A House committee investigation discovered more than 2,000 research papers published in the past decade indicating researchers receiving U.S. federal funding collaborated with Chinese researchers, leading to advances in China’s military technology.
The papers included research on high-performance explosives and rocket fuels, tracking of underwater targets, and coordinated drone operation and artificial intelligence, the New York Times reported.
U.S. researchers have long collaborated with Chinese scientists on fundamental research projects to advance basic scientific understanding in areas such as materials science. However, the House GOP-led report found that this unregulated research has been used to benefit the Chinese military — prompting security concerns for the United States.
“The troubling conclusion then is that Department of Defense-funded research intended to allow the U.S. military to maintain a technological edge over its adversaries — has likely been used to enable and strengthen” the Chinese military, the report said.
The report calls for all U.S. federally funded researchers to be barred from conducting research with Chinese institutions affiliated with the country's military. Such a ban could drastically reduce the number of collaborated research projects between the U.S. and China.
The University of California, Berkeley, and the Georgia Institute of Technology were both mentioned in the report as having allegedly collaborated on academic research for the Chinese Communist Party’s commercial and military benefit. Both of the universities have denied these allegations.
Abbigail Tumpey, vice president of communications at Georgia Tech, said that after conducting an internal investigation in the university's Shenzhen Institute, the university found no evidence that it was providing research to the CCP.
“As Georgia Tech has told the committee for months, there was no research conducted at G.T.S.I., no facilitation of technology transfer, and no federal funding provided to China, and the report provides no facts to support its unsubstantiated claims on these fronts,” she said.
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Regardless, Georgia Tech cut its partnership with the institute after hearing that Congress may end federal funding for institutions that partner with firms tied to the CCP.
Berkeley also ended its ownership of the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute following months of consideration, though it also did not find any evidence that researchers at the institute were furthering Chinese interests.