NEWS AND ANALYSIS:
China’s communist government is exploiting American universities and gaining access to military technology for its hypersonic missile research and nuclear arms, according to a landmark House committee investigation.
The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party also disclosed in an alarming report that Pentagon controls and security measures on its technology work are woefully inadequate and urgently need reform.
A review of some 1,400 research papers published from June 2023 to June 2025 — under the Biden administration — shows that 300 Pentagon grants funded Chinese entities and more than half involved partnerships with companies linked to People’s Liberation Army research and industrial projects.
More than $2.5 billion in U.S. defense-funded research involved Chinese military-related entities, the report said.
“These collaborations involved research in sensitive technical domains such as hypersonics, quantum sensing, semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI), advanced materials, cyber warfare, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems, and next-generation propulsion — many with clear military applications,” the report said.
Disclosure of the report could undermine President Trump’s recently announced plan to double the number of Chinese students in the United States to 600,000 students.
Critics of the Trump plan, including the select committee, have warned that increasing Chinese student enrollment poses a national security threat.
House select committee investigators uncovered details of “a pervasive and deeply troubling pattern of U.S. taxpayer-funded research being conducted in collaboration with Chinese entities that are directly tied to China’s defense research and industrial base.”
The report faults Pentagon security systems that have failed to prevent Chinese government and military suppliers from circumventing programs designed to prevent technology theft and exploitation.
Unlike U.S. and Western democratic systems, Chinese research entities are “deeply politicized” by the CCP and subordinate to national objectives including military and economic advancement.
“While global collaboration in scientific and engineering research is essential to advancing innovation and solving shared challenges, the PRC has systematically weaponized this openness,” the report said, using the acronym for People’s Republic of China.
The committee investigation relied in part on a unique software produced by China expert L.J. Eads, founder of Data Abyss. The software surveyed Pentagon contracts and extracted hidden data on the links between university research that bolstered the Chinese military.
The software tool created a clear audit trail from taxpayer-funded research to international partnerships of concern, Mr. Eads said.
Key partnerships involving Pentagon-funded research involved what the report called the “Seven Sons of National Defense” as major Chinese universities are called, and numerous schools attached to the State Administration for Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND).
Others involved Chinese national defense-designated laboratories, the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics, a Chinese cyber-range, and BGI, formerly Beijing Genomics Institute.
“All of which have been publicly linked to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and some of which appear on U.S. government entity lists due to their roles in advancing China’s military capabilities or engaging in human rights violations,” the report said.
Some of the Chinese research entities are on the Commerce Department’s blacklist of companies restricted from doing business with the United States.
“This lapse reflects [the Defense Department research and engineering office’s] failure to adopt a proactive approach to prohibiting such collaborations,” the report said.
Multiple cases found that Pentagon-funded research also supported Chinese human rights abuses or direct participation in China’s mass surveillance apparatus, the report said.
Regarding hypersonic missiles, the report said the seven national defense universities directly engaged in PLA hypersonic missile research and development.
China leads the world in hypersonic missile deployment and the Pentagon is trying to catch up with its own ultra-high speed maneuvering strike weapons.
A second area of U.S. support for PLA weapons development involved U.S. research support on nitrogen with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The collaboration allowed Chinese military research to achieve a breakthrough in high-yield explosives that contributed to advancements in China’s nuclear weapons development, the report said.
China’s rapid nuclear weapons expansion has been called “breakout” by the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command as the warhead arsenal expanded from around 250 warheads to 600 warheads in just a few years.
Committee investigators said despite its strategic role in developing technologies for warfighters, security among Pentagon research and engineering offices lacked controls, due diligence and proper monitoring to protect losses, like those obtained by the Chinese.
Despite a law passed in 2019, the Pentagon “has not meaningfully updated its risk framework or enforcement protocols,” the report said.
For example, the Pentagon identified only a small number of China’s known talent recruitment programs and defense-designated laboratories to the list of military-linked entities, the report said.
“Through a state-directed apparatus that includes talent recruitment programs, military-civil fusion policies, and extensive use of foreign partnerships, China has exploited international research cooperation to acquire sensitive technologies and technical know-how to directly compete in technology areas and warfighting capabilities with the United States,” the report said.
“The time for passive risk tolerance is over. American taxpayer dollars should be used to defend the nation—not strengthen its foremost strategic competitor.”
Based on the report, Select Committee Chairman John Moolenaar introduced legislation that would ban federal technology research from collaborating with adversary-controlled entities that pose national security risks.
