A committee in the United States House of Representatives has expressed concerns over the ties between Communist China and the University of California Berkeley.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party sent a letter to Berkeley’s president Michael Drake last week; the letter focused on the school’s Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, a collaboration between Berkeley and the Tsinghua University in Shenzhen, located in southeast China.
In the letter, House Republicans voiced their opposition to the institute’s development of “dual-use technologies” which could benefit Chinese military technology. The letter also demanded information from the school regarding the institute’s funding and research.
“Berkeley’s P.R.C.-backed collaboration with Tsinghua University raises many red flags,” said the letter, signed by committee chairman Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) and Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.).
In response to the letter, the university released a statement saying that it takes matters of national security “very seriously,” and that “the campus is reviewing past agreements and actions involving or connected to Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute.” The school added that it would “fully and transparently cooperate with any federal inquiries.”
Berkeley has faced previous criticism from Congress regarding its Chinese ties; in May, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee revealed that the university had failed to properly report over $200 million in funding that it had received from China. These donations were made in order to fund a big data research center, which allowed China to access American expertise in big data and the development of automated cars.