U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) said the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long infiltrated America's higher education system to steal our intellectual property and create a more favorable view toward their brand of communism, but it's time they are stopped.
“The Chinese Communist Party is deploying agents and influence operations at America’s colleges and universities,” the congresswoman said to Homeland Newswire. “Their infiltration of America’s higher education system is aimed not only at stealing our intellectual property, but also at shaping a pro-CCP narrative in American academia in addition to maintaining a watchful eye on Chinese students studying abroad. We must end this malign influence, which is why I am honored to support bills in Congress like Congresswoman Elise Stefanik’s Stop Higher Education Espionage and Theft Act of 2021.”
A recently released report from the America First Policy Institute, "Chinese Communist Party-Funded Campus Initiatives Undermine U.S. National Security," claims China uses student organizations, such as Confucius Institute, to take advantage of “woke” trends and uses accusations of “racism” and “intolerance” to de-platform anti-CCP speakers on university campuses while spying on Chinese dissidents within the student population.
The report also notes CCP partnerships with universities and its recruitment of individual researchers through its talent programs to create an environment of “nontraditional collectors” of intelligence and intellectual property in the academic space, according to the report. China has explicitly called for educational initiatives, direct funding of programs and faculty on U.S. campuses, and the placement of students in advanced graduate programs to advance its espionage and theft of intellectual property efforts, according to the report.
In 2019, the report "Threats to the U.S. Research Enterprise: China’s Talent Recruitment Plans" was published by the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, under the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI). U.S. Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) as then-chairman and ranking member of the PSI, led the year-long investigation that detailed how American taxpayers have been unknowingly funding the rise of China’s military and economy for more than 20 years with little deterrence from federal agencies. Starting in the late 1990s through its “talent recruitment programs,” China began recruiting U.S.-based scientists and researchers to transfer U.S. taxpayer-funded IP for China’s economic and military gain, the report found.
A letter from the U.S. Department of Education's (DOE) Office of the General Counsel stated how Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires colleges and universities to disclose acceptance of any foreign money or entrance into any contracts with foreign governments, companies, persons, or their agents. In support of enforcement for Section 117 the DOE opened compliance investigations into six universities. The investigation found these six universities collectively failed to report in excess of $1.3 billion from foreign sources, including China, Qatar, and Russia, over the previous seven years, despite their legal duty to do so under Section 117.
Furthermore the investigation uncovered that five of the six universities reviewed have or had multiple contracts with the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, a company that has been the subject of multiple U.S. national security and trust concerns and has been banned from accessing federal broadband subsidies for posing a national security risk.
FBI Director Christopher Wray stated, "The Nation faces a rising threat, both traditional and asymmetric, from hostile foreign intelligence services and their proxies. ... [A]symmetric espionage, often carried out by students, researchers, or businesspeople operating front companies, [is] prevalent."
Tenney was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2016 to represent the 22nd District of New York. She sits on the House Small Business Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Before entering into politics she was an accomplished attorney and small business owner.
