(Daily Caller) As tensions between the U.S. and China grow due to the Coronavirus outbreak that has infected people in 25 countries including the U.S., Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence on American college campuses has also continued to loom, highlighting a trend at America’s most elite institutions.
Most recently, Charles Lieber, the chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard, was charged with aiding the Chinese government and hiding his ties about accepting millions in funding. His involvement with the Chinese government included recruiting skilled individuals to the Thousand Talent Program, which in some cases has resulted in violations of U.S. law, such as espionage, theft of trade secrets, and grant fraud.
The FBI also issued a federal arrest warrant for Yanqing Ye, a lieutenant in the People’s Liberation Army, China’s armed forces, and a member of the CCP. Ye studied at Boston University, hiding her involvement with the PLA and CCP while accessing U.S. military websites and sending U.S. documents and information to China.
These arrests and indictments are occurring on campuses across the country. In 2019, a University of Kansas researcher was charged with collecting federal grant money while secretly working for a Chinese university and a professor at a university in Texas was accused in a trade secret case.
A 2019 Senate investigative report underscored the government’s growing concern about the theft of American intellectual property as well as the spread of Chinese propaganda on college campuses through the Confucius Institute.
“Communist China is infiltrating American universities to meddle with our curricula, silence criticism of their regime, and steal intellectual property including sensitive dual-use research,” Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said in 2018.
U.S. intelligence agencies are continuing to implore universities to better monitor students and visiting researchers from Chinese government affiliated institutions as the U.S. and China continue to dispute over trade, security, and the developing virus outbreak.
