US universities ‘massively under-reporting’ funding from China, Russia, other ‘foreign adversaries’, says Trump administration report
- Education Department findings are based on investigations at 12 schools including Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Georgetown
- Most of these universities had financial dealings with Huawei, and at least one had ties directly to Chinese Communist Party
A scathing report from the Trump administration on Tuesday concluded that top US universities have “massively under-reported” funding they accept from China, Russia and other nations described as “foreign adversaries”.
The Education Department released the report amid its effort to enforce a 1986 law requiring US universities to disclose gifts and contracts of US$250,000 or more from foreign sources. After going decades with little federal oversight, the law has become a priority for the Trump administration amid concerns over economic espionage and trade secret theft from abroad.
The department’s findings are primarily based on investigations it has opened at 12 schools, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Georgetown universities. Federal officials began investigating the schools amid suspicion that they had failed to report millions of dollars in gifts and contracts from sources in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
According to early findings in the report, most of the 12 schools have had financial dealings with Huawei, the Chinese tech giant that some US officials say is a threat to national security, and at least one had ties directly to the Chinese Community Party. Others had deals with the Russian government and institutions in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The report did not identify which universities were connected to those entities. Since coming under federal scrutiny, the 12 schools disclosed a combined US$6.5 billion in foreign funding that was previously unreported, the department said.