“The bottom line is clear: Officials at the Department of Defense have allowed high-risk collaboration to run unchecked, eroding America’s strategic advantage and endangering our warfighters, all while doing so on the backs U.S. taxpayers,” the Michigan Republican said in releasing the report.
“The United States should never subsidize the modernization of China’s military.”
Corrupt FBI counterspy tipped off Chinese in Biden probe
The FBI’s senior counterintelligence official in New York alerted Chinese energy executives about a major federal investigation linked to the Biden family, according to a Justice Department inspector general report.
The regional counterspy chief, Charle McGonigal, headed New York operations against foreign spies between 2016 and 2018.
McGonigal in 2023 was sentenced to six and half years in prison for relatively minor offenses of hiding material facts from investigators and violating economic laws as part of a plea agreement.
His crime was colluding with a Russian oligarch to evade U.S. sanctions.
However, the FBI never disclosed publicly in the case that McGonigal had leaked details of the bureau’s investigation of China Energy Fund Committee to its top executive Patrick Ho, who was convicted in federal court of bribing African officials in 2019.
Those damaging details were disclosed Thursday by the Justice Department inspector general report.
In cryptic language, the IG report said McGonigal was in charge of an FBI probe into CEFC and told an Albanian official working for the Chinese company in June 2017 “something to the effect of ’we are looking into them’ or ’we are going after them,’” according to the Albanian official, only identified as “Person B,” in a 2022 proffer interview.
“Person B said that he understood ’we’ to be the FBI and ’them’ to be CEFC China or CEFC NGO,” the inspector general report said.
The New York Times identified Person B as Dorian Ducka, a former Albanian government official who helped make a number of business introductions for McGonigal.
Person B traveled to Washington the day after his meeting with McGonigal and notified Ho what he had been told by the FBI. He also said he believed the FBI planned to arrest him and others in CEFC.
The leaked information also was shared with CEFC China Chairman Ye Jianming, who warned another FBI target, identified in the report as “Target 3” about the imminent arrests.
Former President Joseph R. Biden’s son Hunter and brother James Biden were paid $4.8 million CEFC in 2017 and 2018, according to congressional investigators.
Hunter Biden once described Ho, the vice chairman of CEFC as his client and the “f–—— spy chief of China,” according to a House investigation of the Bidens.
According to the IG report, the FBI questioned a retired Secret Service agent working as a private investigators who told the FBI James Biden asked him 2017 to find out if there was an arrest warrant out for Mr. Ho.
“McGonigal’s actions, while he served as a high-ranking FBI official entrusted with overseeing sensitive counterintelligence and criminal matters, were extraordinary and dishonored the FBI’s core values of integrity, accountability, and leadership expected of all FBI personnel,” the report said.
“Through his scheme, McGonigal intentionally damaged an important criminal case, violated the public trust, and compromised the integrity of the FBI,” the report concluded.
The IG disclosures are among a series of highly damaging internal security cases for the FBI whose counterintelligence section for more than two decades.
FBI Counterintelligence official Peter Strzok was fired by the FBI for sending texts to his mistress stating that the FBI would prevent Donald Trump from becoming president.
Earlier, FBI counterspy Robert Hanssen was caught in 2001 for having worked as a spy for the Soviet Union and Russia for over 20 years.
FBI counterintelligence agent Earl Edwin Pitts spied for the Soviet KGB from 1987 until his arrest in 1996.
FBI counterspy James J. Smith and FBI agent William Cleaveland in Los Angeles were found to have been fooled by a Chinese agent, Katrina Leung, who was paid over $1.7 million for information.
The Justice Department later determined Leung was a double agent who provided FBI secrets to China for more than a decade.
China, Russia conduct first joint submarine patrol
In an operation closely monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies, submarine forces from China and Russia conducted the first joint patrol in the western Pacific last month.
Military analysts called the joint submarine patrol a “varsity event” for the two militaries requiring extensive trust of data sharing on highly secretive submarine operations. The data is needed to prevent the submarines from colliding.
The diesel-electric submarines operated together in early August, according to a statement by the Russian Pacific Fleet and Chinese state media.
The operation was hailed by China as highlighting the two nations’ underwater warfare capabilities and interoperability.
The first joint underwater patrol was part of exercises dubbed the Chinese Maritime Interaction-2025 that was held from Aug. 1-5 in the Sea of Japan.
The unspecified Chinese Kilo-class sub joined the Russian Kilo submarine Volkhov in sailing underwater from the Sea of Japan to the East China Sea.
