The CCP gains a ‘back door’ access to the CCP through grants funded by taxpayers to state-affiliated Chinese academics.

A new report by the US Congress found that hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research funds are being pumped into projects to spur Chinese innovation in cutting-edge technologies. These include “hypersonic weaponry, artificial intelligence technology, fourth generation nuclear weapons technology and semiconductor technology.”

In a report released late last month, the House Select Committee on China stated that “due to the lack of legal safeguards around federally-funded research, hundreds millions of dollars of U.S. federal funding in the last decade has contributed to the PRC’s strategic goals, by helping the PRC to achieve advancements in dual-use, critical and emerging technologies.”

These findings, which were compiled over a period of one and a half years, reveal how American universities use federal funds to work with Chinese institutions in a variety of research projects, feeding the military of China’s communist government. This work is funded by taxpayer funds from the Pentagon and U.S. Intelligence Community, which provides “back-door” access to the foreign enemy nation that these capabilities are needed to protect against.

The extent of federal funding for such projects remains opaque, despite the fact that American funding has been a source of concern in Congress since the early 1990s. The China Committee’s investigation is one of the most comprehensive studies to date about how taxpayer funds from America’s military establishment are used to build up Beijing and give its military an edge at a time when diplomatic relations between America and communist China are deteriorating.

The committee found that more than 8,800 research projects funded by the Pentagon were being conducted with Chinese academics associated with China’s state-controlled institutes. The U.S. Intelligence Community also funded 185 other projects.

The report states that “the vast majority of these DOD funded publications constitute advanced research related dual-use technologies, critical and emerging technologies.” These papers covered hypersonics and directed energy as well as nuclear and high-energy physics and artificial intelligence.

According to an investigation by the Navy Criminal Investigative Service, Pentagon-funded publications were involved in at least 85 collaborative efforts “with China’s main nuclear weapons development complex.”

The Pentagon funded more than 2,000 research papers with Chinese coauthors. These papers were “directly associated” with the PRC defense research and industry base.

According to the report, a large portion of these projects has “direct military application,” including “high-performance explosives, targeting of targets, drone operation networks,” weapons that China “would employ against the U.S. Military in the event of conflict.”

The collaborations also included “cryptography, eavesdropping and hyperspectral imaging; lithium-ion battery technology, aerodynamic angles, electronic warfare [and] cyberattack detection.”

The committee investigated three American universities which operate research institutions in conjunction with Chinese counterparts. These were the University of California Berkeley, Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Pittsburgh.

These partnerships may appear to be academic collaborations, but they “hide a sophisticated system of transferring U.S. technology and expertise to China including blacklisted entities connected to China’s defence and security apparatus.”

The committee reviewed documents that indicate that through joint U.S. and CCP research collaborations, American scholars are enabling the “transfer of expertise, applied-research, and technologies related dual-use technologies, critical technologies, and emerging technology to the PRC.”

American academics from Berkeley, Georgia Tech and Pitt, including those who conduct U.S. government-funded research, regularly travel to China where they “collaborate with research, advise PRC scholar, teach and prepare PRC graduate student.” They also work with top Chinese firms that deal in “critical technologies and emerging technologies” with national security implications.

Tsinghua Berkeley Shenzhen Institute hosts conferences on “sensitive technology that brings together PLA-linked entities. This further cements the Institute’s position in the PRC system of military-civilian fusion.”

After several months of the House Committee’s investigation, Georgia Tech informed investigators that they were ending their partnership with China’s Tianjin University which is connected to the country’s military.

Berkeley informed lawmakers that shortly after publication of the report, they had “started to relinquish all ownership” in the Tsinghua Berkeley Shenzhen Institute. This was the joint research hub between the two schools.

Since 2011, top American colleges have received upwards of 426 million dollars from China. This money is often hidden and not reported properly to the federal government.

Stanford University, as an example, received $27 million in funding from Chinese entities between 2020 and 2023. Since 2017, the Biden institute at the University of Delaware has received more than $6,000,000 from China.

The committee found evidence that Berkeley, Georgia Tech and other universities violated the Higher Education Act when they failed to declare foreign funding coming from China. This is usually punishable by harsh penalties.

The report states that “These undeclared foreign gifts–likely in the hundreds of millions or billions, depending on the total amount–give PRC institutions a troubling influence with no transparency and contribute to the building of research relationships which pose risks to U.S. National Security.”

The Biden-Harris Administration, however, “failed” to take any enforcement actions against these schools during their nearly four year tenure.