fits in with the main story about a Chinese citizen who was caught red-handed in corn fields and mailing seeds in pursuit of the theft of trade secrets. On the one hand, the example Hvistendahl uses to highlight the threat of economic espionage from Chinese citizens was started in a legitimate and traditional way (a tip from local authorities) and used traditional law enforcement and investigation techniques (surveillance, confidential human source, interviews, etc.). However, Hvistendahl then describes other cases where racial profiling was present or law enforcement techniques in appropriately used to accuse innocent people of serious crimes. In the end, Hvistendahl does not reconcile these competing narratives. Has the FBI overcome the mistakes of the past, or is it making the same mistakes again? The reader gets a sense that Hvistendahl brings up the previous abuses of law enforcement in investigating law-abiding scientists and students to serve as a warning, but she, again, does not reconcile this with the straightforward case of the theft of seeds.
One major gap in this book is that Hvistendahl does not reconcile her suggestion that law enforcement overreached in the main case with the publicly available resources on how federal law enforcement investigations are conducted. She suggests that the use of an airplane and a FISA warrant overreach, but she does not address that these are perfectly acceptable techniques in any investigation as long as they are limited in scope and obtain information that is not available in any other source. To suggest that law enforcement overreached is to suggest that the information being sought could have been obtained in a less obtrusive manner, or that the information being obtained was irrelevant to the prosecution. Hvistendahl suggests neither.
One of the most insightful points that is not followed up on enough comes when Hvistendahl talks about how China scholar Peter Mattis has described how we can view Chinese espionage, both state-sponsored and that of private companies, as similar to traditional espionage conducted by any country or company. This perspective provides the solution to the problems of racial profiling and law enforcement overreach. That is, the government should simply treat a Chinese spy as they would a Russian spy and the theft of trade secrets of a Chinese company as that of a German company.
The biggest weakness of Hvistendahl's book is that she does not address how several of the points she explores can be true at the same time. Chinese state and non-state actors have a strong interest in both stealing US state and trade secrets and undermining mitigation efforts by any means possible, including inflating concerns about racial profiling. This is not to suggest that racial profiling does not exist though. Where it does, it should be confronted by supervisors, politicians, and judges for individuals to be held to account.
Hvistendahl could have also discussed about how inexperience and incompetence are possible factors in the failure of some investigations. Also, Hvistendahl should have considered what the posture of the US government and the public should be towards bringing investigations to trial. If only the strongest cases are brought to trial, the US would end up with a system like Japan that is criticized for its high conviction rate and low possibility of success for the defense at trial. If all investigations are brought to trial, too many innocent people have their lives upended unfairly. The unfortunate result is that some people found to be innocent will have their lives upended. Many of these people will truly be innocent, but in some cases criminals will get away with crimes thanks to incompetence by the investigators and prosecution or thanks to a tight defense. The balance has to be drawn in a way that protects the innocent while challenging potential criminals who are actually good enough at their schemes to minimize the evidence left behind while securing a good defense.
February 18, 2020
Simple story, biased author, not worth the time
This is a pretty straightforward story of Chinese spying that could have been told in one chapter. Author seems to have little problem with Chinese espionage. Disappointing book and the author’s bias was even more disappointing.
This is a pretty straightforward story of Chinese spying that could have been told in one chapter. Author seems to have little problem with Chinese espionage. Disappointing book and the author’s bias was even more disappointing.
August 23, 2023
Finished. Absolutely wild. Super thought provoking. Def hoping to continue to follow this story in the news 😳 thank you again to @riverheadbooks for the free copy. I’ll be thinking about this one for awhile
February 25, 2020
As a retired FBI agent who worked both foreign counterintelligence against China and Economic Espionage cases, I found this book fascinating. I did not know of this particular case before reading the book, and have no preconceived notions about the case itself. The prose flows smoothly here with the author's engaging style. Her research is good but I got the impression there was a slight pro-China or at least pro-Chinese individuals leaning in her writing, which is only natural for someone who spent years there and no doubt has many friendships and deep roots there.
Investigating and prosecuting economic espionage cases is a very complex business and much of the investigator's job cannot be brought out or appreciated in a book of this nature. Still, I think the author does a good job of discussing how victim companies are in a bind when the FBI or any law enforcement becomes involved and almost adversarial to the government in such cases. I wish she had spent a little more time on that. The criminal prosecution complicates their business, often threatening to reveal their trade secrets in court. If civil litigation is in process, which it usually is, the defense is handed the argument that the victim company is using the government as their agent or their investigator. The argument goes that the government shouldn't put its finger on the scales of what is essentially a business dispute. My view is that a theft is a theft whether the victim is Molly's Hair Salon or Megacorp and law enforcement should investigate crimes and prosecute thieves. A crime victim should be allowed to cooperate with law enforcement without being punished for it.
One glaring omission for those of us in the field is the issue of adequate protection. In order to have a crime under the EEA of 1996, whether trade secret theft or economic espionage, it is necessary to prove that the trade secret was in fact a secret, i.e. that it was sufficiently well-protected. The defense will always claim that it wasn't really a secret, or not well-protected enough to be considered secret. In effect the argument becomes, "if my client was able to steal it, then it must not be a trade secret and therefore not a crime." The crime, in effect, doesn't ever exist. I consider the argument to be specious. The author confuses this issue with the technological value of the thing stolen. A trade secret doesn't have to be technology at all. In fact, the most valuable trade secret in most companies is a Rolodex with names of customers or suppliers. It can be internal pay records and personnel performance reviews. It seems to me that the issue of protections afforded (or not) to the corn seed lines was, or should have been, a major issue in this case, yet it was little discussed.
