House Republicans have asked seven US universities to cut ties with a Chinese scholarship program that lawmakers cite as “nefarious mechanism” which aims to steal technology for the Chinese government.The lawmakers sent letters on Tuesday to Dartmouth College, the University of Notre Dame and five other schools, warning them about their partnerships with the China Scholarship Council (CSC). The CSC is a study-abroad program funded by the Chinese government that pays for hundreds of Chinese graduate students to study at US universities every year. After graduation, these students are required to return to China for two years.Republican Representative John Moolenaar, chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, called the program a threat to US national security. He wrote that the CSC claims to be an academic partnership but it actually uses American universities to support China’s military and scientific growth.Some universities say they are already leaving the program. Dartmouth said it has had fewer than 10 students in the program over the past 10 years and had already decided to end it. Notre Dame said it began ending its involvement earlier this year. The University of Tennessee confirmed it received the letter and is reviewing it.The House committee is now reviewing how the program operates at US universities. Lawmakers have demanded for documents related to the program from all seven institutions.According to the letters, these partnerships have brought up to 15 Chinese graduate students a year to Dartmouth and about 40 to Notre Dame.House Republicans, including US President Donald Trump, have been paying closer attention to Chinese students in the US. In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US would cancel visas for some Chinese students studying in critical field. During his first term, Trump restricted visas for students linked to China’s “military-civil fusion” strategy.Many US universities agree on the need to protect research but warn against treating all Chinese scholars with suspicion. They note that only a small number have ever been involved in spying.China is the second-largest source of foreign students in the US, after India. In the 2023–24 academic year, more than 270,000 Chinese students studied in the US, making up about a quarter of all international students. Most pay their own way, and many stay to work in the US, while others return to China after graduation.Representative Moolenaar has focused on cutting ties between US and Chinese universities. In May, he pressured Duke University to end a partnership he said allowed access to federally funded research. In June, Eastern Michigan University ended ties with two Chinese universities after pressure from the committee.Last year, House Republicans released a report claiming that hundreds of millions of dollars in US government research funding had ended up helping China advance in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and nuclear weapons. The report called China’s academic partnerships “Trojan horses” for stealing technology and said China was taking advantage of academic cooperation in a secretive and harmful way.
