At least 44 Japanese researchers were part of a Chinese state-sponsored recruitment program, including to conduct research with military applications, according to an investigation by Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun. The findings were published on the outlet’s English-language website Japan News on Jan. 2. The Chinese job program under scrutiny is the Thousand Talent Plan (TTP), which Beijing rolled out in 2008. The TTP is one of many talent recruitment programs the Chinese regime has maintained for decades, to attract overseas Chinese and foreign experts into working in China’s science and tech sectors. Through these programs, Beijing hopes to quickly turn China into an industrial and innovation powerhouse, ultimately to outperform Western countries. U.S. officials have warned that programs like TTP could facilitate intellectual property theft in order to benefit Beijing’s technological advancement. The U.S. State Department warned about the TTP on its website, saying that talent recruits sign legally-binding contracts …