The US Energy Department on Friday told staff they are banned from taking part in foreign recruitment programmes as it seeks to stop China and other countries from illegally acquiring sensitive research in supercomputing and other technologies. Programmes sponsored by certain countries “threaten the United States’ economic base by facilitating the unauthorised transfer of technology and intellectual property to foreign governments”, the department’s deputy secretary Dan Brouillette said in a memo. Potential recruits are offered prestigious positions at foreign research institutes, labs and universities, it said, according to South China Morning Post.

If employees take part in recruitment programmes by countries deemed to be “sensitive”, they will have to leave the department, the memo said. The energy department oversees a network of 17 national labs that work on sensitive issues including advanced nuclear energy, nuclear weapons and supercomputing, some of which is classified.

The memo, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, did not name specific countries, but successive US administrations, including that of President Donald Trump, have been concerned about China obtaining US intellectual property. An official from the energy department said on condition of anonymity that the administration was not specifically targeting China, and that the initiative could help the agency learn more about which foreign programmes had been seeking to recruit department employees.

“It gives employees a chance to disclose that information,” the person said. “It’s basically giving them the chance to say, ‘OK I want to be paid by the DOE or I want to be paid by this outside, state-funded initiative’.” Some foreign government-sponsored talent recruitment programmes “have taken advantage of America’s openness to collaboration to infiltrate our labs, steal our technology and use our own resources against us”, a press official from the energy department said.