Two senators urged Energy Secretary Chris Wright to crack down on Chinese nationals’ gaining access to sensitive information at Energy national laboratories.
“We write expressing serious concern regarding the Department of Energy’s continued practice of permitting foreign nationals from China to access facilities across the National Laboratory complex and work alongside American scientists,” Sens. Tom Cotton and Mike Lee stated.
“Recent DOE data underscores that this practice puts the nation’s research enterprise at risk of foreign intelligence collection and technology transfers that will benefit our adversaries.”
Mr. Cotton, Arkansas Republican, is chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and Mr. Lee, Utah Republican, heads the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
According to Energy data, about 3,200 Chinese nationals visited, or worked, both long-term and short-term, at the national laboratories as of September 2025, and about 2,100 were formally employed by the labs.
Chinese nationals also access national laboratories either physically or electronically more than 5,000 times in 2025.
“These facts reflect severe vulnerabilities at our nation’s premier and most sensitive scientific environments,” the senators stated.
“China is our main competitor in research and development and the race for emerging tech, where it seeks to surpass the United States by stealing American intellectual property and technologies.”
Despite the threat that has been known for a decade, the Energy Department has failed to restrict Chinese nationals from access to the laboratories.
The senators asked Mr. Wright to answer specific security-related questions about the Chinese access, including how China’s recent national intelligence law obligates all Chinese nationals, including those at the national labs, to cooperate with Chinese spy services.
Also, Mr. Cotton and Mr. Lee asked whether the Chinese are granted access to controlled technologies, export-controlled technologies, or any other sensitive research and if so, how many were given access.
The department has the stated mission of advancing U.S. scientific leadership, protecting national security and safeguarding key technologies.
“This mission can’t be achieved when it’s undermined by thousands of Chinese nationals infiltrating the National Labs each year,” Mr. Cotton and Mr. Lee said.
The senators’ security concerns regarding Chinese infiltration of the national laboratories are not new.
In 2022, a private security and intelligence firm revealed in a report that Beijing targeted scientists at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory for recruitment, and that more than 160 researchers returned to China over more than three decades and were helping China’s nuclear and other advanced weapons programs.
The report by Strider Technologies stated that between 1987 and 2021, an estimated 162 scientists from the New Mexico laboratory took part in a variety of Chinese research and development programs after leaving the U.S.
“Former Los Alamos scientists have made, and continue to make, considerable contributions to the PRC hypersonic, missile and submarine programs that present an array of security risks for the United States and the entire free world,” stated the 32-page report by Strider Technologies.
