HOUSE PANEL: China Exploiting Scholarship Program to Steal U.S. Tech

House Republicans are cracking down on efforts by a little-known Chinese scholarship program to infiltrate the U.S. higher education system and potentially steal cutting-edge technologies. Recent revelations underscore the ongoing threat of intellectual property theft – and how major American universities may be playing right into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In a four-page letter last month, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party warned seven top research schools – Dartmouth College, Temple University, the University of California-Davis, the University of California-Irvine, the University of California-Riverside, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Tennessee – to immediately cut ties with the China Scholarship Council (CSC). Committee Chair John Moolenaar (R-MI) specifically warned that CSC plays a vital role in the CCP’s efforts to “develop and acquire key technologies through both legal and illegal means.”

CSC pays for about 65,000 Chinese students to study abroad each year, roughly 240 of whom end up at American universities.

The organization claims to only care about legitimate academic endeavors. However, evidence has emerged showing that the CCP surveils Chinese students who participate in the program. Students must also submit a report every three months to Chinese embassies or consulates detailing “academic progress, laboratory work, research outputs, and publications.” CCP agents are further tasked with monitoring the “ideological and academic progress” of CSC students.

Dr. Xiahou Li Wei, a former high-ranking official in the Chinese security apparatus who defected to the West in the late 1990s, referred to CSC’s operation as “zero risk espionage.” As he explained, the conditions of CSC’s arrangement with American schools were perfectly designed to facilitate the smooth transfer of information.

“No one has to risk smuggling anything through the border. The most critical information is passed through consulates legally,” he said. “The CCP lacks morality and will mercilessly plunder if it has such a wide-open gate.”

“CSC purports to be a joint scholarship program between U.S. and Chinese institutions,” Moolenaar wrote in his letter to schools. “However, in reality it is a CCP-managed technology transfer effort that exploits U.S. institutions and directly supports China’s military and scientific growth.”

Notably, all of the universities named in the letter that allegedly work with CSC receive significant funding from the federal government – meaning that American taxpayers may be indirectly funding CCP efforts to steal American technology and trade secrets. U.S. colleges and universities involved in the program offer financial support, a living stipend, and healthcare benefits for up to 24 months for master’s students and 48 months for doctoral candidates.

As a separate committee report has detailed, breakthroughs made at American universities have been exported to China and used to develop technologies that threaten the U.S. homeland. The exchange of students between the U.S. and China is far from “mutually beneficial.” Instead, it benefits China twice “by gaining technology [from the United States] and using its closed system to strictly control outflows of information.”

Chinese researchers have specifically made breakthroughs in “high-performance explosives,” tracking underwater targets, and coordinated drone operations leveraging knowledge acquired by Chinese students in American universities. These students effectively hijacked research intended to strengthen the U.S. economy and national security and used it to bolster China.

Many CSC students notably enter American universities as non-STEM majors and then switch to STEM once on campus – raising even more concerns that CSC may be intentionally using its scholarship program to gain access to cutting-edge American research.

In response to the committee’s letter, the University of Tennessee quickly ended its agreement with CSC. Dartmouth also said it had cut ties with CSC even before receiving Moolenaar’s letter. Other schools that had previously worked with CSC, such as the University of North Texas, had already cut ties with CSC following a 2020 proclamation from President Donald Trump restricting Chinese graduate students and researchers from gaining visas to study in the United States. Former President Joe Biden also enforced that proclamation.

Still, the damage from CSC and related programs may already be permanent.

Take, for instance, the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence, founded in 2020 by a Chinese researcher who benefited from hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants from the National Science Foundation. He poached scientists educated at leading U.S. universities who collaborated with him on U.S.-funded government programs.

In another instance of a one-sided benefit, China established an advanced chip production line that relies on discoveries made at the optical technology laboratories at Boston University. This information was published in Mandarin on a website about the chip production line. It is difficult to overstate the significance of this breakthrough for China since the chips are crucial for EVs, high-voltage power transmission, and Artificial Intelligence.

In yet another recent scientific breakthrough, the Chinese military now claims that it can make itself “invisible” in electronic warfare thanks to knowledge gained from U.S. universities. Known as “telepathy radio,” this method could help the People’s Liberation Army overcome electronic jamming on the battlefield. The researchers are from the Aerospace Information Research Institute at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and one key scientist has previously worked at the University of Maryland and Boston University.

Republicans – and increasingly Democrats as well – are finally waking up to the full gravity of this threat. American universities should be temples of knowledge and discovery that benefit the world. What they must not become are a tool for China to gain a strategic or military advantage over the United States.

Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.