Countering the CCP’s Exploitation of U.S. Academic Research

SINGLETON: Hey, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I’m Craig Singleton. I’m the senior director of the China program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and it’s my pleasure to welcome Senator Jim Banks and Representative John Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

Today, we’re going to be discussing a challenge that sits at the intersection of higher education, innovation, and national security, and that’s the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to exploit our research enterprise to advance its military modernization and its technological ambitions.

Before we begin, a brief word on FDD. For 25 years, FDD has been fiercely independent. We are a nonpartisan research institute focused exclusively on foreign policy and national security, and as a point of pride and principle, we don’t accept any foreign government funding.

Gentlemen, thank you both for being here today. It’s nice to see you in the flesh again.

Let’s dive right in, and we’ll make the most of our time together.

Chairman Moolenaar, I’d like to start with you a little bit. Your committee has spent years investigating how the Chinese Communist Party targets American universities and federally funded research and the strategic cutting–edge technologies. What have those investigations really taught you about that exploitation and what the Chinese Communist Party is hoping to achieve and take advantage of here?

MOOLENAAR: Well, thanks for having us, first.

And I think the number one takeaway is that this is not a situation where it’s isolated situations; it’s a strategic initiative on the part of the Chinese Communist Party, through their Thousand Talents Program, through different technology transfer initiatives. They’re very upfront about this in their government publications. And so, it’s really to acquire technology innovation, and they’ll do that legally or illegally.

Unfortunately, our research institutions have been participating with them in that, and our research has shown, you know, over a thousand different joint publications – initiatives, basically – in the last two years. And you look at the Department of War, Department of Energy, other research, you know, institutions, universities – 150 different partnerships between U.S. universities and Chinese entities that are under Chinese law.

SINGLETON: Right.

MOOLENAAR: And so, we’ve seen this as a systematic initiative from the CCP, and that’s why we need really clear guardrails to prevent further loss of our technology, and especially in areas where there’s dual-use benefits for their military.

SINGLETON: Absolutely. I can’t speak highly enough of the investigative team at China Select. I encourage everyone to go on the website and read the reports. The “CCP on the Quad” in particular just quantifies the challenge, and I think it’s probably the most comprehensive report that exists out there on this topic, and so tremendous kudos to the team over there. They’re doing a great job.

Senator Banks, I’d love to bring you into this conversation because you’ve been tracking this issue too; first at the state level, then in the House, and now, here in the Senate. I’m curious: Based on your military background in particular, was there a particular investigation or document or partnership that convinced you, “Wow, this is like – we have such a problem here. Why – why is this underappreciated in Washington?”

BANKS: Well, thank you to FDD. To those who say that think tanks are dead, they’re not paying attention to what you guys are doing. And we appreciate all of your work. And great to be with the chairman. The historic work of the China Select Committee in the House is a testament to your leadership.

And I was there when we set up the committee; Chairman Gallagher passing the baton to you. You guys haven’t – you haven’t missed a beat. You guys are still doing the great work that the committee was intended to do, and I think it’s a legacy of the – I know this is a bipartisan crowd and a nonpartisan think tank, but this is a testament to the Republican majority. The Democrats didn’t want this committee. They fought against it, and it’s important that we keep the focus that the China Select Committee does.

I found, crossing the bridge over to the nursing home that is the United States Senate…

(LAUGHTER)

…that the focus and the passion in the Senate just isn’t there, Mr. Chairman, that you have in the House on these important issues, so I’ve tried to keep up the – I’ve tried to bring the fire and work with senators like Tom Cotton to continue to focus on these areas.

But I think what we learned – my first term in the House, 2017 to 2018 – almost 10 years ago – I say the Trump years are like dog years. It feels like a lifetime ago, back – the first – the first term on Trump’s – in Trump’s first – the first two years of Trump’s term, the focus on these issues.

I think to answer your question, I was alarmed when I got to the House, and better understanding how the CCP, the “united front,” operates on college campuses. And back then, we were talking about Huawei grants to major public universities, and the more that they were reported – for really the first time on Trump’s watch – the more astonished I was at how much money was being poured by the CCP into our colleges.