Investigating and prosecuting economic espionage cases is a very complex business and much of the investigator's job cannot be brought out or appreciated in a book of this nature. Still, I think the author does a good job of discussing how victim companies are in a bind when the FBI or any law enforcement becomes involved and almost adversarial to the government in such cases. I wish she had spent a little more time on that. The criminal prosecution complicates their business, often threatening to reveal their trade secrets in court. If civil litigation is in process, which it usually is, the defense is handed the argument that the victim company is using the government as their agent or their investigator. The argument goes that the government shouldn't put its finger on the scales of what is essentially a business dispute. My view is that a theft is a theft whether the victim is Molly's Hair Salon or Megacorp and law enforcement should investigate crimes and prosecute thieves. A crime victim should be allowed to cooperate with law enforcement without being punished for it.
One glaring omission for those of us in the field is the issue of adequate protection. In order to have a crime under the EEA of 1996, whether trade secret theft or economic espionage, it is necessary to prove that the trade secret was in fact a secret, i.e. that it was sufficiently well-protected. The defense will always claim that it wasn't really a secret, or not well-protected enough to be considered secret. In effect the argument becomes, "if my client was able to steal it, then it must not be a trade secret and therefore not a crime." The crime, in effect, doesn't ever exist. I consider the argument to be specious. The author confuses this issue with the technological value of the thing stolen. A trade secret doesn't have to be technology at all. In fact, the most valuable trade secret in most companies is a Rolodex with names of customers or suppliers. It can be internal pay records and personnel performance reviews. It seems to me that the issue of protections afforded (or not) to the corn seed lines was, or should have been, a major issue in this case, yet it was little discussed.
February 29, 2020
It was a false promise. I thought I was going to read factual, unbiased information about the issues that the United States has in dealing with an example of Chinese espionage in its obvious attempt to steal rather than innovate. Instead the author presents an incredibly biased account of her views of relationships between the United States and its own Chinese American citizens; although she doesn't seem to actually distinguish between true Chinese Americans and those who still prefer to hold Chinese passports! She begins to exhibit the exact bias that she purports our FBI and citizens to have when she describes Trump and his supporters. What had been a thinly-veiled bias became glaring with her choice of descriptive adjectives. In the end, this book was an extremely disappointing read. A true waste of time if you really want to understand the motivations behind Chinese espionage.
January 7, 2020
Note: The copy I have with me is the uncorrected version, which I have won through a raffle by Fully Booked called 20 Reads for 2020. I cannot cite the book as such, and will still have to refer to the officially published version. However, I believe that I somehow have the very skeleton of the book to be released on 04 February 2020.
The book, despite being a non-fiction account of the case of Hailong Mo, reads like an action-suspense novel. I finished the book in such a short time because I cannot put it down - I wanted to know what happened next. Hvistendahl did an excellent job in writing simply whilst providing the reader with a background on industrial espionage both from the American and Chinese perspectives. She also suspends bias and is critical of the racial profiling evident from how the FBI handled several alleged trade / defense / scientific secret theft cases. She illustrates how industrial espionage has always been an existing issue overshadowed by terrorism. Using numerous sources ranging from firsthand interviews as well as court proceedings and news articles, Hvistendahl writes a compelling account of the economic espionage cases and its effect to a nation long hailed as the epitome of democracy - an ironic claim for various nationalities that make up "America".
The book, despite being a non-fiction account of the case of Hailong Mo, reads like an action-suspense novel. I finished the book in such a short time because I cannot put it down - I wanted to know what happened next. Hvistendahl did an excellent job in writing simply whilst providing the reader with a background on industrial espionage both from the American and Chinese perspectives. She also suspends bias and is critical of the racial profiling evident from how the FBI handled several alleged trade / defense / scientific secret theft cases. She illustrates how industrial espionage has always been an existing issue overshadowed by terrorism. Using numerous sources ranging from firsthand interviews as well as court proceedings and news articles, Hvistendahl writes a compelling account of the economic espionage cases and its effect to a nation long hailed as the epitome of democracy - an ironic claim for various nationalities that make up "America".
June 11, 2020
Who knew spying about corn could be so interesting. I now know a lot more about corn than I should know, or need to know. But we live for those moments don't we.
February 28, 2020
This gripping true account of the attempt by the FBI to stop the theft of agricultural trade secrets by a group from China also deals with the related issue of racial profiling in U.S. crime enforcement.
August 29, 2020
A shocking sad story of a Chinese American National was was seen gathering corn seed from the ground in a field in Iowa after the corn had been harvested. The man, called Robert Ho, was a scientist turned businessman working for a Chinese company developing seed. The seed was a type developed by Monstanto which they hoped would be resistant to their pesticide, Roundup. What happens is a espionage case that entails a farmer who agreed to allow Monsanto to test their seed, an American resident from
China accused of espionage, countless FBI and law enforcement staff for years, family who have to pay bail and house arrest fees, and China who are watching an increasing number of their nationals arrested and accused in the United States of corporate espionage. What is more pronounced overall yet very hidden in this case, is how little benefit this case had in corporate security. The seed was all over the world before the case even ended and outdated. The harm in Chinese and US relations and cooperation between nations in development of new resources that benefit everyone. FISA is often a rubber stamp of any warrant and that countless resources are being used to prosecute people for little effect. A wake up call and heartbreaking too.
