Chinese operatives may have used Harvard’s trainings to ‘further repress the Uyghur people,’ the lawmakers warn
Three House committee chairs threatened Harvard University’s nonprofit status following a Washington Free Beacon report revealing that the Ivy League school repeatedly trained members of a Chinese “paramilitary organization” after the U.S. government sanctioned the group for its role in the Uyghur genocide.
Republican representatives Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), Tim Walberg (Mich.), and John Moolenaar (Mich.)—who chair House Republican Leadership, the Committee on Education and Workforce, and the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, respectively—sent a letter to Harvard president Alan Garber on Monday demanding comprehensive details about the university’s activities with the Chinese Communist Party.
Those activities include hosting and training members of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), which the U.S. Department of the Treasury described as a “paramilitary organization … that is subordinate to the Chinese Communist Party” while announcing sanctions on the group in 2020. China-focused research group Strategy Risks first uncovered a 2023 training, while the Free Beacon uncovered a second that took place in 2024.
“U.S. educational institutions such as Harvard receive tax-exempt status, among other benefits, due to their educational mission of teaching, research, and public service,” the letter, obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, reads. “Assisting known, sanctioned paramilitary human rights abusers in developing policy and advancing their foreign military capabilities may undermine Harvard’s nonprofit mission.”
The lawmakers demanded a laundry list of documents, including its researchers’ use of Department of Defense funding to partner with Chinese academics from institutions linked to China’s military, including Tsinghua University—Chinese president Xi Jinping’s alma mater. They are also seeking all communications between Harvard and blacklisted individuals, as well as testimony from Winnie Yip, professor of the practice of global health policy and economics.
The congressional inquiry is yet another thorn in Harvard’s side as the school grapples with the Trump administration, which has also threatened to strip the Ivy League university of its tax-exempt status. The Trump administration stripped Harvard of $450 million in federal grants on Tuesday in addition to the $2.2 billion that it terminated last month after the university snubbed White House demands to take stronger action against campus anti-Semitism.
In 2019, Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health partnered with Beijing’s National Health Security Administration to launch an annual health financing course, training government staffers from across China. The Free Beacon reported last month that Harvard had trained XPCC officials in 2023 and 2024, even though the Trump administration had sanctioned the group in 2020 over “serious rights abuses against ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.”
Harvard originally noted in a blog post, before the group was sanctioned, that XPCC officials participated in the 2019 inaugural training, but that language was scrubbed following a Free Beacon inquiry. The Ivy League university omitted XPCC’s 2023 and 2024 participation from the outset.
The GOP leaders wrote that they “are deeply concerned the services and resources provided through these events may violate U.S. law and could have been deployed by XPCC to further repress the Uyghur people and other ethnic minorities in China.”
Harvard’s health partnership also includes seven Chinese universities, six of which the Australian Strategic Policy Institute lists as serious security risks due to their ties to the People’s Liberation Army. Three of those—Sichuan, Xi’an Jiaotong, and Tsinghua Universities—help develop technologies for Chinese defense, including the Chinese nuclear program.
Stefanik, Walberg, and Moolenaar pointed to several examples of Harvard researchers working with counterparts at Chinese universities on projects funded by the Pentagon. One collaboration with Tsinghua, for example, explored technology that could “substantially improve artificial intelligence capabilities.”
“Harvard researchers should not be contributing to the military capabilities of a potential adversary,” the lawmakers wrote, arguing that the “collaboration provides [China] with insight into U.S. military priorities.”
“When researchers work on DoD-funded projects, [Chinese]-based researchers gain valuable knowledge about the scientific areas the DoD considers essential for future warfighting capabilities,” they added. “U.S. research institutions should not become a backdoor for potential adversaries to learn the thought processes of one of the most critical institutions charged with keeping Americans safe.”
The GOP chairs also requested evidence showing the safeguards Harvard employs while collaborating on research involving organ transplants, given longstanding allegations that China has subjected its Uyghur population to involuntary organ harvesting.
“Given [China’s] record of human rights abuses in harvesting organs from religious and ethnic minorities, we seek information regarding the oversight and protections that Harvard has put in place related to such research collaborations,” the letter reads.
The Republicans noted that a Harvard researcher collaborated with China-based researchers on projects funded by an Iranian government agent on at least four occasions. They said the partnership may violate sanctions against Tehran and demanded a list of the projects.
The lawmakers gave Harvard until June 2 to comply with their request. The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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