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This March, Stanford’s President, Dr. Jonathan Levin, received a letter from the Select Committee on the CCP detailing the security risks China poses to STEM research. For years, concerns about Chinese espionage have quietly persisted at Stanford. Throughout our investigation, professors, students, and researchers readily recounted their experiences of Chinese spying, yet they declined to speak publicly. One student who experienced espionage firsthand was too fearful to recount their story, even via encrypted messaging. “The risk is too high,” they explained. Transnational repression, $64 million in Chinese funding, and allegations of racial profiling have contributed to a pervasive culture of silence at Stanford and beyond.
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After interviewing multiple anonymous Stanford faculty, students, and China experts, we can confirm that the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] is orchestrating a widespread intelligence-gathering campaign at Stanford. In short, “there are Chinese spies at Stanford.”
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Speaking at a China Town Hall event, the former U.S. National Security Council’s Director for China, Matthew Turpin, characterized the threat of Chinese espionage at Stanford:
"The Chinese state incentivizes students to violate conflicts of commitment and interest, ensuring they bring back technology otherwise restricted by export controls.”
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A China expert, familiar with Stanford, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed that of the approximately 1,129 Chinese International students on campus, a select number are actively reporting to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law mandates that all Chinese citizens support and cooperate with state intelligence work regardless of location.
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One Chinese national at Stanford spoke to us on this very issue under conditions of anonymity:
“Many Chinese [nationals] have handlers; they [CCP] want to know everything that's going on at Stanford. This is a very normal thing. They just relay the information they have.”
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Another Stanford student shared an incident involving their professor's encounter with suspected Chinese espionage. According to the student, the professor recounted needing to schedule a meeting with a Chinese student. When the student declined, citing a mysterious reason, the Professor asked why. The student replied, “You know why.” The professor continued to inquire, only to receive the cryptic response, “I cannot tell you that.” Finally, the professor revealed that the student admitted to meeting a CCP handler.
This issue has been under discussion at Stanford since 2019, as highlighted by a Stanford Daily article that featured interviews with anonymous Chinese nationals. One Chinese student remarked, “Whether peer monitoring exists at Stanford is moot; it’s the possibility that keeps people cautious about what they say. If it exists, I’m not going to be surprised.”
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I totally see where you are coming from and feel for it. Knowledge should be free.
So I'd say that there are two parts to this issue. The first is how this is being done. Remember that Stanford already has the Stanford Center at Peking University (SCPKU) and has had exchanges with Chinese students before via the Undergraduate Visiting Research Program. In fact, as recently as 2019, they were a collaborator with Huawei, as per https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20190211124159161
So going to all this trouble, as described in the linked article, isn't really all that necessary. And it's all a bit disturbing if one is in Anna's position - why am I dealing with someone who's dishonest with me about who they are? Why am I being lied to?
The other part is that, I'm not confident that the CCP would be sharing what they learn with us. Unlike the open knowledge exchanges that I mentioned above, what's described in the article is stuff being learned more secretively. Which perhaps would be fine if it ultimately went towards the good of the public in China, but since we aren't even supposed to know (from their point of view) that they have it, who's to say it would be used for the greater good? They might instead hoard it until they figure out a way for individual members to become rich from that. Which would benefit no one.
Finally, I'm ignoring the whole military angle here. But Universities generally have safeguards in place to prevent their research from being used for harm. The manner in which this "espionage" is happening would undermine those safeguards, however, potentially allowing research to be used in ways that the researchers would not have agreed to otherwise.