China accused of espionage, countless FBI and law enforcement staff for years, family who have to pay bail and house arrest fees, and China who are watching an increasing number of their nationals arrested and accused in the United States of corporate espionage. What is more pronounced overall yet very hidden in this case, is how little benefit this case had in corporate security. The seed was all over the world before the case even ended and outdated. The harm in Chinese and US relations and cooperation between nations in development of new resources that benefit everyone. FISA is often a rubber stamp of any warrant and that countless resources are being used to prosecute people for little effect. A wake up call and heartbreaking too.
May 20, 2024
I have never heard of this story, and it's closely related to my undergrad degree so I found it very interesting. Also as someone from Iowa, this was familiar territory. China has been trying to steal GMO information from Monsanto so they can engineer their own crops. The hunt for Chinese spies in the relatively modern age was disappointing but unsurprising, racial profiling will likely never end.
April 18, 2024
This was a great story that would make a great expose on 60 MINUTES. What I got out of it? Well, no country is perfect. And in the end, when one country makes a discovery it eventually spreads throughout the world. Look at the telephone...
In any case, I like the way this author, Mara (very talented by the way), researched and compiled the riveting story. Here are the lines that captured me along the way:
CORN is in the animal feed that fattens cows and chickens, and in the high fructose corn syrup that sweetens ketchup, soda, and salad dressing. Over 90 percent of the starch and 56 percent of the sweeteners in the American diet come from corn. IOWA produces more corn than any other state.
Real research takes time.
In the end, there was no surefire way for companies to escape technological theft.
Being treated with suspicion, I came to realize, could breed animosity where there had been none.
In the FBI's view, employees were a common vector through which trade secrets leaked out to China. Insider Threats were employees who unnecessarily copied proprietary information or seemed overly interested in spy work--what the FBI calls James Bond Wannabes.
The United States and China had become, in essence, frenemies.
The FBI China analyst named Paul Moore explained China's approach to spying:
The Russians would station a submarine in deep waters. Then, in the middle of the night, a commando team would paddle a raft to shore, scoop up a few buckets of sand, and retreat to the submarine.
The United States would use sophisticated technology, flying satellites over the beach and scanning the sand with infrared and spectrographic scanners.
China would rely not on technology or covert operations but on its large population. The question of beach composition could be solved by sending ten thousand people--students, scientists, and entrepreneurs--to spend a day in the sun. At the end of the day, this mass of people would head home and shake out their towels. China would end up with a lot of sand. This has been called THE VACUUM CLEANER APPROACH. China sucks up small bits of information, as if they are dust, then assemble these seemingly useless bits into a complete whole.
In the end, China spies much the same way the United States and Russia do.
The FBI: "We're not asking you to spy, just go about your business."
It was precisely the sort of appeal that is made when one is, in fact, asking someone to spy.
Chinese leaders had little patience for the way Western diplomats crowed about intellectual property rights. Had China charged the West for borrowing gunpowder and the printing press?
According to the National Science Foundation, students from China account for 10 percent of all science and engineering PhD's earned at US universities--more than any other nationality.
Even if a company manages to steal a technology, a few years later the technology is obsolete. To keep up, it either has to learn from the theft or steal again.
One of the reasons often cited for Silicon Valley's success is California's ban on noncompete agreements, which has allowed talented employees to break off and start their own firms.
There was a saying in China: Use a long line to catch a big fish.
How precious it is to stay home.
In March 2018, White House aide, Stephen Miller, pushed internally for a ban on all students from CHINA, citing concerns about spying. According tot he Financial Times, the plan was dropped only after Terry Branstad faced-off with Miller, arguing that ban would hurt states like Iowa, where universities needed large numbers of Chinese students paying full tuition in order to stay afloat.
Robert Mo wanted to share the strange sensation that he was living in an underground world. He plans to call his book CATCH THAT CHINESE SPY.
In any case, I like the way this author, Mara (very talented by the way), researched and compiled the riveting story. Here are the lines that captured me along the way:
CORN is in the animal feed that fattens cows and chickens, and in the high fructose corn syrup that sweetens ketchup, soda, and salad dressing. Over 90 percent of the starch and 56 percent of the sweeteners in the American diet come from corn. IOWA produces more corn than any other state.
Real research takes time.
In the end, there was no surefire way for companies to escape technological theft.
Being treated with suspicion, I came to realize, could breed animosity where there had been none.
In the FBI's view, employees were a common vector through which trade secrets leaked out to China. Insider Threats were employees who unnecessarily copied proprietary information or seemed overly interested in spy work--what the FBI calls James Bond Wannabes.
The United States and China had become, in essence, frenemies.
The FBI China analyst named Paul Moore explained China's approach to spying:
The Russians would station a submarine in deep waters. Then, in the middle of the night, a commando team would paddle a raft to shore, scoop up a few buckets of sand, and retreat to the submarine.
The United States would use sophisticated technology, flying satellites over the beach and scanning the sand with infrared and spectrographic scanners.
China would rely not on technology or covert operations but on its large population. The question of beach composition could be solved by sending ten thousand people--students, scientists, and entrepreneurs--to spend a day in the sun. At the end of the day, this mass of people would head home and shake out their towels. China would end up with a lot of sand. This has been called THE VACUUM CLEANER APPROACH. China sucks up small bits of information, as if they are dust, then assemble these seemingly useless bits into a complete whole.
