WASHINGTON, D.C. — Partnerships between the U.S. and China at universities over the past decade have allowed hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to aid Beijing in developing critical technology that could be used for military purposes, congressional Republicans asserted in a new report.
The report said U.S. tax dollars contributed to China’s technological advancement and military modernization when American researchers worked with their Chinese peers in hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence, nuclear technology and semiconductor technology.
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The report, released Monday by Republicans on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House Education and Workforce Committee, raised concerns over the national security risks of once-celebrated scientific collaborations. It urged stronger safeguards and more robust enforcement.
The committees conducted a yearlong investigation into higher education’s role in China’s economic rivalry, especially regarding technology. While American universities don’t engage in secret research projects, their work — often among the best in the world — has the potential to be turned into military capabilities.
The U.S. House of Representatives this month approved about two dozen China-related bills, clearly aiming to compete with Beijing in the tech field. The bills, which still need to be approved by the Senate, seek to ban Chinese-made drones, restrict China-linked biotech companies in the U.S. market, and cut off remote Chinese access to advanced U.S. computer chips.
Other measures include curbing Beijing’s influence on U.S. college campuses and reviving a Trump-era program meant to root out China’s spying and theft of intellectual property at American universities and research institutes. That’s despite such efforts raising concerns about racial profiling and the ability to keep up exchange programs that boost tolerance between the two countries.
Researchers say collaboration between U.S.-based scholars and China declined after the Trump administration’s anti-spying program ended in 2022.
At a forum by the Council on Foreign Relations earlier this year, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said he would welcome more Chinese students studying humanities and social sciences but “not particle physics” in American schools.
Abigail Coplin, an assistant professor of sociology and science, technology and society at Vassar College, expressed concerns about the potential harm to academic exchange and scientific engagement, which she said promote understanding and help stabilize relations.
“Clearly, American federal funding should not be used to advance China’s military capabilities, but there also needs to be more conversation about what is not an issue of national security and the negative ramifications of over-securitization,” Coplin said. “Decreased person-to-person engagement is contributing to the rapidly fraying U.S.-China relationship at the moment.”
Monday’s report identified about 8,800 publications that involved U.S. researchers who received funding from the Department of Defense or the U.S. intelligence community working with Chinese researchers — many of whom were affiliated with China’s defense research and industrial base. Such research is “providing back-door access to the very foreign adversary nation whose aggression these capabilities are necessary to protect against,” the report said.
The House investigation also flagged what it described as problematic joint institutes between U.S. and Chinese universities. The report said these institutes “conceal a sophisticated system for transferring critical U.S. technologies and expertise” to China.
The report said that through those institutes, American researchers and scientists, including those who conduct federally funded research, have traveled to China to work with and advise Chinese scholars and train Chinese students.
The Georgia Institute of Technology, named in the report for its joint Georgia Tech Shenzhen Institute, defended its work in China, saying it focused on educating students, not research, and its claims are “unsubstantiated.”
“There was no research conducted at GTSI, no facilitation of technology transfer, and no federal funding provided to China,” the university said in a statement.
However, Georgia Tech announced on Sept. 6 that it would discontinue its participation in the joint institute with Tianjin University and the government of Shenzhen, a city in southern China. Georgia Tech said the partnership was “no longer tenable” after the U.S. Commerce Department accused Tianjin University in 2020 of theft of trade secrets.
The congressional report also identified Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, which the University of California, Berkeley, and China’s Tsinghua University opened in 2015 in Shenzhen to focus on “strategic emerging industries,” according to the institute’s website.
Berkeley’s researchers “engage only in research whose results are always openly disseminated around the world,” the school was “unaware of any research by Berkeley faculty at TBSI conducted for any other purpose,” Katherine Yelick, the university’s vice chancellor for research, said.
