Following Russia’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) called for the commonwealth and local governments to cut ties with Russian entities. Youngkin’s entreaty was intended to show “solidarity with the Ukrainian people as they defend their country” from Russia’s aggression. Youngkin should not focus solely on cutting the commonwealth’s troubling ties to Russia, particularly as other countries, including China, continue to provide tacit backing to Moscow’s illegal invasion.
April 8, 2022 | The Washington Post
Virginia’s universities should not support China’s military
April 8, 2022 | The Washington Post
Virginia’s universities should not support China’s military
Elected leaders can and should take concrete steps to address China’s malign influence throughout Virginia, including divesting state investments in problematic Chinese companies. However, having run on a platform centered on reforming Virginia’s education system, the governor should also prioritize neutralizing China’s overt campaign to steal intellectual property from Virginia’s college campuses.
China has made no secret of its intention to harness its students and professors to advance the country’s military and technological modernization. This strategy, referred to as military-civil fusion, aims to acquire the world’s cutting-edge technologies — including through theft — to achieve Chinese military dominance. Accordingly, Beijing is focused on obtaining everything from foundational knowledge taught on college campuses to cutting-edge research, much of which is not technically classified but still has potential military applications.
To support its defense industry, the Chinese government sponsors Chinese students specializing in 280 of what Beijing calls “disciplines with national defense characteristics” to attend joint degree and exchange programs in the United States. These students then return home to provide the technology and talent necessary to prevail in Beijing’s strategic competition with Washington. Dozens of China’s civilian universities also host defense laboratories where Chinese students and professors contribute to classified research for China’s nuclear weapons program, its cyberespionage platforms and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Details regarding China’s military buildup are well known. What is less understood is that many of the United States’ top universities quietly maintain academic and research partnerships with the same Chinese schools working to give the PLA an edge over the U.S. military. That includes at least three of Virginia’s premier universities: Virginia Tech, Old Dominion University and William & Mary.
Just how bad are these partnerships?
Virginia Tech maintains long-standing academic and research partnerships with Tianjin University, home to two defense laboratories conducting classified military research on cutting-edge technologies in fields such as optoelectronics and propellants. Tianjin also actively supports China’s spy agency, the Ministry of State Security, and has received awards from the MSS for its work on communication and information engineering. Another of Virginia Tech’s premier partners, Tongji University, plays a major role in advancing the PLA’s marine strategy and, in 2019, was added to a U.S. government watch list on account of its ties to China’s military.
For its part, Old Dominion collaborates with Beihang University, one of China’s preeminent defense research universities and a member of the “Seven Sons of National Defense,” a grouping of select Chinese universities whose work exclusively supports China’s military. Beihang’s work includes supporting China’s ballistic missile program and other elements of China’s defense sector. Old Dominion also partners with Minzu University, whose research on facial recognition has been used to identify and surveil ethnic minorities in China, including the country’s persecuted Uyghur population. Likewise, William & Mary’s partner of choice, Beijing Normal University, directly supports China’s unmanned aerial vehicle program and other military-civil fusion-related activities.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Only a minimal amount of due diligence is necessary to uncover what these Chinese schools are up to. Many of them proudly advertise their national security work on their websites. And yet that did not stop these and other Virginia universities from partnering with or accepting millions of dollars from these problematic Chinese schools, according to Department of Education disclosures.
When Chinese leader Xi Jinping says he intends to “exhaust all means” to lure tech talent to China, he means it. That requires state legislators and higher-education leaders to rethink how they manage risk within the broader research enterprise. This is particularly true in the case of Chinese partnerships that might compromise democratic values or policies adopted by the U.S. government in response to threats posed by authoritarian regimes.
Federal, state and local stakeholders, including alumni associations, must pressure the leaders of these and other Virginia universities to properly vet their Chinese partners and to terminate any relationships with those that maintain connections to China’s military-industrial complex. In cases where universities fail to comply, state leaders should consider potential cuts to each university’s state-provided funding.
Not all academic collaboration with Chinese entities entails risk, and not all Chinese students are spies. But common sense dictates that Virginia’s top schools should not be engaging in any meaningful way with Chinese universities that have formal research links to China’s military.
Craig Singleton is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a D.C.-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on foreign policy and national security. Follow him on Twitter @CraigMSingleton. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.