In the end, China spies much the same way the United States and Russia do.
The FBI: "We're not asking you to spy, just go about your business."
It was precisely the sort of appeal that is made when one is, in fact, asking someone to spy.
Chinese leaders had little patience for the way Western diplomats crowed about intellectual property rights. Had China charged the West for borrowing gunpowder and the printing press?
According to the National Science Foundation, students from China account for 10 percent of all science and engineering PhD's earned at US universities--more than any other nationality.
Even if a company manages to steal a technology, a few years later the technology is obsolete. To keep up, it either has to learn from the theft or steal again.
One of the reasons often cited for Silicon Valley's success is California's ban on noncompete agreements, which has allowed talented employees to break off and start their own firms.
There was a saying in China: Use a long line to catch a big fish.
How precious it is to stay home.
In March 2018, White House aide, Stephen Miller, pushed internally for a ban on all students from CHINA, citing concerns about spying. According tot he Financial Times, the plan was dropped only after Terry Branstad faced-off with Miller, arguing that ban would hurt states like Iowa, where universities needed large numbers of Chinese students paying full tuition in order to stay afloat.
Robert Mo wanted to share the strange sensation that he was living in an underground world. He plans to call his book CATCH THAT CHINESE SPY.
August 11, 2020
A third, maybe a half, of this book was a solid three stars maybe three and a half stars. The remainder was so aggravating that I would give it zero stars if I could.
The actual recounting of Mo’s espionage, capture, and trial was really well done. Hvistendahl is quite talented at putting you right in the heart of the action. Unfortunately, she alternates those bits with long article type chapters whose may point seems to be proving that all farmers and law enforcement officers are racist bigots, and corporations are bad.
She does acknowledge that China does have a long full record of ripping off American technology, and she is writing a book about a Chinese national creeping through cornfields to steal seeds. Still, Hvistendahl seems more determined to explain the distrust of Chinese scientists and researchers in American solely in terms of racism. For example, when the law is called on the Asian man dressed in business casual that was dropped off by an SUV in a cornfield in rural Iowa and is now digging in the dirt, it’s not because that’s strange behavior. It’s because he’s Chinese. Or as she constantly says, ethnic Chinese, which at times obscures whether she is referring to Americans of Chinese decent or Chinese citizens. And to even suspect that Chinese nationals might be spies is simply racist and xenophobic. Well, there was one case where they did steal our tech to jumpstart their space program. Still, according to her and community activists, American law enforcement is just stuck in the racist past to think that spying might be going on in our top research or tech facilities.
It was just an odd contrast between her opinion sections that downplay the possibility of espionage and the chapters that chronicle actual espionage in action. She had a great story to tell and opted to bog it down with lots of opinions.
Especially towards the end of the book, she seems extremely sympathetic towards Mo’s excuses and complaints. To the point that she seemed to suggest that it wasn’t really fair to punish him for stealing. That was rather tied up with her argument that maybe the government shouldn’t be protecting the intellectual property rights of large corporations.
Needless to say, I was unconvinced by any of her arguments. I thought they were extremely poorly supported, even by the handful of cases she presents. It was a clean book though. There was only one ‘mild’ curse word.
The actual recounting of Mo’s espionage, capture, and trial was really well done. Hvistendahl is quite talented at putting you right in the heart of the action. Unfortunately, she alternates those bits with long article type chapters whose may point seems to be proving that all farmers and law enforcement officers are racist bigots, and corporations are bad.
She does acknowledge that China does have a long full record of ripping off American technology, and she is writing a book about a Chinese national creeping through cornfields to steal seeds. Still, Hvistendahl seems more determined to explain the distrust of Chinese scientists and researchers in American solely in terms of racism. For example, when the law is called on the Asian man dressed in business casual that was dropped off by an SUV in a cornfield in rural Iowa and is now digging in the dirt, it’s not because that’s strange behavior. It’s because he’s Chinese. Or as she constantly says, ethnic Chinese, which at times obscures whether she is referring to Americans of Chinese decent or Chinese citizens. And to even suspect that Chinese nationals might be spies is simply racist and xenophobic. Well, there was one case where they did steal our tech to jumpstart their space program. Still, according to her and community activists, American law enforcement is just stuck in the racist past to think that spying might be going on in our top research or tech facilities.
It was just an odd contrast between her opinion sections that downplay the possibility of espionage and the chapters that chronicle actual espionage in action. She had a great story to tell and opted to bog it down with lots of opinions.
Especially towards the end of the book, she seems extremely sympathetic towards Mo’s excuses and complaints. To the point that she seemed to suggest that it wasn’t really fair to punish him for stealing. That was rather tied up with her argument that maybe the government shouldn’t be protecting the intellectual property rights of large corporations.
Needless to say, I was unconvinced by any of her arguments. I thought they were extremely poorly supported, even by the handful of cases she presents. It was a clean book though. There was only one ‘mild’ curse word.
October 30, 2022
Page 247: "'Should I leave it open?' the officer asked. The subtext was Are you comfortable being alone with him, with this man who has stolen corn?"
Next page: "Butner Low is part of the Butner Federal Medical Center complex, and its inmates have either serious health conditions or lawyers powerful enough to argue persuasively that they are ill. Some call it Club Fed. The hedge fund manager Bernie Madoff was incarcerated at another prison in the complex, and for a while Matthew Kluger, a charismatic corporate lawyer convicted of insider trading also served time at Butner Low."