And then we took a look at what, previously, was seen as innocuous outfits like Confucius Institutes, and you had – you better understood why the CCP sets up, why the united front sets up, Confucius Institutes on our college campuses. And we went to work back then in that first Trump term on trying to legislate more transparency, working with the Trump administration on – on the reporting structure. I remember Indiana University, my alma mater – a national champion football school, by the way…

(LAUGHTER)

…I remember that my alma mater, their board met after we exposed some of these issues and abolished the Confucius Institute. So that was a good – that was a good effort.

But then, just a few years ago, the Select Committee uncovered obscure relationships between universities in Indiana – small private colleges in Indiana and outfits – relationships with outfits in China. It was, John, directly tied to your work. And Trine University, a great, small engineering school in northern – near where I live in northern Indiana, immediately severed their ties to a program because of the Select Committee.

So, we’ve had success, I think, success story after success story, but I often think about this as, unfortunately, as a Whac-a-Mole approach. I mean, it seems like we eliminate – we expose – this program and colleges sever ties, and then Confucius Institutes pop up, and we expose that and then we abolish those.

And then we understand the significance of the sister cities-type relationships. Carmel, Indiana – the former mayor, longtime former mayor of Carmel, was a – truly – a useful idiot to the CCP and engaged in a sister – not just a sister-city relationship but traveled to China with this agreement and signed deals in giving away a lot from the city of Carmel, which is one of the fastest–growing cities in America. So, then you expose that, and then the next mayor eliminated that agreement. So, a Whac-a-Mole approach. But I’m searching. I know the chairman and FDD are, as well, for what is the broad effective approach that we can take here?

Because I think at the end of the day – and my final thought on this – it just goes to show how valuable our sensitive research is on college campuses, and what the CCP and the PLA will do to obtain that research. It just goes to show how important our research is, and we need to keep it secure and keep it in our hands and used for our best interests.

SINGLETON: No, all great points. I mean, so much of this is hiding in plain sight. And I think as we start to shine a light on different aspects of this China challenge, there’s no shortage of data. It’s really just quantifying the data, and I know that you both have led the charge to increase the amount of transparency on just Chinese and foreign funding in general to our U.S. university enterprise.

What – I remember graduating from college, and a few weeks later – the University of Florida – great school – tracked me down because on my last day of college, I had a waffle at the mess hall and I owed $2.37, right? It was tracked; it’s in the database. If you cash a $1 million check, there’s a record of it, right? It’s not onerous to report that. We should have good insight, especially given how much money from the federal government flows into these universities.

And we’ve seen this in Michigan, as well, haven’t we, sir? There are great investigations on college campuses, but at the same time, there’s been executive branch action in Michigan alone, and you’ve been leading the charge on that. As you look at the state-level interactions and the different stakeholders have played that are sort of raising this awareness, how is it playing out in Michigan?

MOOLENAAR: Well, Michigan has been ground zero for some of this activity. You know, we’ve had situations where – you know, the University of Michigan had a partnership with a Chinese entity that we brought to light, and they, to their credit, broke off that partnership.

But when you think in – just in the last two years, we’ve had five Chinese nationals who were caught outside of Camp Grayling with sophisticated surveillance equipment, said they were there stargazing.

SINGLETON: Sure. I do that too. I mean, we all do that.

(LAUGHTER)

MOOLENAAR: Well – and there just happened to be some military leaders who were being trained, including Taiwan. And so, it’s a situation where we’ve had researchers who have been bringing in, smuggling in illegal materials, and then lying to people about that. We’ve had a number of different institutes – instances.

But, you know, one of the biggest issues I have found is that we have these entity lists here in the United States – and it could be the Department of War, their 1260H list; it could be a Commerce list – basically that say we shouldn’t be partnering with these institutions that are affiliated with the Chinese military or have sanctions or human rights violations. And there’s these lists available. And unfortunately, many of our research public dollars have gone to fund initiatives joining with people on those entity lists: individuals, institutions, Seven Sons of Defense University [sic] in China.

SINGLETON: Yeah.

MOOLENAAR: And it’s a direct benefit to the Chinese military against our national security interests.

And so, one of the things that Jim Banks and I have been working on is research security and trying to provide a base line that protects our taxpayer dollars from going to fund projects that would benefit the military or human rights abusers or the surveillance society that the CCP is operating.

SINGLETON: No, absolutely. I know that then-Congressman Banks and Congresswoman Elise Stefanik and others on the House Education Committee have pushed the Department of Education, and they have a new foreign funding portal that’s available to all of you. And you can see all of the dollars that are flowing for foreign money into our university enterprise.

