New Investigative Report Uncovers Billions in Taxpayer Money Used to Fund Chinese Military Apparatus

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the House Select Committee on China released a groundbreaking investigative report revealing that the Biden-era Defense Department and longtime career officials have allowed extensive research to be conducted with CCP-backed defense entities while funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars.

More than 1,400 research publications have been identified involving DOD-funded projects with Chinese partners—totaling more than $2.5 billion in taxpayer funding. Approximately 800 of the publications—over half— involved direct collaboration with Chinese defense entities.

Several case studies in the report point to large national security risks. In one case, a DOD-funded nuclear expert at Carnegie Science largely worked on research for the Pentagon while holding dual appointments at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Hefei Institute of Physical Sciences.

In another case, the Office of Naval Research, the Army Research Office, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) funded a partnership with researchers from Arizona State University, the University of Texas, Shanghai Jio Tong University, and Beihang University focused on high-stakes decision-making in uncertain environments—research with immediate applications to cyber warfare and defense. Notably, Beihang University is one of the Seven Sons of National Defense—a school known for its close defense ties with the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

In a third example, a 2024 publication on nanoscale optical devices, funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), was co-authored with researchers from City University of New York, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Wuhan University of Technology, and the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT). Both Huazhong University of Science and Technology and Sun Yat-sen University are co-administered by China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND), an agency that conducts research for the PLA. CALT is China’s largest missile weapons and launch vehicle development and production base, responsible for the development of both hypersonic missiles and reusable launch vehicles.

This report follows the September 2024 investigation by Select Committee Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) and former House Education and Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) which uncovered that hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. federal research funding over the last decade has contributed to China’s technological advancements and military modernization.

Many alarming policy shortfalls were found, including:

• DOD R&E has not meaningfully updated its risk framework or enforcement protocols. For example, DOD has added only a small fraction of China’s known talent recruitment programs and defense-designated laboratories to the 1286 List, even though both government and private sector analyses have identified many more.
• DOD R&E does not currently prohibit research relationships on fundamental research with entities DOD has designated as national security threats under the DOD 1260H List—rendering the list functionally meaningless and undermining its own research security framework.
• DOD does not currently conduct post-award compliance or monitoring of grants, including in cases where risk mitigation measures were required. 

The Select Committee's new report makes it clear: there is no justification for U.S. taxpayer-funded research to be conducted with entities documented to have facilitated human rights abuses or support China’s mass surveillance apparatus. 

Read the new report here.

Read the AP News exclusive here.