The U.S. government has charged a visiting Stanford University researcher of visa fraud in connection with a plan to conceal her membership in the Chinese military. Federal prosecutors said Monday 38-year-old Song Chen lied on her visa application in 2018 to work at Stanford as a neurologist. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California said Song indicated on the application that she served in the Chinese military from September 2000 to June 2011 and worked at a Beijing hospital. Prosecutors said, however, she was a member of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) when she entered the U.S. in December 2018 and that her claim of working in a Chinese hospital “was a cover for her true employer, the PLA.” According to the complaint, Song said she disassociated from the Chinese military after graduating from Fourth Military Medical University, which is associated with the PLA. The U.S. attorney’s office said Song faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
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