Newly obtained donor records revealed that hundreds of thousands of dollars have flowed from entities linked to the Chinese government into the coffers of the University of California, Berkeley, one of the most prestigious public institutions in the nation.
Members of the Chinese Communist Party, a sanctioned Chinese research university, and Chinese state-owned enterprises have all routed donations to UC Berkeley, according to documents received by the Washington Free Beacon via a public records request. The outlet’s report came on the heels of the Trump administration launching an investigation into the university over its failure to disclose a $220 million research deal with China’s Tsinghua University — a state-run institution with deep ties to the People’s Liberation Army.
Tsinghua isn’t the only Chinese university with questionable ties that UC Berkeley has financially entangled itself with. The University of Science and Technology of China sent $60,000 to UC Berkeley to support its chemistry program in 2023. Just a year later, the Department of Commerce blacklisted the Chinese university for “acquiring and attempting to acquire U.S.-origin items in support of advancing China’s quantum technology capabilities, which has serious ramifications for U.S. national security given the military applications of quantum technologies.”
(AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)
Vincent Cheung Sai Sing, a longtime member of an advisory body to the CCP, provided UC Berkeley with $336,000 to fund “research units” in 2023. Additionally, the university received $160,000 from a charity funded by Charles Yeung, a CCP National People’s Committee member, and $75,000 from ByteDance early investor Duane Ziping Kuang for the university’s international relations and business programs, respectively.
Syngenta, a Chinese state-owned agricultural technology company, donated $21,000 to UC Berkeley’s natural resources program in 2022. Although Syngenta is Chinese-owned, the university listed the contribution as coming from Switzerland, where it is headquartered.
Much more of China’s financial links to U.S. higher education will likely be revealed to the public after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April directing the secretary of education to “take appropriate steps to reverse or rescind any actions by the prior administration that permit higher education institutions to maintain improper secrecy regarding their foreign funding.”
The order is an apparent reference to the Biden administration not requiring universities to list the names of the foreign donors but merely their country of origin.
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Many universities have taken funding from China, Qatar, Russia, and other nations with which the United States has strained diplomatic relations.
UC Berkeley did not respond to a request for comment.