WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today posed the following line of questioning to witnesses at a full committee hearing titled “The Malign Influence of The People’s Republic of China at Home and Abroad: Recommendations for Policy Makers”. Witnesses included Peter Mattis, president of The Jamestown Foundation, Jeffrey Stoff, founder of the Center for Research Security and Integrity, Dr. Melanie Hart, Global China Hub’s senior director at the Atlantic Council, and Dr. Jennifer Lind, professor at Dartmouth College.
Chairman Risch gave the following remarks:
“I want to commend the panel, we get panels through here all the time, but this is probably as good a presentation as we've had on an issue in a long time.
“Part of this whole problem is the fact that convincing America how dangerous of a situation this is. Something I've been focused on over the years and have been somewhat successful but not completely, is to get a better handle on what colleges and universities are doing.
“The colleges and universities, as all of you know, are a target rich place for the Chinese. They show up with money and as was pointed out here, colleges and universities respond to money, whether it's from their donors, from their alumni, or from the Chinese showing up with money.
“Most Americans are shocked to hear that we have hundreds of thousands of Chinese students studying here in the United States, with only a tiny fraction of U.S. students studying in China.
“The difference is, Chinese students here in the U.S. are not studying ancient Greek history. They're here studying STEM and national security issues. And each one of them, whether they like it or not, is an agent of the Chinese Communist Party. When they go back, we all know they get debriefed and any information that they've garnered here in the United States becomes property of the Chinese Communist Party.
“We've seen example after example of the Chinese showing up at a university, offering millions of dollars and in return they get a chair, they get in an endowed chair, they get an entire institution within the institution focused on whatever they choose. The universities have an entirely different view than we that work in the national security lane do. I think are sincere in their belief that in academia, we're all in this together and it’s one big world where we should all use this knowledge we have and share it with each other, regardless of national security implications of it. Whether it's designing computer chips or designing factories that manufacture arms.
“Please, give me your thoughts on how we bring universities on board to have a better understanding of how dangerous China is and how they are exploiting us – even without our knowledge in a lot of instances – in taking what we have?
Mr. Mattis:
“One thing I can tell you is that ten years ago, this was a completely different problem than it is today. There are resources, there are companies, there are more experts, there are journalists, there are plenty of places where universities can go. So, a dearth of expertise or a lack of information is no longer the problem that they once faced or wasn't severe.
“The second, as I think, my friend Jeff, has said, that the grant reporting requirements from the federal government actually have to be rigorously pursued and adhere to. We wouldn’t consider it corruption if it were a defense contractor or others that were not providing the correct reporting requirements.
“The problem here is the corruption in the rules and the corruption of the process. As long as that process is clear and has rigor, then it will provide the basic level of protection.
“I think the other piece that's there is to go back into your home states and to talk to the public universities and engage them and ask, well, what have you done for a compliance? What do you do about these things? Because I know from my time on Capitol Hill that those conversations actually did bear fruit and they did drive public universities to think about this.”
Mr. Stoff:
“Thank you for the question. I agree, a lot of it has to do with raising a level of understanding and awareness. One of the challenges is that the U.S. government needs to share a lot more information on the kind of investigations.
“For example, the OIGs do a lot of interesting things that are at civil and administrative levels that don't reach public record because they're not a criminal indictment. That's not a bad thing, but what happens is the universities are not seeing, and they're not really incentivized to see, what's happening on their campuses and the type of malign influence and the way China can come in and divert and influence the research that's going on.
“There is some information that the government has that I think needs to do a much better job in sharing that. I think there are also needs to be much more scholarship on the topic itself where we demonstrate activities behavior that China exerts that is fundamentally against the principles and values of academic freedom, transparency, reciprocity and integrity. Which is a core to what universities talk about of their mission, and there needs to be a lot more effort looking at where and how this is being done to show this is affecting us all, including on your campus so that we have taken more collective action. Thank you.”
Dr. Hart:
“I endorse the comments that have come before and would like to just add one point. We need a scalpel for this, not a sledgehammer. It is in U.S. national interest to keep the student pipeline open. We're in a pitched battle for global tech supremacy, for decades, Beijing stole our IP. Let's steal their best engineers.
“China's national engineers developed the deep seek AI model that surprised the world this week. We would be better off of the engineers behind that were working here in the U.S. in our universities and companies. It's important to keep that in mind.
“Those student exchanges are a way that we can siphon off some of Beijing's top talent. So, we want to make sure that for the students that are here, for the researchers that we want, that they feel they are safe in the United States, they understand how to follow the rules, and they feel their civil rights will be protected. We can beat Beijing at making Chinese scientists feel safe.
Chairman Risch:
“Well, thank you, Dr. Hart. There’s a flaw, however, in your suggestion. I think probably everyone in the room knows that when a student comes over here, they’ve got to go back. If they don't go back, there's a family there, and we all know what the Chinese government does the families. They do it across the oceans and they do it even here in the United States.
“So that’s a great idea. The problem is, we're dealing with a malign institution here. We're not dealing with Americans who allow freedom of movement to do what you want to do. They will take it out on the families, and we've all heard stories of that.
“Your thoughts are well taken that it would be good if we could reverse the tables. I'm not so sure we could do it in the same matter.”
These remarks have been lightly edited for clarity. Witness testimony is available on foreign.senate.gov.
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