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News this week that several Chinese nationals were charged with conspiring to smuggle biological materials into the U.S. while working at a university laboratory is renewing calls to address the growing threat of foreign nationals infiltrating top institutions for nefarious reasons.
“The news from Michigan this week was entirely unsurprising,” Reagan Dugan, project manager for higher education at Defending Education, told Fox News Digital in response to news that Chinese nationals had been charged for importing biological material related to roundworms from China under the “guise” of research at the University of Michigan, according to authorities.
“The CCP has made clear that they see the American education system as a weak link in our broader national security. From their concerning partnerships with America’s leading high schools and universities, to a troublesome pattern of espionage by affiliated college students, the CCP continues to test the limits of what we’ll let them get away with.”
Dugan acknowledged “many foreign students have no ill intentions” when they come to study in the United States, but warned that the University of Michigan has had issues with similar situations before, and that the CCP has “no qualms” about harassing Chinese national students and threatening their families to acquire sensitive information.
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Fox News Digital has extensively reported on the CCP attempting to infiltrate research facilities at universities in the U.S., including earlier this year when a bombshell report out of Stanford University outlined a “widespread intelligence-gathering campaign” by the CCP at the school.
“In short, there are Chinese spies at Stanford,” the report warned.
China expert Michael Pillsbury, a Fox News contributor, told Fox News Digital that the “real problem” is that China “seems to spend more time cultivating and even having surveillance on their students than we do.”
“Obviously, the FBI can’t interview all 300,000 Chinese students, but Pam Bondi correctly said in her press release that we’ve got to be vigilant about any malicious activity,” Pillsbury said.
Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute focusing on U.S. and China relations, told Fox News Digital the news is “disturbing,” and said lawmakers in Washington can and should do more to address the issue.
“Given the CCP’s recent track record — operating a bioweapons lab in California, stockpiling DNA of American citizens, and militarizing biotechnology more broadly — policymakers should treat the threat of weaponized biotech with the seriousness it deserves,” Sobolik said. “Washington and Beijing are neck and neck when it comes to biotechnology, and the CCP is looking to exploit multiple threat vectors within the U.S. homeland. It touches multiple departments and agencies — Department of War, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, among others — and requires a unified response from the top.”
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At the university level, Dugan told Fox News Digital, “Fixing this starts with improving the screening process of students from countries whose governments wish us harm, especially those wishing to study STEM and related fields. Further, though, schools must accept this is a national security issue and work with the government on continued oversight of foreign nationals working in these fields.”
At the University of Michigan earlier this year, Fox News Digital reported two Chinese nationals were charged with allegedly smuggling a “dangerous biological pathogen” into the country which was described by some as a “potential agroterrorism weapon.”
Sobolik, who recently published an article titled “Pathogen as Policy: Defending Against Chinese Biowarfare,” told Fox News Digital at the time, “This is the Chinese Communist Party. This is what they do. They’re in a cold war with the United States. They want to become the most powerful nation in the world and they wanna make the world safe for their tyranny and unsafe for freedom. And they’re coming for us here at home.”
Michael Lucci, founder of State Armor, told Fox News Digital there is “much more to be done” to ensure that college campuses can withstand the onslaught of CCP spying operations and “protect our institutions.”
“As long as American colleges and universities continue to leave the door open for Chinese infiltration, the CCP will take advantage,” Lucci said. “American higher education is a soft target for Chinese espionage, which is why state legislatures across the country are digging in to find party-state ties and curtailing research collaboration with Chinese nationals who are loyal to the CCP.”
Lucci pointed to legislation introduced in Wisconsin last week aiming to protect higher education from Chinese espionage.
“Federal and state action is needed, and for now the states are leading,” Lucci said. “Michigan needs to adopt a suite of solutions to protect its obviously compromised higher education system.”
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