Now – I think it’s coming up next week – we’re going to see actual donor names, which has always been secret. And it will be historical data as well that we’ll all be able to track going forward. It’s really been the missing link for all of us…

MOOLENAAR: It’s really significant.

SINGLETON: …follow those threads. It’s a huge kudos both to, I think, the House Education Committee, the Senate side as well. Senator Cassidy’s also been pushing on this over the last few months. And I think it’s just a real testament to the fact that we need to know the actual data.

BANKS: And if you go look at the reporting in the first Trump term, which was really, the first time that you saw universities pushed to report and then penalized for not reporting – and then the immediate drop-off when Biden took over of – because colleges knew they could –universities knew they could get away with taking the gifts and not reporting it, there would be no consequences for it. And now we’re back to an even more significant place with more transparency.

I think it’s – I think this is something that’s really significant, that won’t get a lot of attention in the mainstream media but will have a significant outcome that will, I think, will protect our research in a big way.

SINGLETON: Yeah, it’s hugely important because there’s a military dimension to this, and you see that on the Senate Armed Services Committee. You’re a combat veteran yourself. At the time, you were going after a different target, a different enemy, but increasingly we’re looking at the Indo-Pacific as a potential theater of war in the future because of Chinese belligerence. Obviously, this stolen intellectual property, this stolen research drives that military modernization.

And so, I’m curious for your thoughts, sir, on – we think this is the moment for Congress to act. What do you think the consequences are to the warfighter if we don’t?

BANKS: Well, in this new era of AI and, you know, what we’re heading into, warfare will be substantially different than anything that we’ve seen before. And the Chinese understand that; we understand that. So, this race to dominate artificial intelligence and super-intelligence and incorporating that with warfare, I mean – a lot of that research is occurring in the United States on our college campuses and paid for by you and me and the taxpayers of Indiana and Michigan and across the country.

So, it goes to show what’s at stake and why we have to protect it. And I think the – you know, the PLA has figured this out. I mean, that’s why they have – the united front is all around us. They’re paying attention to what we’re talking about here today. And they’re all over our college campuses, and we haven’t – we haven’t done enough to block them, and to push back against them. But I think we’re doing more than ever before at the moment.

SINGLETON: Absolutely. Both of your leadership on this issue and the National Defense Authorization Act that’s making its way through Congress, we’re talking about multi-billion-dollar investments in cutting-core edge technologies, AI, robotics, biotechnology. We have to – we have to make sure that we’re protecting those investments.

BANKS: And as the NDAA moves through the Senate and some – and the House with some challenges and – and challenges in the Senate too. But Chairman Moolenaar and I have been very successful incorporating much of the bill that he mentioned, the Securing Innovation [and] Research from Adversaries Act into the NDAA.

SINGLETON: Yep.

BANKS: And that will be the biggest step yet to protecting our sensitive research and blocking collaborations between colleges and our biggest adversary.

MOOLENAAR: And you mentioned the defense applications. You know, we’ve – our reports have documented instances where university research in the United States has benefited the Chinese military in terms of nuclear weapons capabilities…

SINGLETON: Yep.

MOOLENAAR: … materials, explosive materials. And actually these researchers have received awards from the Chinese government for their joint research projects. And so, this goes very deep and – and I appreciate you highlighting this.

SINGLETON: No, it’s incredible. And the hypersonics research that you all exposed as well…

MOOLENAAR: Right.

SINGLETON: …just incredible.

Universities, sir, are a big part of this discussion obviously. They’re at the center, I think, of this discussion, balancing academic freedom but also research integrity and security. The committee doesn’t just issue reports. You are engaging constructively with university stakeholders because they are a huge part of this, not just the bureaucracies themselves, but individual researchers.

I’m curious, based on your conversations with those leaders, where have you seen real progress? And where do you think institutions are still falling short?

MOOLENAAR: I think to Jim’s point, there has been progress with – because of the legal requirements of reporting and disclosing. I think that’s been good. There has been progress with universities discontinuing different joint programs…

SINGLETON: Right.

MOOLENAAR: …that benefit the PLA. You know, so we have had some very successful interactions, and I think that many universities are trying to do more in terms of research security. But we have a long ways to go.

