Instances of bioterrorism or agrosabotage are extremely rare, as it is usually carried out secretly and the evidence is often only circumstantial. The Fusarium graminearum case is the best-documented example yet of suspected Chinese agroterrorism against the West.
Suspicious samples in luggage
In July 2024, 34-year-old Cunnyong Liu, a biologist at Hangzhou University in southeastern China, was checked by customs officials after landing at Detroit airport. In his luggage were found envelopes containing the fungus Fusarium graminearum, which US authorities classify as a “potential agroterrorism weapon”, capable of destroying entire crops and poisoning both animals and humans.
Initially, Liu claimed that he was going to visit his girlfriend Yunqing Jiang, a doctoral student at the University of Michigan laboratory. But under pressure from investigators, he admitted that he had deliberately hidden the samples in order to clone them in the laboratory and use them for further experiments. FBI investigators found specialized literature on “warfare with plant pathogens” on Liu's mobile phone. and chat logs with Jiang, evidence of coordinated smuggling plans and previous attempts to import banned samples.
Chinese scientists under suspicion of bioterrorism in the US
Jiang also quickly came to the attention of investigators: the FBI believes that she is being assisted by the Chinese government, is also a convinced communist, and is researching the same pathogen in Michigan. This led to the indictment of the two of them for conspiracy, smuggling, false testimony and visa violations.
Liu has been extradited, and Jiang is in the preliminary investigation and is waiting to learn what bail will be set for her.
War for seeds and spores
As early as 2020, there were reports of suspicious packages from China sent to addresses in several US states. Agricultural authorities have suggested that these are unknown seeds of invasive plant species that "can cause enormous damage to nature, displace or destroy native plant species or insects, and cause irreparable damage to crops," a press release from the Virginia Department of Agriculture from July 2020 stated.
In the United States, concerns are now growing that behind the scientific exchange may be a secret strategy to harm American agriculture in favor of a strategic competitor. Security experts warn of a "serious threat to national security," and the Michigan case of the pair of Chinese scientists is indicative of the new threat of agroterrorism in the era of hybrid wars: a targeted attack on food production by smuggling into the country or the deliberate manipulation of dangerous pathogens.
Meanwhile, the fungus Fusarium graminearum is now also found in the United States. They do not allow wheat and barley to develop normally - their grains remain small and wrinkled, and corn simply rots. The real danger, however, lies in a genetically modified species that is not affected by any preparations. So far, there is no evidence that the smuggled samples have really been genetically manipulated, but the danger is very real and frightening.
Bioterrorism and artificial intelligence: the new front
Along with the classic methods of smuggling, options for optimizing the action of harmful organisms with the help of synthetic biology or protein engineering using artificial intelligence (AI) are gaining increasing importance. Scientists have long warned that tools for genetically manipulating fungi, spores, viruses and toxic proteins could serve not only peaceful purposes, but also be used as weapons.
"Protein engineering is a dual-use scientific activity - it can be very useful, for example, in the development of new vaccines, in gene therapy, in the diagnosis and determination of therapies for diseases that have previously been difficult to treat or not at all," says Professor Birte Plateau of the Technical University of Dresden. "At the same time, this research is high-risk, because the same technologies are also associated with potentially dangerous effects, such as the unintentional or intentional synthesis of genes encoding proteins, for example for the development of biological warfare agents," she points out.
Professor Dr. Dirk Lanzerath from the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn is of the same opinion. "The dual use of these technologies allows them to be used for both civilian purposes and military or even criminal needs". According to him, researchers are always faced with a dilemma: "On the one hand, protein engineering offers opportunities for developing vaccines and accelerating drug production, but at the same time it can also facilitate the development of biological weapons".
Effective international control is lacking
Additional concern in risk assessment is that current security mechanisms are grossly inadequate: a recent study shows that modern AI models can create dangerous protein variants that cannot be detected by current control systems.
"AI-generated proteins can have properties similar to those found in nature, but with a different DNA sequence. And if in this case it is a potentially dangerous protein, control systems "do not see" "the danger", explains Plato.
It is precisely the secret nature of sensitive scientific research that makes effective control difficult: technological successes in the field of artificial intelligence and biotechnology are largely the work of private or state laboratories, whose activities are not public for reasons of a strategic nature or related to patent law. Independent international control institutions have not yet been established, nor is anyone monitoring these activities globally.
In other words, there is no effective and binding international legal control over biotechnology and artificial intelligence. The Biological Weapons Convention prohibits their development and use, but does not have its own control and verification mechanism, which makes violations difficult to prove. And monitoring structures, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency, are completely absent.
Author: Alexander Freund