Why did Russian President Vladimir Putin visit a Chinese university under US sanctions?

Name: Russia’s Vladimir Putin visits China’s ‘little Moscow’ Harbin as part of state visit
Uploaded: 2024-05-24T14:00:10.000Z
Duration: 2 min 20 s
Description: Russia’s Vladimir Putin visits China’s ‘little Moscow’ Harbin as part of state visit

Harbin Institute of Technology is regarded tops among China’s ’Seven Sons of National Defence’ universities

Putin says the HIT has productive partnerships with leading Russian institutions and ‘is a talent base for China’s nuclear industry’

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Russian President Vladimir Putin visits an exhibition at the Harbin Institute of Technology in Heilongjiang province in northeastern China on May 17. Photo: Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP

Zhang Tongin Beijing

Published: 10:00pm, 24 May 2024Updated: 11:59pm, 24 May 2024

During his state visit to China last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), which is not only a close collaborator with Russia but also a significant player in China’s national defence technology sector.

On the stop, Putin shook a robotic hand developed by HIT and repeatedly praised the university’s strengths in cultivating talent and academic research. Despite being located in the northeast corner of China, HIT’s research capabilities are formidable.

HIT is one of the “Seven Sons of National Defence”, a group of universities directly under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology that specialise in military engineering, aerospace, naval engineering and information warfare. Among these, HIT is widely regarded as the highest-ranked institution, receiving the most research funding.

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Russia’s Vladimir Putin visits China’s ‘little Moscow’ Harbin as part of state visit

These universities have traditionally kept a low profile but have gained prominence in recent years because of US sanctions. Some even jokingly refer to the sanctions list as an “honour roll”, suggesting that being sanctioned signifies recognition of their research prowess by the US.

Proclamation 10043 issued on May 29, 2020, and signed by then US president Donald Trump, defines these schools as engaged in “military-civil fusion”. In other words, they are sanctioned because of their critical role in China’s national defence construction.

HIT was among the first batch of institutions to join China’s “985 Project” which was aimed at developing world-class universities. It was the first in the nation to establish a school of astronautics and has continued to lead in crewed space flight and robotics. Beijing Institute of Technology is known for its weaponry disciplines while Beihang University has a reputation in aerospace.

The sanctions have made it difficult for graduates and researchers from these institutions to obtain US study visas and have hindered their ability to buy laboratory equipment and software from the US. Additionally, some American companies, such as Microsoft Research Asia, have stopped recruiting graduates from these schools.

Despite the sanctions, budgets at the Seven Sons of National Defence have been rapidly increasing. HIT’s budget rose from 10.8 billion yuan (US$1.49 billion) in 2021 to 19.46 billion yuan in 2024, the highest of the seven universities.