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Opinion

Why is China secretly giving donations to American universities?

Feb 22, 2023

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More than 100 American universities and colleges received donations, gifts, or contracts from sources in China between the years 2013 and 2020, according to a Bloomberg analysis of U.S. government data. Harvard University received the most—nearly $100 million—with the majority of donations considered gifts. A House Oversight panel is looking into donations China made to the University of Pennsylvania.

Straight Arrow News contributor Newt Gingrich argues China’s “infiltration” of American universities is a big problem with no easy solution.

One of the striking discoveries about Chinese Communist penetration in the states has been the degree to which they have been giving money away to American universities, most of which is not reported. We’re not able to account for it. 

Harvard has gotten over $100 million in money from the Chinese Communists. At the same time, we have, for example, at MIT, the penetration of Chinese influence is so great that while he was the active U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo was blocked by MIT from speaking on campus because it would offend the Chinese. 

Think about that. An American Secretary of State can’t speak on an American campus, because they’ll offend the Chinese Communists. We’ve also learned, I think, in ways that tie directly back to Hunter Biden and the scandal of the Biden family finances, that there are two Biden centers. 

There’s a Penn Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania. And there’s a Biden Center at the University of Delaware. Well, it turns out both places get money from the Chinese Communists. The best of our knowledge, again, all of this is blocked because they are not transparent, they’re not accountable, they’re not sharing the information. 

But University of Pennsylvania has gotten at least $62 million from the Chinese Communists. Remember, the current Secretary of State Anthony Blinken ran the Penn Biden Center for a reported $1 million a year salary. So you’ve got a guy who may be very friendly to Chinese Communists in ways that we don’t fully understand. At the same time, the University of Delaware, which has a huge volume of documents from all Biden’s years in the Senate, the University of Delaware has gotten at least $28 million.

One of the striking discoveries about Chinese Communist penetration in the states has been the degree to which they have been giving money away to American universities, most of which is not reported – we’re not able to account for it. 

Harvard has gotten over $100 million in money from the Chinese Communists. At the same time, we have, for example, at MIT, the penetration of Chinese influence is so great that while he was the active US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo was blocked by MIT from speaking on campus because it would offend the Chinese. 

Think about that. An American Secretary of State can’t speak on an American campus, because they’ll offend the Chinese Communists. We’ve also learned, I think, in ways that tie directly back to Hunter Biden and the scandal of the Biden family finances, that there are two Biden centers. 

There’s a Penn Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania. And there’s a Biden Center at the University of Delaware. Well, it turns out both places get money from the Chinese Communists. The best of our knowledge, again, all of this is blocked because they are not transparent, they’re not accountable, they’re not sharing the information. 

But University of Pennsylvania has gotten at least $62 million from the Chinese Communists. Remember, the current Secretary of State Anthony Blinken ran the Penn Biden center for a reported $1 million a year salary. So you’ve got a guy who may be very friendly to Chinese Communists in ways that we don’t fully understand. At the same time, the University of Delaware, which has a huge volume of documents from all Biden’s years in the Senate, the University of Delaware has gotten at least $28 million.

And there are some reports of a substantially larger donation since Biden became president. Again, it’s all secret, they refused to reveal the information. Interestingly, three out of every four Americans 76% believe that universities should be required to report publicly any money they get from overseas and 65% of the country, virtually two out of every three Americans believe no Chinese communist money should be able to go to American schools and universities. 

I think this is going to turn out to be a very big problem. I think we’re going to be shocked when we discover how many places the Chinese Communists, and others, the Russians, the Saudis, all sorts of governments, which are not Democratic, not free, not open, have been trying to penetrate the American system. And one of the ways they’ve been trying to do it is by infiltrating the universities with huge volumes of money. This is a real challenge, and one which is not going to go away

 

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