>History’s most famous act of deception began with a wooden horse and a fatal lapse in judgement. After a decade of failed attempts to breach Troy’s walls, the Greeks left behind a giant horse as a supposed peace offering and sailed away. Blinded by pride, the Trojans brought it inside. That night, hidden Greek soldiers emerged, opened the gates from the inside, and Troy fell. China, our greatest adversary, is Greece, and their talent is our Trojan Horse.
The Trump administration's recent reversal on Chinese student visas came as a surprise, and with great concern, to many focused on national security. China represents the second largest body of foreign students in U.S. institutions. A 2022 study showed that Chinese students made up nearly 50 percent of top AI researchers, with the U.S. only at 18 percent. China is outpacing us in one of the most critical areas of national security, and it’s happening inside of our country, with our resources.
The FBI cited that economic espionage cases linked to China have increased by 1300 percent in the past decade alone. The most-recent China Threat Snapshot conducted by the House Committee on Homeland Security indicates that nearly 80 percent of those economic espionage prosecutions show that conduct performed and information obtained would benefit the Chinese state. Of all trade-secret theft cases, 60 percent are linked directly to China.
National security isn’t a partisan issue. Kurt Campbell, the deputy secretary of state in the Biden administration, publicly stated that he would prefer Chinese students come to the U.S. to study humanities and social sciences and “not particle physics.”
In national security, we do not cater to the average, we focus on combatting those who pose the greatest risk.
This is not to suggest Chinese students be demonized. This is a call to wake-up to the realities at play and be pragmatic and thoughtful about who we partner with. While many, if not most, Chinese students are innocent, there are hundreds of cited cases of stolen intellectual property and espionage. Why is our taxpayer footing the bill for the training of our enemy’s next generation who have an expectation from their nation to assist them in doing us harm? Why is it happening within our own borders? If China is our adversary, the United States needs to reduce dependency on Chinese students for “success,” and bolster our own best and brightest. Our adversaries' students are not smarter than our own. The United States has incredible talent that should be cultivated; we should focus on improving education outcomes, access, and create pipelines to success in fields critical to the national security and success of this nation.
Fortunately not all institutions are asleep at the wheel. Organizations like the Center for National Security and Foreign Affairs at the Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs at the University of Tennessee are highlighting the dangers, and history, of Chinese science and technology acquisitions. In part, their study shows that universities in the United States were built on openness, and that China has exploited these norms against us through subversive measures like illegal knowledge transfers and IP theft, to name a few.
The paper asserts that a whole-of-nation approach is needed to combat China’s threat against the United States. Government, academia, and industry need to partner to ensure the success of our nation’s outcomes and the protection of its secrets and intellectual property. Universities must lock down their research and industry must carefully vet its hires. We must act decisively to defend our institutions, and we can do so without sacrificing our values and relying solely on the government to control the floodgates.
In 2018, Congress prohibited any U.S. university hosting a Confucius Institute from receiving Department of Defense funding for Chinese language instruction unless they secured a national security waiver. This created a financial disincentive for institutions to maintain ties with Confucius Institutes - and it worked. Nearly all CIs in the U.S. are gone, but China isn’t letting up on their strategy because of one hiccup. This is evident through initiatives like the Thousand Talents Program which offered grants, lab access, and prestige to researchers who agreed to funnel intellectual property back to China. Their strategy is working, and they will not quit on their own.
America provides a pathway to success to so many who share our same values. But the reality is that China is sponsoring a tactic of war. We must wake up to the realities that war in 2025 does not wholly look like war in 1925, and it never will again. Hybrid warfare is here to stay. China is not our ally, and the longer we rely on them in our academic institutions, the more we risk our nation’s security.
Taylor Hathorn is a visiting fellow at Independent Women. She has over 10 years of experience in cybersecurity, policy, public relations, and non-profit management.