Friendship with Tianjin University is a threat to U.S. national security
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CounterCurrent: China Edition
Georgia Tech Undermines National Security
Friendship with Tianjin University is a threat to U.S. national security
CounterCurrent: China Edition is a monthly newsletter of the National Association of Scholars uncovering and highlighting the effects of the Chinese Communist Party's influence on American education.
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Category: China, Foreign Influence, Higher Education;
Reading Time: ~4 minutes
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** Georgia Tech Undermines National Security ([link removed])
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The term ([link removed]) “telling tales out of school” emerged during the English Renaissance to condemn sharing privileged information; yet it uncomfortably applies to today’s higher education system and national security. Last fall, as Harvard fumbled in covering its tolerance for anti-Semitism ([link removed]) and plagiarism ([link removed]) , China’s Tianjin University (TJU) also made the news. Tianjin’s research ([link removed]) in the development of 6G telecommunications technology was noted as instrumental in The Eurasian Times’ November coverage of a wargame in which Chinese hypersonic missiles successfully shot down U.S. B-21 stealth bombers.
TJU plays ([link removed]) a key role in building China’s “civil-miliary fusion,” such as building dual-use technologies relevant to weapons development. It is overseen by China’s State Administration for Science, Technology, and ([link removed]) Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) and conducts research for China’s Ministry of State Security. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice charged three TJU professors with economic espionage targeting radio frequency technology.
The U.S. government is seemingly well aware of TJU’s malign activities that are detrimental to American national security, as the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) flagged ([link removed].) the university over its economic espionage in 2020 ([link removed]) . Just last March ([link removed]) , the BIS expanded its Export Administration Rules (EAR) to cover more than 13 entities and aliases of TJU because of noted risks to national security. As of 2015, TJU listed ([link removed]) U.S. partners that included NASA, Harvard University, Caltech, UC Berkeley, Stanford University, MIT, Princeton, the University of Arizona, the
Carnegie Institute of Science, the University of Michigan, the University of Maryland, UC Santa Cruz, UC San Diego, UT Austin, and additional universities in U.S.-aligned countries.
As the race for nuclear missiles shaped the Cold War, a twenty-first century Sino-American semiconductor race ([link removed]) serves as one of the features of great power conflict for supremacy in the Pacific. TJU is part of this race, along with some of its U.S. partners. Just recently, a team of researchers from TJU and Georgia Tech created ([link removed]) a new semiconductor out of graphene that can outperform silicon.
The relationship between TJU and Georgia Tech dates at least to 2016, when then Georgia Tech president G.P. Peterson announced ([link removed]) the collaboration between the two universities as part of a “focus on internationalization” that would include cooperation in the majors of electrical and computer engineering, computer science, environmental engineering, and more. In 2020 ([link removed]) , China’s Ministry of Education “approved the establishment of the Georgia Tech Shenzhen Institute (GTSI), Tianjin University as a Sino-Foreign Cooperative Education Institute between Georgia Tech and Tianjin University.” The agreement ([link removed]) is renewable until 2036. Seemingly unconcerned over TJU’s ties to Beijing’s civil-military fusion initiatives, Georgia Tech worked
([link removed]) with TJU’s International Center for Nanoparticles and Nanosystems on its graphene research.
Graphene is a big deal beyond its purely commercial uses. In 2018, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute noted how an estimated ([link removed]) 2,500 soldiers from China go abroad to Western universities and companies to procure sensitive research and repatriate it for Beijing’s military. Graphene is but one of multiple targets for procurement. China’s military has dubbed ([link removed]) such efforts as “picking flowers in foreign lands to make honey in China.” A year later, the European Defense Agency noted ([link removed]) that graphene’s military applications pertain to drone technology, “ballistic protection materials,” supercapacitor electrode technology, and nuclear capabilities. Georgia Tech helped create a graphene semiconductor, but may have helped create a
military catastrophe along with it.
Until next time.
P.S. This Thursday, January 18, at 3 pm ET, we will be hosting a webinar event with Xi Van Fleet, a Chinese dissident and education advocate. Register here for "Mao's America: A Discussion with Xi Van Fleet ([link removed]) ," we hope to see you there!
Ian Oxnevad
Senior Fellow for Foreign Affairs and Security Studies
National Association of Scholars
Read the Article ([link removed])
For more on foreign influence, current news, and higher ed:
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** Event: ([link removed]) Mao's America: A Discussion with Xi Van Fleet ([link removed])
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Join the National Association of Scholars on Thursday, January 18, at 3 pm ET ([link removed]) , as we explore the similarities between today's progressive revolutionaries and Mao's 1960s Cultural Revolution.
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December 20, 2023
** A Political Earthquake in an Overeducated Latin American Republic: Argentina Elects Javier Milei ([link removed])
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Eric-Clifford Graf
In psychological terms, the explanation for the dramatic shift is a bipolar nation. On the one hand, Milei’s success shows that ideas matter in Argentina.
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June 15, 2022
** Report: After Confucius Institutes ([link removed])
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Rachelle Peterson, Ian Oxnevad, & Flora Yan
This report documents the new ways in which the Chinese government exerts undue influence on American colleges and universities.
** About the NAS
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