There's not much that is argued persuasively in this book in support of the author's clearly articulated opinions on issues. If you agree with, or are sympathetic to, the author's perspective going in, this book may be readable. If, however, you are skeptical of the overall theme of this polemic -- that much of the concern regarding Chinese industrial espionage is the product of exaggerated xenophobia and racism or, failing that, turnabout and fairplay -- it is a slog, largely because the facts presented in support of the argument seem to largely undermine the premise. These excerpts from the end of the book, beginning with a snarky description of a passing exchange with a prison guard as service to the polemic's assertion that this is all gross over-reaction to problems that do not (or maybe do) exist, followed by a characterization of the institution that seems to contradict the meaning ascribed to the quick exchange, is emblematic of the entirety of the book.
Next page: "Butner Low is part of the Butner Federal Medical Center complex, and its inmates have either serious health conditions or lawyers powerful enough to argue persuasively that they are ill. Some call it Club Fed. The hedge fund manager Bernie Madoff was incarcerated at another prison in the complex, and for a while Matthew Kluger, a charismatic corporate lawyer convicted of insider trading also served time at Butner Low."
There's not much that is argued persuasively in this book in support of the author's clearly articulated opinions on issues. If you agree with, or are sympathetic to, the author's perspective going in, this book may be readable. If, however, you are skeptical of the overall theme of this polemic -- that much of the concern regarding Chinese industrial espionage is the product of exaggerated xenophobia and racism or, failing that, turnabout and fairplay -- it is a slog, largely because the facts presented in support of the argument seem to largely undermine the premise. These excerpts from the end of the book, beginning with a snarky description of a passing exchange with a prison guard as service to the polemic's assertion that this is all gross over-reaction to problems that do not (or maybe do) exist, followed by a characterization of the institution that seems to contradict the meaning ascribed to the quick exchange, is emblematic of the entirety of the book.
July 18, 2020
Fascinating book about industrial espionage. I knew nothing about the case or the issues surrounding it but really enjoyed learning about them. The story bounces back and forth between the chronological incidences of the case and alternating chapters of the author explaining her own connection and putting the case in a larger context. I really enjoyed that it was placed in a broader context.
We listened to this book during Covid, but clearly the anti Chinese sentiment is much higher now (it it was high before). That was an interesting context in which to read the book.
I find myself angry that the government spends so much money, time, and resources fighting for billion dollar corporations. It reminded me of the mcmillions documentary. The government resources should be spent on more important things than helping Monsanto and DuPont. If Monsanto and DuPont are worried about trade secrets they should have hired their own investigators and brought people to court. It should never have used so much of our government money. Corn is not a national security risk!
Overall, great book about a fascinating subject made even more relevant by the anti Chinese sentiment brought on by Covid.
We listened to this book during Covid, but clearly the anti Chinese sentiment is much higher now (it it was high before). That was an interesting context in which to read the book.
I find myself angry that the government spends so much money, time, and resources fighting for billion dollar corporations. It reminded me of the mcmillions documentary. The government resources should be spent on more important things than helping Monsanto and DuPont. If Monsanto and DuPont are worried about trade secrets they should have hired their own investigators and brought people to court. It should never have used so much of our government money. Corn is not a national security risk!
Overall, great book about a fascinating subject made even more relevant by the anti Chinese sentiment brought on by Covid.
April 4, 2020
Mara Hvistendahl’s The Scientist and the Spy is a much needed work for today as the specter of China’s geopolitical threat looms large in America’s imagination. Hvistendahl deftly navigates between the reality of Chinese espionage alongside the racism and violation of civil liberties the U.S. government has undertaken in the face of that reality. She writes with refreshing nuance by introducing how this pissing match between the geopolitical rivals often comes to the gain of large multinational corporations protecting their market power and at the expense of everyday individuals tussled between the interests of state and capital.
Hvistendahl is able to paint this detailed backdrop through the story of Robert [Hailong] Mo, who was convicted of agricultural espionage in his shipping of proprietary corn seed to China. This book has received a considerable amount of praise for a vivid retelling of this spy chase between a desperate foreign agent and a by-the-book FBI agent. The thrills are perhaps overstated (the salacious espionage amounts to a man digging up corn kernels in a field) yet the narrative is an apt vessel for Hvistendahl to tell the larger story of U.S.-China relations. (Though I may have been bored by this tale of spy intrigue as I just finished the television show The Americans about Soviet sleeper agents in America which was far more dramatic than this corporate dirt digging.)
As a Chinese American, Hvistendahl’s writing on race was extraordinarily refreshing and was where I think where her work shined the most. Chapters 14 and 23 stand out where she explores the history and reemergence of sinophobia in America’s research community. Hvistendahl uses a variety of sources like internal FBI memos and talking points, court cases and interviews with Chinese American advocates and victims to interrogate the U.S. government’s racist and orientalist logic behind its crackdown and the human cost it has to Chinese American families. As American discourse around China affairs grows more toxic and visceral, Hvistendahl’s research and care renews a hope within me that we can have a conversation beyond Chinese Americans denying they eat dogs and bats and are default communist party stooges.
