(The Center Square) – The Chinese government now places students at Stanford University to report back on academic research, student journalists said this week on a panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation.
In May, the Stanford Review published an investigation article, exposing why the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has had an increasing influence on Stanford’s campus.
Student journalists Elsa Johnson and Garrett Molloy, who co-wrote the story, discovered that Chinese authorities have been strategically putting students at Stanford to gain intel.
“The CCP is orchestrating a widespread intelligence-gathering campaign at Stanford,” said the Review article. “In short, there are Chinese spies at Stanford.”
In the story, Johnson explained that a CCP agent, who impersonated a Stanford student under the alias of Charles Chen, contacted her and several other students through social media.
“I ended up getting in touch with the FBI afterwards, and I was awakened to the fact that this actually happens a lot at Stanford,” Johnson said.
Chen was exposed for likely being an agent for the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) tasked with gathering information from college students.
“Stanford is a prime target for Chinese espionage,” due to its location near California’s Silicon Valley, Molloy added.
A China expert, wishing to remain anonymous, told the Review that of the approximately 1,129 Chinese International students on Stanford’s campus, a certain amount are actively reporting to the CCP.
According to China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, Article 7 and 14 mandate that all Chinese individuals must support national intelligence work and give the agency the authority to demand cooperation, regardless of their location.
In March, Dr. Jonathan Levin, the President of Stanford received a letter from the Select Committee on the CCP explaining the national security risks China poses to academic research.
“As China aggressively pursues dominance in strategic industries, the unchecked enrollment of Chinese nationals in American institutions risks facilitating the technological transfers that strengthen Beijing’s military and economic competitiveness at our nation’s expense,” the letter stated.
Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow at Heritage’s Border Security and Immigration Center, said there are concerns alleged espionage is helping China and hurting the United States.
“We want to make sure that they are real students, that they’re coming here to get an education and not to be full-time activists or do things that are against the interest of American citizens,” he said.
