The University of California, Berkeley, has reportedly accepted substantial donations from several organizations linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as revealed by records accessed by the Washington Free Beacon.
This news comes shortly after the Trump administration launched an investigation into the university for allegedly not disclosing a $240 million technology partnership with China that’s been active for eight years.
The tech initiative aimed to establish a new research campus in China, and the university has been engaged with Chinese firms that have previously faced U.S. sanctions.
Documents obtained by the Daily Beast indicated that Chinese investors promised “generous funding,” alongside top-tier equipment and “talented Ph.D. students” for Berkeley’s research into technologies critical to national security.
In return, researchers at Berkeley provided Chinese officials exclusive tours of advanced semiconductor facilities in the U.S., along with preferential commercialization rights for the intellectual property generated by these projects, as reported by the Daily Beast.
Furthermore, it’s been reported that Berkeley failed to disclose a previous $19 million agreement from Tsinghua University, which is controlled by the CCP.
Despite this, the university has continued to receive significant sums from foreign entities for various programs, prompting the Trump administration’s scrutiny.
For example, Berkeley accepted a $60,000 donation from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) for its chemistry department in 2023. The following year, USTC was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Commerce for attempting to acquire U.S.-origin goods to advance China’s quantum technology efforts, deemed a serious national security concern.
In reaction to these revelations, Education Secretary Linda McMahon criticized the previous Biden administration for its lax oversight regarding foreign donations to American universities, promising a thorough examination of Berkeley’s funding sources.
“The Biden-Harris administration overlooked colleges and universities’ legal responsibilities by neglecting oversight and permitting foreign gifts to flood campuses. Even as compliance issues mounted, no new Section 117 investigations were started in four years, and several ongoing investigations were prematurely closed,” McMahon remarked.
“I trust my Office of General Counsel to comprehensively investigate these issues, starting with UC Berkeley’s apparent failure to disclose significant foreign funding,” she added.
Following the reports, Berkeley acknowledged its failure to disclose several million dollars in donations, citing a “misunderstanding” of its legal obligations regarding such funding.
