China exploits US-funded research on nuclear technology, a congressional report says

WASHINGTON– China is leveraging partnerships with U.S. researchers funded by the Department of Energy to give the Chinese military access to sensitive nuclear technologies and other innovations with economic and national security applications, according to a congressional report released Wednesday.

The report’s authors say the United States must do more to protect high-tech research and ensure that the results of taxpayer-funded work do not benefit Beijing. They recommended several changes to better protect scientific research in the United States, including new policies that the Department of Energy could use to decide whether to fund work involving Chinese partnerships.

The investigation is part of a congressional initiative to build a firewall preventing U.S. research from bolstering China’s military buildup, as the two countries are locked in a technological and military rivalry that will shape the future world order.

Investigators from the House Select Committee on the Communist Party of China and the House Committee on Education and Workforce identified more than 4,300 academic articles published between June 2023 and June of this year that involved collaborations between DOE-funded scientists and Chinese researchers. About half of the articles involved Chinese researchers affiliated with China’s military or industrial base.

Particularly concerning, investigators found that federal funds were intended for research collaborations with Chinese state-owned laboratories and universities that work directly for the Chinese military, including some listed in a Pentagon database of Chinese military companies with operations in the United States. The report also details collaborations between U.S. researchers and groups accused of cyberattacks as well as human rights abuses in China.

The Department of Energy regularly funds advanced research into nuclear energy and the development and elimination of nuclear weapons, as well as a long list of other high-tech fields like quantum computing, materials science, and physics. It distributes hundreds of millions of dollars to research each year. The department oversees 17 national laboratories that have led the development of many technologies.

The report follows a number of congressional investigations into federally funded research involving Chinese scientists and researchers. Last year, a report released by Republicans found that partnerships between U.S. and Chinese universities over the past decade have provided hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to help Beijing develop critical technology that could strengthen its military. Another investigation this year found that the Pentagon had recently funded hundreds of projects in collaboration with Chinese entities linked to China’s defense industry over the past two years.

The Energy Department has failed to take steps for decades to ensure that the research it funds does not benefit China, the report’s authors found. They made several recommendations to strengthen the rules, including a new standardized approach to assessing the national security risks of research, as well as requiring the department to share information on research ties to China with other U.S. government agencies to make it easier to detect problems.

“These policy failures and long-standing inaction have left taxpayer-funded research vulnerable to exploitation by China’s research and defense industrial base and state-directed technology transfer activities,” the authors conclude.

The Energy Department did not immediately respond to questions about the report and its recommendations. A message seeking comment was left at the Chinese embassy in Washington.

Rep. John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican who chairs the select committee, said in a statement that “the investigation reveals a deeply alarming problem: The Department of Energy has failed to ensure the security of its research and has blamed American taxpayers for funding the military buildup of our nation’s primary adversary.”

Moolenaar introduced legislation this year aimed at preventing science, technology and defense research funding from being spent on collaborations or partnerships with entities “controlled by foreign adversaries” that pose a risk to national security.

The bill was approved by the House, but failed to make it into the larger annual defense policy bill. The proposal faced strong opposition from scientists and researchers, who argued the measures were too broad and could cripple collaboration and undermine America’s competitive advantage in science and technology.

In an October letter, a group of more than 750 U.S. university professors and senior executives told congressional leaders overseeing the armed forces that the United States was engaged in a global competition for talent. They called for “very careful and targeted risk management measures” to address security concerns.