House Committee on CCP wants University of Michigan to halt military research for China

In a letter to the president of the University of Michigan (UM), the chairman of a House Committee asked UM to stop collaboration with a Chinese university, citing “national security.”

The Chinese university named by the House Committee has been tagged as a “high risk” CCP institution because of its close ties to the Chinese military and its work in primary defense areas that target the U.S. and allied countries.

The request to UM comes as the House Select Committee on the CCP released a 113-page report, “How American Taxpayers and Universities Fund the CCP’s Advanced Military and Technological Research.”

The report found that hundreds of millions of dollars in federally funded research at U.S. universities in “dual use, critical and emerging technologies” have been exploited by China for military uses and to abuse human rights.

Dual use technologies are technologies with both civilian and defense applications, such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors. 

Breakthroughs in research have helped the People’s Republic of China (PRC) make advancements in hypersonic missiles, fourth generation nuclear technology, high performance explosives, target tracking, and drone operations, said the committee’s report. 

Such breakthroughs are fostered by cooperation between universities in China and the U.S., such as the one that exists in a joint initiative between UM and China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University, first established in 2006, according to Australian defense researchers. 

Shanghai Jiao Tong University, however, is designated as a “high risk” school by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s (ASPI) “China Defense University Tracker” because of its high level of research for China’s military. 

ASPI also said that Shanghai Jiao Tong has alleged links to cyberattacks. 

In October, five Chinese nationals in Michigan, who were members of the UM-Shanghai Jiao Tong Joint Institute at the time of the incident, were charged with lying to the FBI to cover up an alleged late-night reconnaissance of a Michigan military site that included photos of the installation. 

It is believed that the suspects have since fled the U.S. 

That incident led the House Select Committee to look more closely at the relationship between UM and Shanghai Jiao Tong. 

“The result of these activities was recently exposed when federal authorities charged five PRC nationals from the Joint Institute who were studying at U-M with deliberately concealing their unauthorized visit to Camp Grayling, an important military training site in northern Michigan,” Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Michigan, who is chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP, wrote to UM President Santa Ono. 

In a court filing, the FBI documented several instances of college students from China taking photos of vital defense sites in the U.S., according to CNN. 

The House Committee’s report developed six case studies showing how the “PRC’s defense and security establishment benefits from technological advances developed by 

federally funded researchers” at universities, leveraging expertise, applied knowledge, and practical capabilities developed with U.S. taxpayer dollars. 

The report also found that universities received “undisclosed foreign gifts” from China in the “hundreds of millions, if not billions” of dollars that likely helped make it easier for universities to build relationships with the CCP “that pose risks to U.S. national security.” 

Specifically, Moolenaar told UM’s Ono that research from the university’s joint project with Shanghai Jiao Tong “helped the PRC achieve advancements in defense technologies from propellant combustion modeling and solid rocket fuel research to anticorrosion technology for military aircraft developed with People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Researchers.” 

“Notably, Shanghai Jiao Tong houses China’s National Defense Laboratory for Nano- and Microfabrication Technology, a field that is a key research area of the Joint Institute as well,” said Moolenaar.  

Chinese students from the UM-Shanghai Jiao Tong Joint Institute later join CCP Defense firms that are blacklisted by the U.S., added Moolenaar.  

Shanghai Jiao Tong has at least five areas of defense research, said ASPI: Aircraft design; hydrodynamics; ship design and manufacturing; an unknown discipline in the School of Nuclear Science and Engineering; and system simulation and control.  

The UM-Shanghai Jiao Tong Joint Institute offers two undergraduate majors in mechanical engineering and electrical and computer engineering, according to ASPI.  

“Given these concerning developments, I strongly encourage you to shutter the partnership between U-M and Shanghai Jiao Tong and take the necessary steps to safeguard the integrity of federally funded research at U-M and carefully vet international students studying on U-M’s campus,” Moolenaar concluded in his letter to UM’s Ono.