I will compliment the Department of War that has come out recently with a research security arena. NASA, we’ve been working with NASA on this. You know, there were so many violations of the Frank Wolf Amendment that’s basically prohibited joint direct research projects with China.

SINGLETON: Yeah.

MOOLENAAR: We’re working on the National Institutes of Health…

SINGLETON: Yeah.

MOOLENAAR: …Department of Energy. Some of them have been slower and we want to see – the National Science Foundation has been taking a leadership role.

So, we’re seeing some progress, but when you talk to universities, they would say, “Well, we can’t vet this stuff. We need help.” You know, we need to give them clear guidelines. And I think the more we can get the federal agencies all on the same page working from a common – which is what the legislation does – I think that will also help our universities.

One of the other things we noticed is that some universities will be able to track initially when they award a grant and identify, OK, it’s not aligned with a, you know, Seven Sons of Defense University in China or some entity on an entity list. But what happens is these research projects start, and then they collaborate with other entities and we kind of lose track of how those dollars are being spent.

And so, I think there needs to be more done on the – on the back end in making sure that there’s security on our research.

SINGLETON: Yeah, all great points. And I encourage folks to see NSF just released updated guidance. Department of War, of course, is leading the charge over there, both on 1260H but 1286. All of these lists, it’s hard to keep them going, keep them – keep track of them.

Senator Banks, I’m interested, are you hearing the same sort of discussion from the research universities? There are several major R1 research universities in Indiana. You started this conversation, like, a decade ago. Is there an evolution and change in tone, maybe a broader recognition that what we are seeing is real?

I remember both of us have been on the receiving end of, you know, criticisms that what we’re talking about is xenophobic or racist. And I’m just curious whether you’re also in those engagements seeing perhaps a begrudging acceptance that there is something here, and that we do need to find some sort of a middle ground.

BANKS: Yeah. One of the best success stories is the other university in Indiana, Purdue University. I’m an Indiana football and basketball fan, and proud graduate, but Purdue University is second to none when it comes to engineering and what they’re – what Purdue is engaged in with hypersonics research and what they’re doing for our national security is significant.

But the most recent president of Purdue, who just left for – to become the president of Northwestern University, Mung Chiang, born in China, was the dean of the engineering school at Purdue, then he served under Secretary Pompeo at State Department in the first Trump admin, and then came back to Purdue and became the president. And the previous president before him, who was a well-known governor of Indiana, frankly, was very loose on a lot of these issues and allowed for allowed for – a lot of loose regulations and rules when it came to research security.

So, when the China Select Committee uncovered a lot of issues that were happening at Purdue, he was – he immediately went to work to address it. And everything from travel restrictions for researchers to more enhanced IP regulations and guidelines at the college. I mean, for a – you talk about the charges of xenophobia or racism, I mean, this is a man – this is a Chinese-born American, Chinese-American researcher, president of a college, dean – former dean of engineering who really gets it. Very clear-eyed about the CCP threat.

So, Purdue went to work and cleaned a lot of it up on his watch. Unfortunately, he just left for another school, and I hope that Purdue can keep in place a lot of the work that he did. But he and I – he and I talked often, and he texted me often while he was president of Purdue with ideas about what Purdue was doing that other universities could learn from, and that was a – I thought that was a great success story.

But I already – I already mentioned Trine, which is a tiny, a small private college, and then what Indiana University has done as well. I think while there – the role there – the role is here for us to play on the legislative front, I just think what Chairman Moolenaar and Chairman Gallagher and the China Select Committee has done over the past now several years to expose these issues has done more than anything to inspire a lot of these colleges to do something about it.

SINGLETON: Absolutely. I think the interplay at the state and local level is so vital here too, because we encounter this challenge when we address broader foreign influence in the education system, the federalized nature of our system, which has tremendous benefits. But at the same time, educating those stakeholders at the federal level, the local level, to really understand these safeguards, why they’re important, and then state dollars flow into these programs too.

BANKS: Sure.

SINGLETON: So, it really does require this holistic approach that I think you’re all describing.

MOOLENAAR: Yeah. You know, one of the things I’d like to also add about the xenophobia charge – because we have to look at the CCP and China as a unique entity…

SINGLETON: Yeah.

