NEWS

Authored by Kevin Shelley via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

As awareness grows of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) influence in the United States, a former congresswoman from California is shedding light on the regime’s reach in the state, across the country, and around the world.

Rep. Michelle Steel (R-Calif.) speaks during a hearing about the Chinese Communist Party's forced organ harvesting before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China in Washington on March 20, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Michelle Steel, who served in Congress from 2021 to 2025 and sat on several committees dealing with China-related issues, raised concerns about the CCP’s influence on the U.S. higher education system in a recent interview with EpochTV’s “California Insider.”

“Universities were the worst one. We have a prominent university in California called UC Berkeley … and they received $220 million from China,” Steel said.

Under the Higher Education Act of 1965, universities must report to the Department of Education every six months any foreign gifts or contracts—either individually or combined—valued at $250,000 or more in a calendar year.

Steel alleged the university never reported the money.

The allegations surfaced in 2023 when Education and Workforce Committee chairwoman Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and then Select Committee on China chairman Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) stated in a letter to University of California–Berkeley officials that the university failed to report investments from the Chinese municipal government—$220 million of which was intended to fund a campus in Shenzhen, China—for the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, a joint research initiative.

Tsinghua University, one of China’s top institutions, is governed by the country’s Ministry of Education.

In exchange for the money it received, the university allegedly provided exclusive tours of advanced semiconductor research facilities to Chinese delegations, including senior Chinese regime officials, according to another letter to the National Science Foundation from House Science, Space, and Technology Committee chairman Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) and Research and Technology Subcommittee chairman Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.).

“Allowing adversarial nations to access research facilities at the leading edge of semiconductor design is unacceptable, especially when that access is given by a U.S. research institution that receives over $700 million annually in funds from the Federal government,” the pair said in the letter.

The Epoch Times reached out to UC Berkeley for comment.

After the allegation drew public attention in 2023, the university responded by stating that while the funds were initially proposed for a Tsinghua Berkeley Shenzhen Institute campus, the campus was never built and the investment did not take place, campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof told student-run newspaper The Daily Californian in an email that year.

Mogulof said the funds were used to construct a new campus for the Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, which he clarified is owned by Tsinghua University.

However, in a report by the Daily Beast, the university acknowledged it failed to disclose a $19 million contract in 2016 with Tsinghua University.

In 2022, the CHIPS and Science Act lowered the reporting threshold to $50,000, requiring any foreign financial support at or above that amount to be reported to the director of the National Science Foundation.

Stricter rules also apply when sensitive countries are involved, Steel said.

“[Even] when you have coffee with those countries of concern. We’re talking about China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and any of these countries, then you have to report,” she said.

In addition to the risk of intellectual property theft, Steel said large foreign grants can also lead to university administrations being influenced or controlled by foreign governments.

“We saw so many universities, instead of the monies going down to the classrooms … administrations [were] getting bigger and bigger,” she said. “Universities are not corporations that have to make profits. They have to reinvest that to the students.”

Steel also expressed concern that university students could be receiving propaganda from foreign regimes instead of a proper education.

Students pass through the Sather Gate of the college campus at the University of California–Berkeley, in an undated file photo. David A. Litman/Shutterstock

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