The Department of Education released a new report on Tuesday with details on its wide-ranging investigation into foreign funding on campus, including specific warnings that U.S. university partnerships with foreign adversaries, most notably China, could pose a risk to national security.
“American higher education is a critical human and technological strategic resource. The intellectual dynamism created by our nation’s historic commitment to academic freedom, free inquiry, and free speech on campus has substantially contributed to America’s economic and national security,” the 34-page report from the Education Department’s office of general counsel noted. “Accordingly, for decades, foreign state and non-state actors have devoted significant resources to influence or control teaching and research, to the theft of intellectual property or even espionage, and to the use of American campuses as centers for propaganda operations and other projections of soft power.”
The agency argued that “under Secretary Betsy DeVos’ leadership, the Department has, for the first time, taken concrete steps” to enforce Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 on foreign funding.
The Education Department specifically warned that U.S. institutions of higher education “regularly work with foreign entities known or suspected to present national security risks” in a somewhat-redacted section focused mainly on the Chinese Communist Party’s influence on U.S. campuses. Investigators lamented that “institutions have directly entered into agreements with foreign governments, even repressive governments that are often hostile to American national security interests, such as China.” The names of specific schools were largely redacted within the report.
The agency warned that “chief among these security concerns” is U.S. universities partnering with the “heavily state-influenced” Chinese technology giant Huawei, one of the largest telecommunications providers in the world, that “became a household name not only because of its products’ international presence but because of these products’ potential enablement of foreign espionage.” The report noted that Huawei’s corporate structure includes a CCP committee that exerts influence from the Chinese government, and it also laid out at least $75 billion in support from China’s government, all meant to advance “Huawei’s global prowess” and to make its presence “a potential tool of the Chinese government and grave national security concern in the U.S. and abroad.”
The Education Department noted that one school “reported nearly $1 million of agreements” with Huawei while another “has held nearly $11 million in contracts and agreements with Huawei since 2013, ranging from research agreements to donations for specific [redacted] research projects and programs.” The report warned that “across these investigated universities, many of these Huawei agreements and gifts strategically concerned sensitive topics like nuclear science or those related to competitive industries like robotics, semiconductors, and online cloud services” and that Huawei “made several hundred thousand dollars of donations towards [redacted] applied physics research” at one school and toward “cutting-edge research projects” at another.
The report noted other Chinese entities involved on U.S. campuses, including Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba contracting with one school “to develop new algorithms for crowd surveillance capabilities.” Investigators noted that Alibaba’s leader, Jack Ma, is a member of the Chinese Communist Party and that “the company is a close partner of the Chinese government.” The report also noted one school’s relationship with the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the People’s Republic of China, and another school is affiliated with China’s HNA Corporation, which offered $15 million of scholarships to students through the HNA Group International “Talents Scholarship” Fund, noting that the company “was founded by a Communist Party official, and it currently operates its own Communist Party committee.”
Investigators also warned against “exchange agreements with Chinese universities” because “any agreement that facilitates cooperation with Chinese citizens will be affected by Chinese law” and “Chinese citizens, through various laws, are obligated to serve their government, even — and perhaps especially — when they are abroad.” The report said that Chinese laws “cast wide nets to police individual Chinese citizens and Chinese organizations’ allegiance to the Chinese government and its interests,” and so “it is especially relevant that universities are transparent about their agreements with China.”
Earlier this month, DeVos and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joined forces to warn that K-12 classrooms and universities nationwide are being targeted by the Chinese Communist Party’s influence operations, calling out Confucius Classrooms and Confucius Institutes.
The new report also warned that some schools were working with Russia’s cyber firm Kaspersky and the Moscow-based Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, noting that “the Russian government is infamous for initiating large-scale hacks against foreign governments and corporate entities and for ignoring international cybersecurity norms.”
The Education Department did specifically name Georgetown University’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, noting that the Saudi donation “empowered the Saudi Arabian government to advance a particular narrative about Islamic society to the West via a legitimate Western institution like Georgetown University” and that “Prince Alwaleed’s agreement with Georgetown exemplifies how foreign money can advance a particular country’s worldview within U.S. academic institutions — influence that has often remained undisclosed to American taxpayers.” Investigators also criticized one school for “granting right of first refusal on nuclear research programs to Qatar” and said that “this agreement exposes how foreign entities can tie the hands of an American research institutions — at home and abroad.”
“The Department’s investigations highlight the fact that foreign adversaries are likely targeting specific institutions for their R&D and technologies. This information highlights the critical national and economic security risks created by institutions’ failure to be fully transparent with respect to foreign gifts and contracts,” the report concluded, adding that “institutions’ overseas operations present insider threat risks and a simple means to circumvent State Department and Department of Homeland Security visa controls.”
The Education Department revealed this summer that schools have anonymized $8.4 billion in foreign money and that, since 2010, colleges and universities have “hidden the true source” of at least $600 million from China, $268 million from Qatar, $205 million from Saudi Arabia, and $75 million from Russia. The Education Department announced individual investigations into foreign funding and possible illicit foreign ties at Georgetown University, Texas A&M University, Cornell University, Rutgers University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Maryland, Harvard University, Yale University, the University of Texas, Case Western Reserve University, Stanford University, and Fordham University.
