Harvard Crimson: Charles Lieber to visit Beijing for "employment networking"

Via the Harvard Crimson, this unusual news: 

A federal judge gave former Harvard Chemistry professor Charles M. Lieber permission to visit China for “employment networking” and give a lecture in Beijing — nearly three years after Lieber was convicted for lying to federal investigators about his relationship to China.

Lieber is currently serving a 18-month term of supervised release after completing six months of house arrest.

Lieber has been actively searching for employment in China since at least June, when he asked a judge if he could visit the University of Hong Kong the next month “to discuss potential faculty appointment and employment opportunities.”

In July, Lieber requested to attend the International Beijing Brain Conference in August to deliver a keynote speech and “discuss research and potential collaborations with local students.”

All three of Lieber’s requests were approved by U.S. District Judge Denise J. Casper. The most recent request, which Casper signed off on last week, did not specify Lieber’s planned dates of travel.

In the requests, Lieber’s attorneys wrote that they had sought approval for Lieber’s travel from the Chinese consulate but had not heard back.

The Crimson could not determine whether Lieber has visited China yet, and neither Lieber nor his attorneys responded to requests for comment. In August, he told the South China Morning Post via email that he had “not yet visited Hong Kong, but may do so this fall.”

In some sense, this is reasonable, i.e. China pays significant money to be associated with prominent academics, and Charles Lieber is certainly very prominent. Also, I presume that he needs employment. However, it was his past associations with Chinese academia that got him into trouble, and in that sense, this move is rather surprising. I guess we'll see where Dr. Lieber ends up.