Senior Reporter, International Affairs / Investigations

The star of China's booming artificial intelligence defense sector had been working on Taiwan invasion scenarios—until he died in an unexplained car crash in the early hours of the morning in Beijing, aged just 38.

Many questions remain over the July 1, 2023 death ofFeng Yanghe,a professor at the National University of Defense Technology, who had won national competitions with his pioneering "War Skull" platform.

Such as, why did an obituary in the state-run science news website, Sciencenet.cn, say he was "sacrificed"? Why was the brilliant scientist from Gansu province buried in a special cemetery in Beijing for the Communist Party elite, state heroes, and revolutionary martyrs?

Yet as in the U.S., Feng's death was just one of many unexpected deaths of top-flight scientists working in ultra-sensitive fields such as military AI, hypersonic weapons, and space defense, according to reports in Chinese and overseas Chinese media.

The phenomenon mirrors the wave of disappearances or deaths among American scientists that is now being investigated by Washington. In the U.S, there have been 11 cases, in China at least nine.

It's prompted a disturbing question among some military analysts: Is there a silent "scientist war" going on?

Competition between the U.S. and China is deepening with the Chinese and Russian leaders having proclaimed "changes unseen in a century" to the world order and that they are driving the changes. This national power competition is taking place in large part in the fields of science and technology which deliver not just economic but also decisive military prowess.

In China, media and social media reports and obituaries have attributed the deaths to traffic accidents, other unspecified "accidents", or no cause at all. Their ages have ranged from 26 to 68.

Feng was leaving a work meeting in the Chinese capital when he died at around 2.35 a.m, according to the state-run China Daily, which cited a notice from the organizing committee of his memorial service. He had been working on a "major task," the report said, without giving details. Sciencenet.cn said he was "sacrificed while peforming official duties."

Source: Drudge Report