MOOLENAAR: …And when you look at their national security laws and the way they leverage Chinese nationals to comply with whatever the CCP demands of them, and if they don’t, they are in violation of national security laws. So, they can receive penalties or their family can receive penalties. You know, more often than not, we hear from Chinese nationals, some from Hong Kong, some from other – just about the transnational repression that they experience from the CCP.

And when you look at the threats that the CCP is demonstrating in the South China Sea, in the region, in the Indo-Pacific, you realize anyone who says this is xenophobic is not paying attention to what’s happening around the world.

SINGLETON: Absolutely. I mean, and we – I know you both have led the charge on Confucius Institute closures in particular, again, linking NDAA and DOD funding to being able to host a Confucius Institute, and there was a dramatic decrease in the number of Confucius Institutes. They are rebranding in certain ways, and I think to Senator Banks’ point, we have to monitor what that rebranding looks like and where that money is flowing.

But the Chinese talk about this openly in their discourse, and the biggest target, frankly, are Chinese-American students and Chinese students studying here in the United States, and we shouldn’t lose sight of that. It’s a really great point.

BANKS: It is amazing when you give these universities a choice between federal research dollars from coming, flowing from the Department of War, or having a Confucius Institute or any type of agreement with institutions or entities in China. They choose the research dollars.

SINGLETON: Yeah.

BANKS: So, I think it goes to show that the inner workings and the thinking of a lot of these universities and their boards and their willingness to – when they’re – sometimes they welcome the choice, otherwise they’re – they feel like they are obligated to take the money that’s flowing from our adversaries and from foreign countries. But when you give them a choice, they generally choose the right thing.

SINGLETON: Yeah. “Dollars and common sense” we often try to think about. I think there’s room here for everything.

We’ve talked about the headache. FDD always says – we hate coming to the Hill with headaches. We have to come with some aspirin. Too many think tanks in town just talk about the problem, and – we have to talk about these problems. But I think we want to be really leaning into the policy prescriptions. You both have, for several years, advanced legislation on different fronts around this issue, but there are still gaps to close. Whether it’s through the NDAA or through other vehicles, or even through pushing a strong executive action, which I know you both are doing through those engagements, Department of War, Department of Education, NSF, and the like.

I’m curious to hear from both of you, what do you think are the biggest gaps Congress still needs to close? And maybe if you could both tell me what you think success looks like a year from now. Obviously, we have an important election coming up, but what does it look like on this issue a year from now?

MOOLENAAR: I would say this research security is of utmost importance. And making sure we have consistency and predictability so universities, agencies, all the research ecosystem in the United States understands the threat as well as the guardrails.

But we have a number of challenges when it comes to electronics, for lack of a better word. When you look at robots, when you look at autonomous vehicles, EVs, connected vehicles, when you look at these dual use applications because of their interest in the military, you know, we have to be working ahead of the game.

Jim was talking about Huawei. You look at that example and say, well, we were behind the curve on that. Look at how much it costs to rip and replace, and we’re only partway done with that. And we need to be looking at all these technologies, assess the threat, and then be proactive so that we don’t get into a situation like that again.

SINGLETON: Yeah, absolutely.

BANKS: I hesitate saying this, but I don’t know what’s going to happen in the midterm election. I hope, I personally hope, the Republicans maintain and grow majorities in the House and the Senate. But let’s say that they don’t. Let’s say we – let’s say we lose, hypothetically. This is totally hypothetical. We lose majorities in the House and the Senate or one or the other.

Success is that the Select – the China Select Committee is preserved. Success would be that these issues become bipartisan, maybe like they once were, but maybe in a healthier and more constructive and productive way.

The Select Committee has shown, I think, the country what bipartisanship looks like on combating the China threat. But I think our success is there. It’s that these issues can become – remember, when the Select Committee was set up, the Democrats opposed it. They did what they could to block it. And then when it was – when then-Speaker McCarthy stood it up and put Republicans and Democrats on it with a thoughtful approach, it was productive. So, I think success here is growing a greater bipartisan approach to these issues.

SINGLETON: Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, obviously, we’d like to see the committee continue the tremendous work, all of the intellectual knowledge and capital that’s built up there. Although we are fortunately seeing staffers move to different positions in the Senate and the private sector and bringing that education with them. It’s so important.

