U.S. House comes after Purdue on ‘Trojan horse’ of Chinese students on campus

Purdue President Mung Chiang among six to get letters asking to account for what House committee calls a national security threat of Chinese students in STEM degree programs

• Support for this edition comes from Food Finders Food Bank, presenting its Blue Jean Ball May 3. The annual event and auction raises funds for Food Finders’ mission of serving 84,000 individuals across a 16-county service area who are one emergency away from hunger. Tickets are on sale now here.

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U.S. HOUSE COMMITTEE COMES AFTER PURDUE ON ‘TROJAN HORSE’ OF CHINESE STUDENTS ON CAMPUS

Purdue was one of six universities targeted this week by a U.S. House Select Committee’s demands to answer what campuses are doing to deal with what it called national security risks involved with accepting students from China in their engineering and other STEM degree programs.

Purdue President Mung Chiang – along with presidents at Carnegie Mellon, Stanford and the universities of Illinois, Maryland and Southern California – this week received a letter asking him to account for Chinese national students’ names, how they are screened before being allowed into federally funded projects, how many are on campus and tracking data about how many of those students stay in the U.S. after getting Purdue degrees.

In the letters, U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican and chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, called the student visa system “a Trojan horse for Beijing, providing unrestricted access to our top research institutions.”

“If left unaddressed, this trend will continue to displace American talent, compromise research integrity, and fuel China's technological ambitions at our expense,” Moolenaar said in a statement, as the letters went to Chiang and the other university presidents.

Purdue officials had not responded, as of Friday, to questions about how Chiang or the university planned to address questions in the letter.

Chiang has been quiet publicly on questions about recent federal threats of funding cuts and policy changes demanded of higher ed, saying the university didn’t plan to address hypothetical situations. How this specific request for student information and university policies fit into that silent approach wasn’t clear this week. As of Friday, the letter from the U.S. House Select Committee didn’t appear on Purdue’s page of federal agency communications, where the university has been updating guidance on funding and other issues for faculty, staff and students since January.

Purdue reported that 2,133 students from China were enrolled on the West Lafayette campus during the fall 2024 semester. That accounted for 21% of Purdue’s international student enrollment on the West Lafayette campus. (China was second in Purdue’s international student enrollment to India’s 3,047 students, which accounted for 30%.)

Purdue’s overall enrollment was 55,119 at the start of the fall 2024 semester.

Moolenaar’s letter gave Chiang until April 1 to respond to a set of questions and points about students and faculty ties to China. The congressman’s letter accused universities of being more interested in the flow of full-rate tuition than in national security, amid what the committee’s letter referred to as a Harvard study that indicated 75% of Chinese students come to U.S. university with the intent to return to China.

“The United States is at a dangerous crossroads where the pursuit of short-term financial gains by academic institutions jeopardizes long-term global technological leadership and national security,” Moolenaar wrote. “Our nation's universities, long regarded as the global standard for excellence and innovation, are increasingly used as conduits for foreign adversaries to illegally gain access to critical research and advanced technology. Nonetheless, too many U.S. universities continue to prioritize financial incentives over the education of American students, domestic workforce development and national security. They do so by admitting large numbers of Chinese nationals into advanced STEM programs, potentially at the expense of qualified Americans. …

“The brain drain of critical expertise is not a coincidence but a reflection of Beijing's explicit strategy to leverage academia for technological advancement. The CCP's talent recruitment programs actively incentivize students and researchers to return to China and apply their acquired skills in ways that directly benefit the regime's economic and military ambitions. As a result, U.S. universities serve as training grounds for China's technological ascendance. Without stronger protections, American academic institutions risk facilitating the very innovation that the Chinese government seeks to use to outcompete and surpass the United States.”

An Associated Press report had this from Thursday, with pushback from Chinese officials a day after the letters went out:

“In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Chinese students account for about one-quarter of all international students in the U.S. and that their activities have promoted ‘the economic prosperity and technological development of the U.S.’

“‘This is in the interest of both parties,’ Mao told reporters at a daily briefing. “We urge the U.S. to stop overstretching the concept of national security, effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese students, and not impose discriminatory restrictive measures on Chinese students.”

For more: “China calls for protections for students in US after congressional panel demands data from colleges.”

Here’s what Moolenaar’s letter asked Purdue to do:

1. Provide a list of all universities that Chinese national students at your university previously attended, including their research affiliations.

2. Specify the sources of tuition funding for these individuals (e.g., personal wealth scholarships, Chinese talent recruitment programs, Chinese government grants).

3. Identify the type of research Chinese national students are conducting and the programs they are participating in at your university.

4. List all university programs that include Chinese national participants, along with the sources of funding for these programs.

5. Provide a list of laboratories and research initiatives where Chinese national students currently work.

6. Provide a country-by-country breakdown of applicants, admittances, and enrollments at your university.

Along with the following questions for Purdue:

1. What percentage of the university's total graduate student body consists of Chinese nationals?

2. What percentage of the graduate program's total tuition revenue comes from Chinese nationals?

3. What percentage of Chinese graduate students are engaged in federally funded research projects?

4. Does your university have policies in place to prevent foreign nationals from working on projects tied to U.S. government grants (e.g., Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, National Science Foundation funded research)?

5. Have Chinese nationals worked on federally funded research?

6. Does the university have monitoring mechanisms to track foreign students' participation in research with military or dual-use applications?

7. What collaborations exist between university faculty and China-based institutions or research laboratories?

8. Have any Chinese graduate students disclosed participation in China-backed recruitment and talent programs, government grants, or corporate-backed funding initiatives?

9. Are there restrictions on Chinese nationals enrolling in export-controlled coursework (e.g., advanced semiconductor engineering, quantum computing, AI, and aerospace engineering)?

10. What percentage of Chinese graduates from your university remain in the United States, and what percentage return to China?

11. Are Chinese nationals disproportionately concentrated in high-tech fields such as AI, quantum computing, robotics, aerospace, and semiconductors?

12. Are there any background screening processes for Chinese nationals applying to sensitive research programs?

13. Do any faculty members maintain research ties with Chinese institutions or researchers? If so, which universities and/or researchers in China?

14. How many Chinese STEM graduates return to China, and what industries or institutions do they typically join (e.g., Huawei, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, Aviation Industry Corporation of China, etc.)?

Thanks for support for this edition goes to Food Finders Food Bank, presenting its Blue Jean Ball May 3. The annual event and auction raises funds for Food Finders’ mission of serving 84,000 individuals across a 16-county service area who are one emergency away from hunger. Tickets are on sale now here.

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