Her descriptions of seed breeding and agricultural practices were ultimately a bore. I refuse to believe that it is due to any deficiency in her skills as a science writer but the fact that she herself admitted that the intricacies of such practices were pedantic and Byzantine. She must’ve referenced the breeding method of “chasing the self” at least fifteen times and I still don’t have the faintest clue as to what that means. Nevertheless, this book is ultimately a story of people and their relationships to forces larger themselves and there is only more to gain by removing her technical digressions.
Hvistendahl is able to paint this detailed backdrop through the story of Robert [Hailong] Mo, who was convicted of agricultural espionage in his shipping of proprietary corn seed to China. This book has received a considerable amount of praise for a vivid retelling of this spy chase between a desperate foreign agent and a by-the-book FBI agent. The thrills are perhaps overstated (the salacious espionage amounts to a man digging up corn kernels in a field) yet the narrative is an apt vessel for Hvistendahl to tell the larger story of U.S.-China relations. (Though I may have been bored by this tale of spy intrigue as I just finished the television show The Americans about Soviet sleeper agents in America which was far more dramatic than this corporate dirt digging.)
As a Chinese American, Hvistendahl’s writing on race was extraordinarily refreshing and was where I think where her work shined the most. Chapters 14 and 23 stand out where she explores the history and reemergence of sinophobia in America’s research community. Hvistendahl uses a variety of sources like internal FBI memos and talking points, court cases and interviews with Chinese American advocates and victims to interrogate the U.S. government’s racist and orientalist logic behind its crackdown and the human cost it has to Chinese American families. As American discourse around China affairs grows more toxic and visceral, Hvistendahl’s research and care renews a hope within me that we can have a conversation beyond Chinese Americans denying they eat dogs and bats and are default communist party stooges.
Her descriptions of seed breeding and agricultural practices were ultimately a bore. I refuse to believe that it is due to any deficiency in her skills as a science writer but the fact that she herself admitted that the intricacies of such practices were pedantic and Byzantine. She must’ve referenced the breeding method of “chasing the self” at least fifteen times and I still don’t have the faintest clue as to what that means. Nevertheless, this book is ultimately a story of people and their relationships to forces larger themselves and there is only more to gain by removing her technical digressions.
September 12, 2020
Wow, this book was full of new topics that I had never really learned about: genetically modified plants, corn breeding, and trade espionage! At times, the narrative dragged because there are so many names, and the minutia gets pretty in the weeds, fair warning. Also note that although this story is about Chinese scientists and espionage, it is not an #ownvoices perspective, although the author has spent significant time in China and I think did a good job disclosing her biases and limitations. The most interesting aspect for me was how the author connected dots that revealed a pattern in the FBI of xenophobic, racist surveillance and investigation of Chinese civilians in the United States. I think that's the best reason to read this book, even if you have no interest in agricultural details.
Thank you to Katie for sending me her copy of this book!
Thank you to Katie for sending me her copy of this book!
March 13, 2021
Finally came back to this book after a few months off. Interesting topic, but 李乐 put it best: “sometimes it felt like I was on page 200 of a newspaper article.” If you are very interested in the topic, have at it. Just keep in mind that Hvostendahl really doesn’t hit her stride until the last third of the book.
May 13, 2021
Robert's story itself is interesting and emblematic of the tech/IP war between the US and China. But, for me, the most fascinating aspect of this book is seeing how Hvistendahl goes about her journalism and gathers this information.
April 23, 2023
A weak four, maybe a three and a half.
August 17, 2024
Interesting read, though it left me with more questions than answers - perhaps that is what books should do??
July 20, 2021
I don't have a strong thesis on this book. Neither does this book have a strong thesis about itself.
I truly appreciate authors who carefully dissect stories liable to be subsumed by the culture war. Such is the case with The Scientist and the Spy. In her surprisingly gripping investigation into the life and times of Robert Hailong Mo, an "overeducated" Chinese émigré who finds himself caught in a scheme to steal trade secrets from Monsanto and Pioneer, Hvistendahl disentangles a web of issues comprising US imperium, the legacy of yellow peril, the pressures faced by immigrants, and a criminal justice system allied with corporate interests. Hvistendahl, with some success, complicates the American reader's understanding of what it means to be a spy, particularly a spy of Chinese origin. Hvistendahl shows how racist intelligence community tropes suggesting that immigrants from China ought to be investigated for fear that they work on behalf of Beijing are pitifully insufficient to explain how Mo, whose family is rooted in America, is caught red-handed plucking corn from contract plots in Iowa on behalf of DBN, a corporate entity acting in its own self-interest. Through the lens of Mo, Hvistendahl encourages us to think twice.
Although the idea that there's always more to the story is always welcome in an era where conflict is collapsed onto a one-dimensional good/evil spectrum, I wanted much more out of The Scientist and the Spy.
First, although Hvistendahl's prose glimmered enough to entrance this reader, in hindsight, the stakes for anyone except the perpetrators seem very low. As Kevin Montgomery, a seed breeder with a PhD in agricultural sciences who gets ensnared in the scheme, explains through a veil of secrecy, the DBN scheme was far costlier and riskier than potential alternatives, which he does not clarify for fear that ne'er-do-wells will act on them. (In my view, most life sciences PhD candidates should be able to deduce an easier scheme) For this and other reasons, Montgomery rightly doubts that DBN has the capability to reverse engineer Monsanto and Pioneer's seed lines. Even readers deeply concerned with intellectual property law must agree that the stakes deflated substantially after these revelations. In truth, is anyone at risk of harm here except for the perpetrators?