MOOLENAAR: You know what? That was something that really was challenging for us. But then you have friends in different – you know, in the administration that you’ve worked with, in the Senate that you’ve worked with, and we need an all-hands-on-deck approach for our country And so, in the long run, that’s a really good thing. In the short run, you know, talent moves, right?

SINGLETON: We’re hiring, folks!

(LAUGHTER)

I think you mentioned, sir, the Huawei example. It’s a great one. We have seen this movie before. I don’t know why we want to watch this horror film again.

I mean, you, I think, expertly outlined this list of cutting-edge technologies. It’s drones. It’s biotech. It’s aerospace. It’s internet-connected modules. It’s connected vehicles. Are our TVs spying on us? It’s literally this connected universe that we’re entering into. But both of you have introduced legislation that balances – and, again, has no impact whatsoever on foreign students coming to the United States, tremendous capability, tremendous potential. So, many students want to stay here and become – and embrace democracy, become U.S. citizens, taxpayers, enjoy all the benefits of living here.

You have several pieces of legislation that are moving through Congress right now. Research Security, we have DETERRENT Act is another one. Again, why do you think those pieces of legislation are so critical?

What the – help us understand what’s in them. Because I think a lot of folks are trying to separate what they hear, these myths that maybe we’re cutting back on Chinese students or even foreign students, but none of the bills that you guys have introduced do anything to that effect.

MOOLENAAR: No. And I, you know, I think you look at Chinese students, you know, they are – they’re vulnerable to leverage from the Chinese Communist Party. So, if anything we ought to be encouraging them to communicate with our authorities because they’re being asked in many cases to report to someone who’s trying to glean information.

And we’d want that – when it comes to some of the other areas of legislation, I think we just have to have a recognition that China is different.

SINGLETON: Yeah.

MOOLENAAR: When we competed with the Soviet Union, we understood there was a technology challenge, there was a military challenge, human rights, economics, but our economies weren’t intertwined.

SINGLETON: Right.

MOOLENAAR: And now we have a different situation, so we need a new playbook. And that’s what we’re working on to give guidance on these.

So, you know, it can be legislation, you know adding – you know, we did BIOSECURE [Act] in a previous, you know, looking at some of the biotech. We’re trying to add biotech to the COINS Act, which was outbound investment. Because what we’re finding is, you know, Wall Street and other entities are investing a lot in companies that are affiliated with the Chinese military.

You know, there is all these issues that you’d say you’d never do that with Iran, you’d never do that with Russia. You wouldn’t do that with North Korea. Why are we allowing this sort of direction to happen with China? And so, I think there needs to be a general wake up, you know.

I think about the Sputnik moment years ago. I think when China threatened to cut off all access to rare-earth elements that was kind of a Sputnik moment, but they could do that in a variety of areas. They would like to do that in the area where they dominate supply chains and use that for political leverage.

So, we don’t want to be dependent on them for our medicines. We don’t want to be dependent on them for our technology. And so, we just need to have, sort of, this general awareness. And I agree with Jim, the importance of a bipartisan approach because one party cannot do this alone.

SINGLETON: No, totally. Absolutely. I mean the – it’s right. The Chinese are racing, or we’re racing, frankly, to reduce our reliance on Chinese supply chains. At the same time, the Chinese want to maintain that dependency because of the power it provides them.

So, there is this push-pull right now where I think we’re starting to see – and they showed their hand. Sir, you’re right with the rare-earth move. But pharmacy, biotech, parts of our biodefense supply chain, AI and the DeepSeek moment, that the AI moment that that we’ve all been looking for. In export controls and the importance of these things, it really is a holistic challenge, and we’re starting to see more movement.

But in the Senate side as well, we’re seeing…

BANKS: The rare-earth mineral move was fascinating because in the – those negotiations when they when they threatened and temporarily blocked rare-earth minerals, Secretary Bessent and other administration officials said that the flip side of that was the president’s threat to end student visas for Chinese students, and that – and they reacted more to that than anything.

That that was our – rare-earth minerals was their leverage. Student visas effort for Chinese students coming to American universities was our leverage. What does that mean? That means that they’re desperate to send their students here.

SINGLETON: Yeah.

BANKS: Not just because we have world-class institutions, but they also have other motives. And we have to be clear-eyed about that. I don’t think it’s – I don’t think it’s an accident in Beijing – and President Trump’s recent summit with Chairman Xi that he talked about us welcoming Chinese students because that was the message that he was getting from them. So, there is a – there are a lot of lessons to draw from that.

