Republicans urge U.S. universities to cut ties with ‘nefarious’ Chinese-backed scholarship program

Students cross the campus of Dartmouth College, March 5, 2024, in Hanover, N.H. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

WASHINGTON — House Republicans are urging seven U.S. universities to cut ties with a Chinese scholarship program that lawmakers call a “nefarious mechanism” to steal technology for the Chinese government.

In letters to Dartmouth College, the University of Notre Dame and five other universities, leaders of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party raise concerns about the schools’ partnerships with the China Scholarship Council, a study abroad program funded by China.

The program sponsors hundreds of Chinese graduate students every year at U.S. universities. After graduating, they’re required to return to China for two years. In the letters sent Tuesday, Republicans described it as a threat to national security.

“CSC purports to be a joint scholarship program between U.S. and Chinese institutions; however, in reality it is a CCP-managed technology transfer effort that exploits U.S. institutions and directly supports China’s military and scientific growth,” wrote Republican Rep. John Moolenaar, chair of the committee.

Letters were also sent also to Temple University, the University of Tennessee and the University of California campuses in Davis, Irvine and Riverside. The committee said it’s opening a review into the program’s “infiltration” of U.S. universities and demanded records related to the program from all seven institutions.

The universities’ partnerships with the council bring up to 15 graduate students a year to Dartmouth, along with up to 60 at Temple and 40 at Notre Dame, according to the letters. Some schools split the cost, including Dartmouth, which covers 50 per cent of tuition and provides a stipend to doctoral students.

Among other records, lawmakers are demanding documents showing whether scholarship recipients worked on research funded by the U.S. government.

President Donald Trump and House Republicans have stepped up scrutiny of Chinese students coming to the U.S. In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States would revoke visas from some Chinese students studying in “critical fields.” During his first term, Trump restricted visas for students affiliated with China’s “military-civil fusion strategy.”

Many U.S. universities acknowledge a need to improve research security but caution against treating Chinese scholars with hostility and suspicion, saying only small numbers have been involved in espionage.

China is the second-largest country of origin for foreign students in the U.S., behind only India. In the 2023-2024 academic year, more than 270,000 international students were from China, making up roughly a quarter of all foreign students in the United States.

Moolenaar has made it a priority to end partnerships between U.S. universities and China. In May he pressed Duke University to cut its ties with a Chinese university, saying it allowed Chinese students to gain access to federally funded research at Duke. Under pressure from the committee, Eastern Michigan University ended a partnership with two Chinese universities in June.

Last year, House Republicans issued a report finding that hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding had gone toward research that ultimately boosted Chinese advancements in artificial intelligence, semiconductor technology and nuclear weapons. The report argued China’s academic collaborations served as “Trojan horses for technology transfer,” accusing China of “insidious” exploitation of academic cooperation.

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Collin Binkley, The Associated Press