Second, the "victims" in this scenario are anything but sympathetic. To be clear: Hvistendahl acknowledges exactly this - maybe the point is that there are no "good guys" in this story, just players on a capitalist gameboard - but I don't think it makes for pathetic (in the rhetorical sense) storytelling. DBN seeks to reverse engineer hybrid seed lines owned by Monsanto and Pioneer, two corporations responsible for the oligopolization of the seed industry and whose seed licensing practices squeeze farmers. Even if the DBN scheme succeeded, the consequences for Monsanto and Pioneer seem minimal, given the abundance of markets and geographies in which they operate and their massive economies of scale. New competitors in a market dominated by four major (and sometimes morally bereft) players just doesn't sound so bad, even if the competition arises through illicit means. And is introducing a high-yield corn line in China that big of a deal? And, after all, it's not like Monsanto and Pioneer are strictly "American"; both are multinationals and Monsanto is a subsidiary of Germany-based Bayer. To multibillion-dollar Monsanto and Pioneer, Mo is just a cost of doing business.
Last, although Hvistendahl overtly sympathizes with Mo, it's doubtlessly true that Mo knowingly violates the law and lies to his business partners, including Montgomery, whom he uses to legitimize DBN's slipshod scheme. Mo also has every opportunity to opt out of the scheme. Curiously, Hvistendahl introduces characters more sympathetic than Mo, especially Wen Ho Lee, whose life is destroyed by a counterintelligence investigation in which Lee was eventually exonerated. The cliché that movies should never reference their more successful predecessors rings true by analogy here; based on this reader's interpretation of Hvistendahl's thesis, stories like Lee's seem far more worthwhile to explore. In the mind of this reader, Mo is left somewhere in the liminal space between indifference and sympathy.
Few conclusions are to be found in The Scientist and the Spy. Maybe the challenge Hvistendahl issues to us is exactly that: to abandon the need to take sides and instead read something for what it is, a story of corporate cynicism clashing with human fallibility. After all, are we so wise as to escape ownership by something else? Do what you will with that question.
I truly appreciate authors who carefully dissect stories liable to be subsumed by the culture war. Such is the case with The Scientist and the Spy. In her surprisingly gripping investigation into the life and times of Robert Hailong Mo, an "overeducated" Chinese émigré who finds himself caught in a scheme to steal trade secrets from Monsanto and Pioneer, Hvistendahl disentangles a web of issues comprising US imperium, the legacy of yellow peril, the pressures faced by immigrants, and a criminal justice system allied with corporate interests. Hvistendahl, with some success, complicates the American reader's understanding of what it means to be a spy, particularly a spy of Chinese origin. Hvistendahl shows how racist intelligence community tropes suggesting that immigrants from China ought to be investigated for fear that they work on behalf of Beijing are pitifully insufficient to explain how Mo, whose family is rooted in America, is caught red-handed plucking corn from contract plots in Iowa on behalf of DBN, a corporate entity acting in its own self-interest. Through the lens of Mo, Hvistendahl encourages us to think twice.
Although the idea that there's always more to the story is always welcome in an era where conflict is collapsed onto a one-dimensional good/evil spectrum, I wanted much more out of The Scientist and the Spy.
First, although Hvistendahl's prose glimmered enough to entrance this reader, in hindsight, the stakes for anyone except the perpetrators seem very low. As Kevin Montgomery, a seed breeder with a PhD in agricultural sciences who gets ensnared in the scheme, explains through a veil of secrecy, the DBN scheme was far costlier and riskier than potential alternatives, which he does not clarify for fear that ne'er-do-wells will act on them. (In my view, most life sciences PhD candidates should be able to deduce an easier scheme) For this and other reasons, Montgomery rightly doubts that DBN has the capability to reverse engineer Monsanto and Pioneer's seed lines. Even readers deeply concerned with intellectual property law must agree that the stakes deflated substantially after these revelations. In truth, is anyone at risk of harm here except for the perpetrators?
Second, the "victims" in this scenario are anything but sympathetic. To be clear: Hvistendahl acknowledges exactly this - maybe the point is that there are no "good guys" in this story, just players on a capitalist gameboard - but I don't think it makes for pathetic (in the rhetorical sense) storytelling. DBN seeks to reverse engineer hybrid seed lines owned by Monsanto and Pioneer, two corporations responsible for the oligopolization of the seed industry and whose seed licensing practices squeeze farmers. Even if the DBN scheme succeeded, the consequences for Monsanto and Pioneer seem minimal, given the abundance of markets and geographies in which they operate and their massive economies of scale. New competitors in a market dominated by four major (and sometimes morally bereft) players just doesn't sound so bad, even if the competition arises through illicit means. And is introducing a high-yield corn line in China that big of a deal? And, after all, it's not like Monsanto and Pioneer are strictly "American"; both are multinationals and Monsanto is a subsidiary of Germany-based Bayer. To multibillion-dollar Monsanto and Pioneer, Mo is just a cost of doing business.
Last, although Hvistendahl overtly sympathizes with Mo, it's doubtlessly true that Mo knowingly violates the law and lies to his business partners, including Montgomery, whom he uses to legitimize DBN's slipshod scheme. Mo also has every opportunity to opt out of the scheme. Curiously, Hvistendahl introduces characters more sympathetic than Mo, especially Wen Ho Lee, whose life is destroyed by a counterintelligence investigation in which Lee was eventually exonerated. The cliché that movies should never reference their more successful predecessors rings true by analogy here; based on this reader's interpretation of Hvistendahl's thesis, stories like Lee's seem far more worthwhile to explore. In the mind of this reader, Mo is left somewhere in the liminal space between indifference and sympathy.
