Letter to the Editor: How Universities Should Respond to Chinese Government Interference

We thank the Stanford Review for calling attention to the serious risks to research security and to the safety and freedom of international students and their families that result from the relentless espionage and malign interference activities of the People’s Republic of China. There is cause for concern about both the specific incidents cited and the systemic pattern of China’s decades-long quest to steal or misappropriate our most sensitive technological secrets. We must be clear-eyed about the goals and threats of the PRC and recognize that it is a national problem across academia, government, and the private sector. 

As the Review authors note, we must have a comprehensive view of the challenge we confront. How can we protect the national security of the United States, the technological leadership of Stanford University (and its U.S. peer institutions), as well as international students and faculty?  

Stanford, like many of its peer institutions, is a high-value target for espionage and malign foreign interference. But it is better equipped than most to safeguard its research, faculty, and students, including Asian Americans.

In fact, the Hoover Institution at Stanford has one of the leading projects in the US to study and enhance the security and integrity of our research enterprise, in collaborations with Texas A&M University and the University of Washington. (The project, a congressional priority, was authorized by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022). This project, led by Hoover Distinguished Research Fellow Glenn Tiffert, is working in a systematic way to gather the evidence and engage the constituencies necessary to forge effective responses. 

The Review article rightly notes, “Sound policy depends on evidence, not repression.” This evidence-based approach applies leading-edge qualitative and data-science methodologies to provide expertise on sensitive research, threat types, and the evolving environment for international collaboration. It is a cumulative effort of research and outreach among the targets of the PRC’s campaigns, and the project builds on the insights of a trailblazing 2020 report to “rethink risk in the research enterprise.”

Before that, one of the early efforts to document the full range of PRC malign interference efforts in the US was a task force based at and co-sponsored by the Hoover Institution, which produced a 2019 report, China’s Influence and American Interests, co-edited by Hoover and FSI senior fellow Larry Diamond. That report also warned that “China is engaged in a multifaceted effort to misappropriate technologies it deems critical to its economic and military success,” and it voiced strong concern about covert PRC efforts to coerce its overseas students and penetrate and pressure Chinese American communities. 

In short, Stanford is well ahead of many of its peers in researching, understanding, and calling attention to the challenges. We have been doing the hard work of mounting a sophisticated response. 

We must also use language precisely. Espionage is a serious crime, and, while some cases will rise to that threshold, applying the label too broadly risks flawed prosecutions and confusing different aspects of research security. Some are intelligence and law enforcement matters, and others are deterrence and due diligence responsibilities shared across academia, government, and industry. We must be careful not to doubly victimize the many scholars from China who are trying to navigate around intensifying geopolitical pressures, and who deeply appreciate the opportunity to study in the US and even settle here because (in the words of a Chinese student who spoke at the 2017 University of Maryland commencement) they can breathe “the fresh air of free speech” and democracy.  

Giving in to fear will erode American democracy, do a great disservice to the many Chinese (and other) international students who wish in good faith to participate in it, and weaken American competitiveness. Already, China has pulled ahead of the US in fields such as battery technology and electric vehicles. As documented in a recent report of the National Academy of Sciences, the US, once a “global talent magnet” in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math), is losing its edge not only among our democratic allies but also among authoritarian adversaries, especially China. We cannot afford to lose the best new graduate students to our competitors, or to drive away talent ready to settle here. Indeed, protection and promotion must go hand in hand. We should combine a posture of vigilance on research security with reinvestments in the institutions and people on which American innovation and prosperity depend.

We hope the Review’s readers will note its words of caution as well as concern. We are indeed in an epochal contest to determine who will lead the world technologically, economically, and politically.  If the US is going to win this race again, we will need not only resolve but evidence, excellence, and fidelity to our democratic principles.

Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and co-founded its program on China’s Global Sharp Power. Matt Pottinger is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution and served from 2019 to 2021 as U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor. Matthew Turpin is a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution and served during 2018-19 as the U.S. National Security Council’s Director for China and the Senior Advisor on China to the Secretary of Commerce.