By Jerry Dunleavy
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/author/jerry-dunleavy
The Department of Education released a new report on Tuesday with details on its wide-ranging investigation into foreign funding on campus, including specific warnings that U.S. university partnerships with foreign adversaries, most notably China, could pose a risk to national security.
“American higher education is a critical human and technological strategic resource. The intellectual dynamism created by our nation’s historic commitment to academic freedom, free inquiry, and free speech on campus has substantially contributed to America’s economic and national security,” the 34-page report from the Education Department’s office of general counsel noted. “Accordingly, for decades, foreign state and non-state actors have devoted significant resources to influence or control teaching and research, to the theft of intellectual property or even espionage, and to the use of American campuses as centers for propaganda operations and other projections of soft power.”
The agency argued that “under Secretary Betsy DeVos’ leadership, the Department has, for the first time, taken concrete steps” to enforce Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 on foreign funding.
The Education Department specifically warned that U.S. institutions of higher education “regularly work with foreign entities known or suspected to present national security risks” in a somewhat-redacted section focused mainly on the Chinese Communist Party’s influence on U.S. campuses. Investigators lamented that “institutions have directly entered into agreements with foreign governments, even repressive governments that are often hostile to American national security interests, such as China.” The names of specific schools were largely redacted within the report.
The agency warned that “chief among these security concerns” is U.S. universities partnering with the “heavily state-influenced” Chinese technology giant Huawei, one of the largest telecommunications providers in the world, that “became a household name not only because of its products’ international presence but because of these products’ potential enablement of foreign espionage.” The report noted that Huawei’s corporate structure includes a CCP committee that exerts influence from the Chinese government, and it also laid out at least $75 billion in support from China’s government, all meant to advance “Huawei’s global prowess” and to make its presence “a potential tool of the Chinese government and grave national security concern in the U.S. and abroad.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/education-department-warns-about-national-security-risks-posed-by-chinese-funding-on-campus