Few conclusions are to be found in The Scientist and the Spy. Maybe the challenge Hvistendahl issues to us is exactly that: to abandon the need to take sides and instead read something for what it is, a story of corporate cynicism clashing with human fallibility. After all, are we so wise as to escape ownership by something else? Do what you will with that question.
Read
February 22, 2020Gonna chuck this one to DNF.
I really wanted to like this book. The initial chapters of the book were interesting. Characters' background were laid out, a little bit of history were thrown here and there and I was all in to digest that. However, at some point in this book, you realize that the pieces of information hinted along the way was enough for you to know what happened. Hence, it became boring. It's unnecessarily long. Writing style was kinda meh.
I really wanted to like this book. The initial chapters of the book were interesting. Characters' background were laid out, a little bit of history were thrown here and there and I was all in to digest that. However, at some point in this book, you realize that the pieces of information hinted along the way was enough for you to know what happened. Hence, it became boring. It's unnecessarily long. Writing style was kinda meh.
May 7, 2021
It's been awhile since I read this book, but I do remember that it was interesting.
March 3, 2020
The blurbs on the back cover are true—this nonfiction book on espionage in the corn industry reads like a thriller. But it’s much more than that. Hvistendahl tells one man’s story through an engaging mix of action and analysis. The book is filled with telling interviews, important historical context, chronicles of corporate consolidation, and humane characterizations of people on all sides of the issue. It offers a balanced picture of what is more typically a good-vs.-bad one-liner. Plus Hvistendahl’s language and pacing make this a truly enjoyable read.
October 13, 2025
I don't usually leave reviews for books I didn't like because I usually get something from them or just stop reading them.
This book is full of opinions about miscarriages of justice and unfair persecution of people implied to be innocent, while telling the story of why those innocent people were looked on suspiciously.
The parts about the seeds were interesting, but not worthy of a book. The rest of the book should have been relegated to a blog or tumbler post.
This book is full of opinions about miscarriages of justice and unfair persecution of people implied to be innocent, while telling the story of why those innocent people were looked on suspiciously.
The parts about the seeds were interesting, but not worthy of a book. The rest of the book should have been relegated to a blog or tumbler post.
February 20, 2020
The book is incredibly well written and documented. In every moment it looks like the author has every detail of the facts, while at the same time has a good eye for narrative licences.
It is a report that can be read as a thriller, I couldn't put it down.
It is a story about the impact of great power competition and nationalism in human lives, the impunity of the great corporations with a little bit of corn involved.
It is a report that can be read as a thriller, I couldn't put it down.
It is a story about the impact of great power competition and nationalism in human lives, the impunity of the great corporations with a little bit of corn involved.
June 29, 2020
Odd yet interesting. As I have not owned a subscription to The Des Moines Register--Iowa's USAToday without the four-color graphics--in years I only quitely heard about the case of Robert Mo and the purloined seed corn.
Quite frankly, the FBI's years long investigation of Mo and Chinese nationals sought in the thief of hybrid corn from Iowa and Illinois reads not so much like a thriller than as Keystone Kops with a touch of Star Wars Imperial Guards. I mean, and this is from an native Iowan, who gives a fuck about seed corn?
Apparently bloated, Big Ag behemoths Monsanto and Pioneer DuPont (by way of full disclosure Pioneer is located in the Des Moines suburb of Johnston not that far from where I live.) It seems, as I read this book, that those twain hybrid seed producers didn't lose all that much, monetarily, from Mo's "espionage." But, and here I agree with the Trumpanzee seed dealer in Dallas Center, IA, the US taxpayer is out of a ton of dough for much effort that yielded scant results.
Of course the FBI's investigation smacks of paranoid "yellow peril"racism of a century and a half ago.
And what did the United States and its citizens get out of all of it?
Nothing.
Quite frankly, the FBI's years long investigation of Mo and Chinese nationals sought in the thief of hybrid corn from Iowa and Illinois reads not so much like a thriller than as Keystone Kops with a touch of Star Wars Imperial Guards. I mean, and this is from an native Iowan, who gives a fuck about seed corn?
Apparently bloated, Big Ag behemoths Monsanto and Pioneer DuPont (by way of full disclosure Pioneer is located in the Des Moines suburb of Johnston not that far from where I live.) It seems, as I read this book, that those twain hybrid seed producers didn't lose all that much, monetarily, from Mo's "espionage." But, and here I agree with the Trumpanzee seed dealer in Dallas Center, IA, the US taxpayer is out of a ton of dough for much effort that yielded scant results.
Of course the FBI's investigation smacks of paranoid "yellow peril"racism of a century and a half ago.
And what did the United States and its citizens get out of all of it?
Nothing.
March 18, 2020
I received a digital ARC for the purpose of providing an unbiased review. It contained many typos that I hope were corrected before the book went to press. But really, I would have recommended more developmental editing overall. The author spins some interesting anecdotes in readable prose, but often the stories feel incomplete or biased. She is eager to defend Chinese scientists and other citizens against racism, stereotyping, and unjust suspicion, but the story itself actually takes shape in a way that Monsanto and Pioneer are the victims, and the bumbling espionage crew is unlikable and greedy, Framing the book differently could have shifted the focus to something less emotional and reactionary.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 213 reviews