A congressional report argues that Beijing has exploited ties with American universities to advance technologically, and that further guardrails are needed.
A House committee focused on threats from China argued in a report released on Monday that U.S. federal research funding had helped to advance Chinese technologies with military applications, helping to fuel a potential national security rival to the United States.
The report argues that Chinese partnerships with U.S.-funded researchers and joint collaborations between Chinese and American universities have helped to propel Beijing’s advancements in fields like hypersonic and nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence and advanced semiconductors. The report concludes that these developments may one day influence how the two nations perform on the battlefield.
The report — put out by the Republican members of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce — also recommends stricter guidelines around federally funded research, including significantly curtailing the ability of researchers who receive U.S. grants to work with Chinese universities and companies that have military ties.
Part of the report focuses on several joint China-based institutes between Chinese and American universities, including one by the University of California, Berkeley, and another with the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Both Berkeley and Georgia Tech disputed many of the report’s findings. But in a statement to The New York Times on Friday, Berkeley said it had decided to terminate its ownership in the Chinese institute, in part because of its lack of visibility into research being conducted there by affiliates of other institutions.
Georgia Tech also announced this month that it would discontinue its participation in its joint institute and work to end its degree programs in China, saying the inclusion of its Chinese partner on a restricted U.S. trade list had made the cooperation “untenable.”
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