At the same time, Secretary Rubio has been so good on blocking student visas for Chinese students who have direct ties to the CCP. I mean, that’s been a strong move by this administration. And I’m all for codifying that or legislating that to make that permanent. But another great move by I think the toughest president, the toughest administration we’ve ever had on the China threat.

SINGLETON: Yeah, absolutely. It was a quite a tell from the Chinese that when Secretary of State Rubio made that threat publicly that we saw a quick movement on rare-earths and reaching détente.

And, of course, the important role that Department of State plays in vetting some of these partnerships. We’ve seen tremendous movement from the Department of Education to transfer certain responsibilities to the State Department just because they have the vetting procedures and they have the access and trying to build better synergy because we’re handling in silos. And I think a lot of the legislation you’ve all put together and are advancing and that we support I think broadly in the think tank community is aimed at sort of creating that holistic response.

I’d like to open up to the audience. We have time for a few questions. Please keep your questions brief so we can hear from as many people as possible. If you could identify yourself and your organization before you ask a question, I’d appreciate it. And I think we have someone in the back with a mic.

GOFF: Thank you both so much for being here. Dr. Amanda Goff. I’m with Armis from ServiceNow. Thinking about this from not just an infiltration perspective but also an exfiltration perspective, what work needs to be done to support universities to secure the data that they’ve already collected and the IP they already have?

We saw when OEF [Operation Enduring Freedom] kicked off in February, Iran, Russia, North Korea, China – they weren’t targeting DOD networks; they were targeting universities, electric grids, water treatment centers. So, how do we think about that holistically to make sure that the information we do have isn’t also being taken off of our local networks and sent back across to China?

MOOLENAAR: Well, that’s a challenge, and you know, just one other thing I would just add to what you’re talking about is, you know, their talent recruitment. You know, they have one of the leading researchers, chemists from Harvard who’s over there now and they just recruited someone who’s a leader in AI to head up a program.

We have some of our business leaders of major companies who are on boards of Chinese universities. And you’d have to say how does that benefit the American people? And what should be the guardrails when it comes to that?

So, I think in terms of talent, in terms of information, I think those are all things we need to look at. And again, we need to work with the institutions to – you know, we don’t want to hinder research. We don’t want to – you know, we’ve benefited for that – from that innovative ecosystem. But what we’re doing right now, China is clearly exploiting it, and we’ve got to get ahead of that.

SINGLETON: You raise a really good – sorry.

BANKS: It’s hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

SINGLETON: Yeah.

BANKS: We learned we learned this lesson over and over again the hard way.

SINGLETON: Yeah.

BANKS: So, we have to do – I think we have to do more on the front end to prevent them from stealing our IP and getting away with what they’ve always got. They’re used to getting away with it because they always do get away with it.

So, how do we prevent that from happening? And what can – what tools can we give the president to hold them accountable for it, too? But I don’t know how to – I don’t know how we put the toothpaste back in the tube.

SINGLETON: One thing I think that that raises – your question raises to me is basic information and mandatory security for university systems to harden. If you want to get DoD research funding – again, we give money to private enterprises, you have to have a SCIF, right? You have to meet a standard for vulnerability audits, penetration testing, closed networks, and systems. You can – maybe that’s something we all need to be thinking a little bit about, because if you have the responsibility of receiving these funds and conducting this cutting-edge research, then we need to know it’s safe, and it’s both the personal risk, but, as well as the systemic, the technological risks, as our adversaries get stronger.

So, it’s a really great question, and I appreciate it. Thank you. Next?

YARON: Hi. Nir from Hudson Institute. I want to just ask, it seems like you’ve discovered a very efficient mechanism by the CCP to get Chinese students to know – integrated into American knowledge, and then bring that knowledge back into their, like, military-industrial base.

I’m saying, if we have this very successful model which we know a lot about, and have been very well-crafted by the Chinese government, why not take something similar to that and actually use it as an opportunity to strengthen our technological or military ties with our partners around the world, whether that is the U.K., or Poland, or Israel?

Just start to think of the mechanisms that we’ve seen taking place and working really efficiently, and to use them to place students and professionals from those countries in the U.S., get some knowledge, bring it back and strengthen the broader – or the Western coalition.

