A U.S. district judge on Wednesday declared a mistrial in the case of a former University of Tennessee professor accused of hiding his ties with a Chinese university to get federal research funds. The six-day trial against Anming Hu, a 52-year-old citizen of Canada charged with wire fraud and making false statements, ended in a mistrial after the jury failed to reach a verdict, reported Knoxville News Sentinel. Hu’s case was part of the Justice Department’s “China Initiative,” an effort started under the Trump administration to identify and prosecute individuals stealing intellectual property from American colleges and universities on behalf of the Chinese Communist Regime. It is not clear if the federal government will try again to prosecute him. Hu was first indicted in February 2020. The indictment alleges that beginning in 2016, Hu intentionally provided false statements to the University of Tennessee (UT) and the National Aeronautics and Space …