The House Committee on Education and Workforce and the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is demanding Duke University end its campus in China due to concerns it is giving government officials access to sensitive data.
In a letter sent on Wednesday to university president Vincent Price, the committee chairmen aired concerns that Duke Kunshan University (DKU), located in Suzhou, China, has ties to “Chinese entities” and is threatening research security and indoctrinating American students with Chinese propaganda.
“Through its partnership with Chinese entities, DKU enabled the CCP to access sensitive U.S. technology, including Department of Defense-funded research into advanced camera systems—now used to surveil Tiananmen Square and track millions of people across China,” a press release from the committees reads. “The university has also allowed American students to be exploited in CCP propaganda and showcases imagery of DKU students participating in military-style training on its website. This partnership raises serious concerns about research security, academic freedom, technology transfer, and the manipulation of U.S. students for authoritarian purposes.”
Duke University’s ties to Chinese entities “jeopardize the integrity of U.S. research, risk the exploitation of sensitive technologies, and undermine taxpayer investments intended to strengthen America’s technological and defense capabilities,” the committees allege. Members are demanding the school end its collaboration with China.
Duke did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
The university was created in 2018 in partnership with Wuhan University, which directly contributes to Chinese defense research, including “military intelligence operations.”
The committees say the university’s partnership with China “creates a direct pipeline between U.S. innovation and China’s military-industrial complex” through the shared U.S.-funded research. Over 3,000 students are enrolled at DKU.
“Wuhan University is not an ordinary academic institution,” the letter reads. “It is a direct extension of the Chinese military and intelligence apparatus.”
The letter also alleges the Chinese branch offered 62 Duke students a “free trip” to China in 2024 and coached the students to say “I love China” in Mandarin when they were “swarmed” by Chinese state media upon arrival. The students reported feeling “used” as if they were part of a “traveling circus.”
“This was not education but exploitation,” the committee’s letter says.
The Trump administration in recent months has been exposing and investigating Chinese and other foreign influence in U.S. universities, with President Donald Trump signing an executive order in April requiring American universities to be more transparent about any foreign donations they accept. This came after revelations that despite federal law requiring such reporting, many schools have not been forced to reveal their foreign donors in years.
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