Head of US House panel urges schools to reconsider ‘nefarious’ Chinese scholarship programme

Representative John Moolenaar, the head of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, is calling on seven American universities, including Dartmouth College, to reconsider partnerships with a Chinese scholarship organisation.

The move is the latest congressional attempt to curb the flow of Chinese students to the US over national security concerns. Since taking over as chair of the committee, Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, has made ending US-China partnerships a priority.

In letters dated Tuesday and released Wednesday, he asked the schools’ presidents to reassess ties with the Chinese Scholarship Council, the primary body in China providing state-funded scholarships to facilitate academic exchange.

He also asked them to provide details about their contractual agreements with the CSC, the Chinese entities that CSC-sponsored students came from and joined after graduation, the students’ involvement in US government-funded research and an explanation of how supporting China-linked talent aligns with US interests.

In addition to Dartmouth, targeted schools include Temple University; the University of California, Davis; the University of California, Irvine; the University of California, Riverside; the University of Notre Dame; and the University of Tennessee.

The Chinese Communist Party “has a long track record of acquiring US technology through both legal and illegal tactics – including talent recruitment programs, academic partnerships that serve its military, forced tech transfer, espionage, and outright theft”, Moolenaar said in a statement on Wednesday.