BANKS: All for it.

MOOLENAAR: Yeah, I think it – I think your point is really well-taken, where we need to keep building stronger alliances. You know, one of the important relationships we need to build is – you know, especially in the semiconductor area, you think of, like, ASML, which is a company in the Netherlands. You know, we’re trying to figure out ways to protect our technological advantage in AI and make sure that doesn’t – we don’t lose that to China.

They’re thinking about the same things, but we should be working together on sort of a threshold to say, “OK, here’s our policy working with like-minded countries who are innovative.” Still need to participate to some degree with China and their market, but not getting the best technology in their hands, because they will use that for dual use purposes. And so, I think you’re right. We need to work with like-minded countries.

SINGLETON: Yeah, it was during the first Trump administration that Keith Krach advanced this notion, right, of safe networks and trusted networks and partnerships across the Indo-Pacific. Some of that work was continued into the Biden administration, and we’re seeing it revived now both in the defense space. But it’s definitely an area where we should be thinking about allied scale. Rush Doshi, a friend at CFR, promotes that concept, and we talk about it mostly in the defense industrial base, but this is a great add-on, I think, as well, because it’s the driver of that innovation, so.

ALPER: Alex Alper from Reuters. Thank you, guys, for doing this. I had sort of a cultural question, and then a tacky political question. But on the cultural side – I mean, I think mostly the discussion has been about restrictions on universities and, you know, how they’ve adapted to those.

But I was wondering if you guys, you know, are seeing any cultural shift. I mean, there’s such a mentality of openness which has, you know, led to such great research collaboration through the years. And I mean, do you feel like there is a change at foot? And is there – are there efforts, I guess, from, you know, Washington to get at that? Or is it really sort of more of a carrot? And then I’ll ask a political one if that’s OK.

BANKS: In Indiana, if you look at public political polling, or even private political polling, there is no political issue that that tests more popular with Hoosier voters, like an 85 percent, 90 percent issue, which is, if you know anything about political polling, that’s off the charts – among all voters than banning the Chinese from buying farmland. It’s 85, 90 percent of Hoosiers say they support that. So, the Indiana legislature did that. They passed a bill to ban the Chinese from buying our farmland. In Tennessee, Marsha Blackburn, my current colleague, is running for governor of Tennessee. She’s running on that issue: Ban the Chinese from buying farmland.

So, I think there is a cultural moment here that –where Americans of different political backgrounds and in different regions of the country recognize the threat.

In Indiana, we just – our legislature just passed a bill this last session, a young and up-and-comer state rep, Andrew Ireland, introduced a bill to ban sister-city agreements. The – I – when I first got involved in politics in Indiana 20 years ago, sister-city agreements were all over the state. Every big city, every small town had a sister-city agreement with a city in China, and now that’s a very popular new law in our state.

So, I think the politics is on our side. I think it’s a cultural moment where the American people are more clear-eyed about this threat than they’ve ever been before.

MOOLENAAR: And I would agree with that. I would say one concerning thing is generationally, I’m not sure that’s going to stick. And the reason I say that is the Reagan Institute just did a poll that looked at, you know, Chinese espionage, and older generations were much more concerned about that than younger generations. And I – and as I’ve talked to young people, sometimes you’ll get this comment: “Well, you know, data security isn’t that important,” or “information isn’t, because, oh, our government knows these things. What’s the difference between that and the Chinese government?”

Well, first of all, I think we should all be concerned that we want to protect data security and personal information, you know, and make sure there’s that privacy in our own country. But to equate that with the Chinese government where, you know, our government’s job is to secure our rights; China’s government doesn’t, you know – people don’t have the rights, and you know, it’s really what the CCP directs them. And so, I think we need to do a better job, and our university campuses need to be clear-eyed about that and communicate this, because you can’t lose the next generation on the importance of the freedoms that we enjoy.

SINGLETON: We’ll have to hold off on that question until the end.

But we are out of time, but I want to thank Chairman Moolenaar, Senator Banks, your leadership on this issue for this terrific conversation.

Thank you all for joining us, and to everyone watching online, as well. To learn more about our work at FDD, visit fdd.org, and we’ll see you soon. Thank you so much, everyone. Appreciate it.

(APPLAUSE)

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