If you’re a school, and an organization controlled by a totalitarian state and enemy of the United States wants to give you grants or set up a base for conducting influence operations or collaborate with you on research that the People’s Liberation Army would find useful, don’t do the deal. If you are already doing any of these things, stop.
The University of Michigan has gotten the message and, having conducted a “thorough review,” will “officially end the partnership with Shanghai Jiao Tong University” (“University of Michigan ends partnership with Chinese university amid national security concerns,” KTAR News, January 10, 2025). For some reason, though, shutting it down will take six months.
The end to the academic partnership is the latest case of American universities moving away from Chinese universities over concerns by U.S. lawmakers that Americans could be helping the Chinese to develop critical technology to boost China’s military capabilities.
One cause of MU’s reform was the “suspicious activities outside a remote military site” of five Chinese students who were involved in the schools’ collaboration. Another was the letter about this and what the Chinese university is up to that Representative John Moolenaar, chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, wrote to the Michigan University president, Santa Ono.
The five likely are no longer in the U.S. and have not appeared in court.
In his letter, Moolenaar wrote that the Chinese university has “extensive military-aligned departments and laboratories, advanced dual-use research programs, and large-scale operational training platforms” to help drive China’s military modernization and intelligence capabilities. Ono on Friday informed Moolenaar of the university’s decision to end the partnership.
So Michigan University can now or rather in six months be crossed off the list of academic facilitators of the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army. Who’s next?
Also see:
StopTheCCP.org: “China’s Donations to Your Alma Mater”
