High Country Times

Following a year-long investigation, Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) have revealed that U.S. federal research funding has contributed to China's technological advancements and military modernization. The investigation found that nearly 9,000 joint research publications, funded by the Department of Defense or the Intelligence Community, involved collaborations between American and Chinese researchers on strategic technology research with military applications.

The lawmakers highlighted six case studies involving institutions such as UCLA and UC Berkeley. These studies show how China's defense and security establishment benefits from technological advances developed through federally funded research in areas like nuclear weapons technology, artificial intelligence, advanced lasers, graphene semiconductors, and robotics.

The investigation also uncovered that joint education institutes like UC Berkeley’s partnership with Tsinghua University and the University of Pittsburgh's partnership with Sichuan University serve as conduits for transferring critical U.S. technologies to China. This includes entities linked to China’s defense machine and its security apparatus used for human rights abuses.

Chairwoman Foxx emphasized the need for transparency regarding foreign investment in American universities: "Our research universities have a responsibility to avoid any complicity in the CCP’s atrocious human rights abuses or attempts to undermine our national security."

Chairman Moolenaar called for action: "Georgia Tech did the right thing for US national security by shutting down its PRC-based joint institute, and UC Berkeley and other universities should follow suit."

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA) supported these findings: "To win the future and beat the Chinese Communist Party in developing next generation technology, we must stop government research that bolsters our adversaries' military and intelligence-gathering capabilities."

The report concludes that hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. federal research funding over the last decade have helped China achieve advancements in dual-use, critical, and emerging technologies like hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence, fourth-generation nuclear weapons technology, and semiconductor technology.

Specifically examined were 8,800+ publications supported by DOD funding published with coauthors affiliated with PRC institutions. More than 2,000 of these papers included PRC coauthors directly affiliated with China's defense research base.

The report also illustrates how joint institutes between U.S. universities and PRC entities facilitate expertise transfer related to dual-use technologies to China. It highlights significant failures in reporting foreign funding under section 117 of the Higher Education Act by UC Berkeley and Georgia Tech.

In response to these findings, Georgia Tech terminated its partnership with Tianjin University. UC Berkeley has started relinquishing ownership in TBSI.

The Committees recommend strengthening guardrails around research collaboration on dual-use technologies with foreign entities of concern, implementing post-award restrictions on collaborations with blacklisted entities from a foreign country of concern, adopting enhanced transparency measures through the DETERRENT Act, and improving oversight of postsecondary institutions' disclosure of foreign gifts.

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