Franklin Tao, a former chemical engineer at the University of Kansas, is finally a free man. After five years of legal battles, he was cleared of all convictions related to the China Initiative, a programme launched in 2018 by then-president Donald Trump to counter alleged Chinese economic espionage.
Following the court ruling on July 11, which also closed the last legal case against university academics under the controversial programme, Tao spoke publicly for the first time since his arrest.
