The College Fix

Stanford University has received at least ‘$64 million in Chinese funding’ over past decade

New scrutiny about the Chinese Communist Party’s influence on American universities is coming from both federal lawmakers and students as institutions like Stanford receive tens of millions of dollars in funding from the country.

Federal lawmakers also recently expressed concerns about the communist country’s influence on the University of California System and the State University of New York in a letter to the public institutions.

“The CCP is using higher education to undermine our national security,” U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg said in a recent statement to The College Fix provided by his spokesperson.

Walberg’s concerns were prompted, in part, by a recent investigation by Stanford University student journalists who say they found evidence of Chinese espionage on campus.

Garret Molloy and Elsa Johnson, the Stanford Review writers who broke the story May 7, shared more with The Fix in a recent email interview.

Regarding the reasoning behind the Chinese Communist Party’s focus on Stanford, Molloy and Johnson offer an answer – “its dominance in AI” technology.

Their article described the issue as a kind of elephant in the room at the renowned institution. “For years, concerns about Chinese espionage have quietly persisted at Stanford,” the article reads.

Molloy and Johnson explain the silence by stating in their article, “Transnational repression, $64 million in Chinese funding, and allegations of racial profiling have contributed to a pervasive culture of silence at Stanford and beyond.”

Despite initial hesitation to address the presence of the CCP on campus, Molloy told The Fix, “We have been met with a positive reception on campus, receiving numerous emails from alumni and students relaying their experiences and corroborating the results of our investigation.”

However, the investigation did receive some critiques.

In a May 9 letter to the editor published at the Stanford Review, three Hoover Institution fellows acknowledged that there is “cause for concern,” but they also cautioned against “fear.” The Hoover Institution is a public policy organization at Stanford that focuses on economic opportunity and free thought.

“Stanford, like many of its peer institutions, is a high-value target for espionage and malign foreign interference. But it is better equipped than most to safeguard its research, faculty, and students, including Asian Americans,” the institute’s Larry Diamond, Matt Pottinger, and Matthew Turpin wrote.

They wrote that Stanford is uniquely prepared to deal with foreign influence, because the Hoover Institution “has one of the leading projects in the US to study and enhance the security and integrity of our research enterprise.”

Additionally, they wrote: “We must be careful not to doubly victimize the many scholars from China who are trying to navigate around intensifying geopolitical pressures, and who deeply appreciate the opportunity to study in the US and even settle here because (in the words of a Chinese student who spoke at the 2017 University of Maryland commencement) they can breathe ‘the fresh air of free speech’ and democracy.”

The university itself denied the reports of espionage in a statement.

However, the student newspaper’s investigation also caught the attention of federal politicians, including Congressman Walberg who serves as chairman of the House Committee on Education and Workforce.

Responding in a May 15 news release, the Republican called for passage of the Deterrent Act, which would require more “transparency for donations to American universities from foreign sources.”

“We should be loud and clear: malign foreign influence remaining undetected is a danger to both students and U.S. national security,” Walberg stated in the release.

Around the same time, Walberg and Congressman John Moolenaar wrote a letter with Reps. Roger Williams and Brian Babin to the University of California System and the State University of New York, expressing concerns about “Chinese infiltration” at their institutions.

Audra McGeorge, spokesperson for the Education and Workforce Committee, told The Fix in an email last week that “there have not been any major developments since” sending the letters.

Asked what ways lawmakers can combat Chinese infiltration at the university level, McGeorge told The Fix that the Senate “should pass the DETERRENT Act.”

She also highlighted a quote from Walberg in the letter. “The UC and SUNY systems are more examples of colleges and universities being on the front lines of this fight,” Walberg stated. “As we investigate these schools further, the country needs to take strong legislative action to shed light on schools’ ties to America’s adversaries.

“The Senate should enact the bipartisan, House-passed DETERRENT Act. I also look forward to supporting my fellow committee chairmen in other key reforms to bolster transparency and accountability,” the congressman said.

The letter from Walberg, Moolenaar, and their colleagues “urged the university systems to work to ensure that innovation developed by American small businesses stays out of the hands of our foreign adversaries.”

The lawmakers asked both universities for information, raising concerns about Chinese communist leaders’ efforts “to acquire sensitive technology through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs” at their institutions.

The College Fix contacted the media relations offices at the State University of New York and the University of California twice by email over the past two weeks to ask for their reaction to the letter, but neither responded.

On the U.S. Senate side, U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody also expressed concerns about the Stanford Review investigation recently and suggested a different solution.

“The CCP has infiltrated American universities,” she wrote on X. “We need to pass my STOP CCP VISAS Act to protect this country.” The bill would “prohibit the admission of Chinese nationals as nonimmigrant students.”

Moody also shared a clip of herself speaking to Fox News, stating: “How can we keep offering 300,000 student visas to Chinese nationals every year when we KNOW they are legally required to gather intelligence for the CCP? The answer is simple: we can’t.”

MORE: ‘Alarming’: House report warns of China’s tie to U.S. universities

IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: The Stanford University campus; Jejim/Shutterstock

Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter