US funding helped China’s military modernization: Congressional report

Hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. federal research funding has contributed to China’s technological advancements and military modernization, according to a new report. Republicans on the House Committee on the Chinese Communist Party found that partnerships between Chinese and American universities helped the CCP make advancements in hypersonic and nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence, advanced lasers, semiconductors and robotics. 

The committee said that the funded technology is the same kind that the People’s Liberation Army would use against the U.S. military in the event of a conflict.

“The research funded by the [Department of Defense] and the [Intelligence Community] is providing back-door access to the very foreign adversary nation whose aggression these capabilities are necessary to protect against,” the report stated.

The committee said there is a lack of legal guardrails around the federal funds. It recommends stricter guidelines for federally funded research, including restricting researchers who receive U.S. grants from working with Chinese universities and companies that have military ties. 

The committee pointed to multiple universities which have received grants including the University of California, Berkeley, UCLA and the Georgia Institute of Technology. It said Georgia Tech and UC Berkeley are both working to cut ties and relinquish ownership of their Chinese partners and programs. 

The report also said that joint education institutions at UC Berkeley and the University of Pittsburgh “serve as conduits for transferring critical U.S. technologies and expertise to China, including to entities linked to China’s defense machine and the security apparatus it uses to facilitate their human rights abuses.”

The report blamed the Biden-Harris administration for not enforcing foreign gift and contract requirements through the Department of Education. 

“These undisclosed foreign gifts—likely hundreds of millions, if not billions in total—gives PRC entities troubling influence without transparency and contribute to building the research relationships that pose risks to U.S. national security,” the committee said.  

This report follows a yearlong investigation between the House Committee on the CCP and House Education and Workforce Committee.