The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) saw the amount of donations from China more than triple in its most recent reporting period, shortly after the university faced a scandal regarding Joe Biden’s storage of classified documents in his think tank’s offices at the university.
As reported by Fox News, the surge in foreign donations was revealed in documents obtained by Americans for Public Trust (APT). With donations from individuals and entities directly tied to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the university saw roughly $25 million in such donations during the 2022-2023 academic year. By contrast, the academic year of 2021-2022 saw just $8.6 million from China.
Overall, UPenn has been given at least $130 million by China from 2018 to 2023, which itself was a significant increase compared to previous years.
“As America’s adversaries continue threatening U.S. national security interests under President Biden’s watch, it’s no surprise that donations to our colleges and universities from Chinese nationals have continued to surge,” said Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of APT. “This is yet another clear signal that our institutions of higher education have become instruments of foreign influence under an administration that projects weakness on the global stage.”
“The tripling of Chinese donations to the University of Pennsylvania, home to Biden’s think tank, should raise serious alarms among lawmakers who are interested in curbing the growing power of the Chinese Communist Party,” Sutherland continued.
One such donor is Chung-nin Rock Chen, the Hong Kong deputy to the National People’s Congress and a member of the National Committee of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). Chen donated to the university three different times in the 2022-2023 year, amounting to $205,000. Another major donor was Kathy Xu, the founder of Chinese private equity firm Capital Today, an early investor in the CCP-linked internet company Meituan Dianping. Xu gave $10 million to UPenn in December of 2022.
UPenn is the home of Joe Biden’s think tank, the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. Last year, as the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) began its efforts to prosecute former President Donald Trump over alleged possession of classified documents, similar classified documents were discovered at the Penn Biden Center, in Biden’s former personal office. The scandal not only highlighted Biden’s hypocrisy on the matter, but drew the contrast that, unlike Trump, Biden never had the authority to possess such documents since he had only been Vice President at the time.
The extensive Chinese donations also draw greater focus on the numerous foreign business deals that the Biden family has made using their name to promise political influence in exchange for wealth, with China being one of the primary countries where the family has done such business. There is currently an ongoing impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden regarding these and other deals made by members of his family, including his son Hunter Biden.