Scores of American higher education institutions, ranging from community colleges to the Ivy League, maintain partnerships with Chinese universities that public documents and the United States government have linked to the People’s Liberation Army.
At least 60 U.S. colleges and universities advertise partnerships with Chinese universities that run major laboratories conducting research for the Chinese military, have been implicated in espionage schemes against American entities, and are considered among China’s “Seven Sons of National Defense,” a cohort of universities with deep ties to the PLA that observers have linked to technology theft. U.S. academic partnerships with these Chinese universities take several forms. Student exchange programs, joint degrees, shared research labs, training partnerships, and even satellite campuses are among the myriad agreements American universities have entered with institutions intertwined with the Chinese military.
The unearthed ties come as the Trump administration places increased scrutiny on colleges’ links to Beijing. On May 28, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that his department would begin working to “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students,” citing espionage concerns. In April, the president issued an executive order directing the Department of Education to apply the Higher Education Act of 1965, so universities must publicly disclose the purpose and source of their foreign funding — a requirement they managed to skirt under the Biden administration.
Some GOP leaders have even threatened Harvard University’s tax-exempt status over its partnership with the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a Chinese Communist Party entity. Other partnerships that American universities maintain with CCP-linked organizations, however, have yet to receive the same degree of attention from policymakers.
A Washington Examiner review of public records identified three public universities — the University of New Mexico, the University of Kentucky, and North Carolina State University — that disclose relationships with the Beijing Institute of Technology.
BIT, the crown jewel of China’s Seven Sons of National Defense, has received the most defense research prizes and defense patents of any Chinese university. The institution hosts at least 10 major defense laboratories, and nearly one-third of its graduates go on to work in China’s defense sector. BIT has also been implicated in espionage against the U.S., with the Department of Commerce adding it to its Export Administration Regulations entity list for “acquiring and attempting to acquire U.S.-origin items in support of programs for the People’s Liberation Army.”
Despite all this, the University of New Mexico’s Anderson School of Management’s webpage describes an “educational pipeline” that enables BIT students to receive business training from the school. The University of Kentucky, meanwhile, maintains a student exchange program, and North Carolina State University offers multiple joint degrees with BIT.
While exchange programs may seem harmless, they can present national security risks.
In 2023, an American soldier caught five Chinese University of Michigan students on campus through an exchange program with a Shanghai-based university taking photos of military installations and operations around Camp Grayling, a National Guard base where the U.S. conducts joint training exercises with Taiwan. Other Chinese exchange students have been caught attempting to steal American technology.
Some Chinese universities enjoying partnerships with American higher education have even more clear-cut ties to the PLA. Saginaw Valley State University and Southern Illinois University advertise partnerships with Shenyang Aerospace University, which operates under the supervision of China’s state-owned military aircraft manufacturer and hosts at least two major defense laboratories.
“American higher education is addicted to the Chinese Communist Party,” Hudson Institute senior fellow Michael Sobolik told the Washington Examiner. “University officials are quick to fight culture wars at home but are all too happy to partner with Chinese institutions linked with the People’s Liberation Army. The Trump administration is right to crack down on this dependency and should, within the rule of law, work to unwind these partnerships.”
The White House and the Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment.
In addition to partnering with military-linked institutions, American colleges have also forged partnerships with Chinese universities involved in China’s repression of Uyghurs, an operation that international observers and the U.S. government have labeled a genocide.
Benedictine University maintains an exchange program with Dalian Minzu University, while Western Illinois University lists the institution among its “international partners,” citing its commitment to “diversity” and “cultural awareness.”
Dalian Minzu University conducts research to advance the facial recognition technology used by the CCP for its surveillance of Uyghurs and supervises non-CCP members and students returning from foreign study.
Commentators have long raised concerns about Chinese influence over American higher education, pointing to the lucrative contracts universities enter with Chinese corporations, billions of dollars in academic donations, and CCP-affiliated international students as potential vectors for China to advance its interests. Critics of the Trump administration’s approach to addressing foreign influence, however, argue that the president is damaging the ability of universities to help the U.S. exert soft power by weakening their appeal to foreign students.
Relationships with Tsinghua and Peking University were among the most commonly identified in the Washington Examiner’s analysis of public partnerships between Chinese military-linked entities and American colleges, encompassing over a dozen institutions. Notable partnerships include the University of Pittsburgh providing biomedical research training to Tsinghua students, a major satellite campus hub that Stanford University maintains at Peking, and a Yale University joint research center at Tsinghua.
Tsinghua’s leadership has made it clear that the university enthusiastically supports the CCP’s “national strategy of military-civilian integration” regarding artificial intelligence research. The institution maintains eight major military labs, ranging in focus from missile research to nuclear projects.
“Tsinghua University, one of the People’s Republic of China’s most prestigious engineering universities, is deeply embedded in the PRC’s Military Civil Fusion system and maintains deep ties to the PRC’s defense ecosystem and the broader security establishment,” House Select Committee on the CCP Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) previously told the Washington Examiner.
Peking, for its part, hosts four military laboratories, frequently participates in expos related to military technology, and has signed a strategic agreement with the Chinese Navy.
A Stanford University spokesperson told the Washington Examiner that its center “operates independently from Peking University” and that it does not engage in STEM research. The center’s “primary activity is hosting small groups of Stanford undergraduate students who are studying abroad for a short period of time,” according to the spokesperson.
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Dozens of other U.S. colleges publicly disclose partnerships with Chinese universities that the Department of Commerce has deemed national security risks. Among these are Beihang University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Sichuan University, and the Harbin Institute of Technology, which the department says “sought to use U.S. technology for Chinese missile programs.”
None of the American institutions mentioned above, except Stanford, responded when reached for comment.
