Partnerships between the United States 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 assert in a new report.
The report said US tax dollars have contributed to China’s technological advancement and military modernization as American researchers work with Chinese counterparts in areas such as hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence, nuclear technology and semiconductor technology.
The report, released on Sept. 23 by Republicans on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, raised concerns about the national security risks of the once-vaunted scientific collaborations. It called for stronger safeguards and stronger enforcement.
The committees have been conducting a year-long investigation into the role of higher education in economic competition with China, especially in technology. While U.S. universities do not engage in classified research, their work—often among the best in the world—has the potential to translate into military capabilities.
The Sept. 23 report identified some 8,800 publications involving U.S. researchers who received funding from the Department of Defense or the U.S. intelligence community working with Chinese researchers, many of whom have ties to China’s defense and industrial research establishments. The report said such research “provides backdoor access to the very foreign adversary whose capabilities are needed to counter its aggression.”
The House investigation also flagged what it described as problematic joint research institutes between US and Chinese universities, which the report said “masked a sophisticated system for transferring critical US technology and expertise” to China.
Through those institutes, U.S. researchers and scientists, including those conducting federally funded research, have traveled to China to work and advise Chinese scholars and train Chinese students, the report said.
This month, the U.S. House of Representatives approved about two dozen China-related bills with the explicit goal of competing with Beijing in the technology sector. The bills, which must pass the U.S. Senate, seek to ban Chinese-made drones, restrict Chinese-linked biotech companies from the U.S. market, and cut off China’s remote access to advanced American computer chips.
Other measures include curbing Beijing’s influence on U.S. universities and reviving a Trump administration program aimed at cracking down on Chinese espionage and intellectual property theft at U.S. universities and research institutes. Such efforts have raised concerns about racial discrimination and the ability to sustain exchange programs that promote tolerance between the two countries.
Collaboration between US- and China-based scholars has also declined due to the Trump administration’s counterintelligence program, which is set to end in 2022, researchers said.
Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, speaking at a forum hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations earlier this year, said he would welcome more Chinese students studying the humanities and social sciences but “not particle physics” at US schools.
(According to VOA)