Stanford Review: China Conducting Academic Espionage at Stanford

Stanford is one of the leading universities in the Unites States and naturally that makes it a target for China. I’ve written about China’s attempts to infiltrate American universities before. Back in January 2020, the head of Harvard’s chemistry department, Dr. Charles Lieber, was arrested for lying about his connections to a Chinese program that recruited US scientists and offered them big money to share their expertise with Chinese universities.

According to a criminal complaint, Lieber failed to disclose that he was being paid a salary of up to $50,000 per month and up to $158,000 per year in living expenses by China’s Thousand Talents Plan and the Wuhan University of Technology. Federal investigators also determined that Lieber was awarded more than $1.5 million to establish a nanotechnology research lab at WUT…

The Thousand Talents Program was launched by China in 2008 and was used to appeal to scientists in lots of fields. Dr. Lieber was convicted on six counts of lying about his connection to Thousand Talents. He lost his job at Harvard and earlier this week he started a new job teaching at a Chinese university.

Lieber started his new role at Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, where he now holds the school’s highest faculty rank, in Shenzhen, China, on April 28.

“Shenzhen’s dynamism and innovative spirit align perfectly with my vision to co-create a global scientific hub here,” Lieber said during an April 28 ceremony welcoming Lieber to the university, according to a press release.

But Thousand Talents isn’t China’s only means of gathering useful scientific information. Today the Stanford Review, an independent paper at the school, released a report on China’s efforts to infiltrate the campus using Chinese students as undercover agents.

This summer, a CCP agent impersonated a Stanford student. Under the alias Charles Chen, he approached several students through social media. Anna*, a Stanford student conducting sensitive research on China, began receiving unexpected messages from Charles Chen. At first, Charles’s outreach seemed benign: he asked about networking opportunities. But soon, his messages took a strange turn.

Charles inquired whether Anna spoke Mandarin, then grew increasingly persistent and personal. He sent videos of Americans who had gained fame in China, encouraged Anna to visit Beijing, and offered to cover her travel expenses. He would send screenshots of a bank account balance to prove he could buy the plane tickets. Alarmingly, he referenced details about her that Anna had never disclosed to him…

Under the guidance of experts familiar with espionage tactics, Anna contacted authorities. Their investigation revealed that Charles Chen had no affiliation with Stanford. Instead, he had posed as a Stanford student for years, slightly altering his name and persona online, targeting multiple students, nearly all of them women researching China-related topics.

The Review spoke to professors and students who had experienced Chinese spying but no one was willing to go on the record, too afraid of China’s ability to make lives difficult for those who present a threat to them, even people living abroad.

After interviewing multiple anonymous Stanford faculty, students, and China experts, we can confirm that the CCP is orchestrating a widespread intelligence-gathering campaign at Stanford. In short, “there are Chinese spies at Stanford.”

Experts on China described how this works. China uses a “non-traditional collection” approach to spying at Stanford. The goal isn’t to take classified information but to gather more practical information on how to make use of Stanford’s research discoveries.

Stanford faculty speaking anonymously stated that this non-traditional collection of sensitive technology is extensively practiced at Stanford, particularly in AI and robotics.

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.

One anonymous Chinese student told the Review, “Many Chinese [nationals] have handlers; they [CCP] want to know everything that’s going on at Stanford. This is a very normal thing.”

China has many ways of controlling Chinese nationals abroad. Failure to comply with the demands of the CCP can result in serious consequences such as threats of arrest aimed at family members or even trumped up charges aimed at an individual. And most of these students will be going back to China eventually, so even if they can avoid the consequences in the short term, it could haunt them later to not go along with CCP demands.

And there’s an even easier way to control students. About 15% of Chinese students in the US are receiving funds for their tuition from the government. It would be very easy to cut off those funds if a student refused to supply information China wanted. In fact, the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC) seems to select students who show some willingness to be useful to them. In 2023, Radio Free Asia reported that these students had to swear allegiance to China before coming to the US.

Tens of thousands of Chinese students studying overseas on government-backed scholarships are required to sign a document pledging loyalty to the ruling Communist Party, as well as putting up guarantors who could be forced to repay their funding should they break the agreement, before arriving at overseas universities, Radio Free Asia has learned.

Sweden’s Dagens Nyheter newspaper reported on Jan. 13 that 30 doctoral students arriving in the country had signed contracts pledging loyalty to their government while overseas, and requiring them to serve China’s interests during their stay.

The article notes that there is a reason this topic is rarely discussed in the open. Anyone who dares is likely to be accused of racism. That accusations works to silence critics which is just perfect for China.

The whole article is worth a read and is just the first in a series on CCP influence on Stanford’s campus.