Congress Says Harvard Co-Authored Over 140 Studies With China's Military-Linked Universities

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A Pattern of Research Ties to China's Military Sector

Harvard researchers co-authored more than 140 academic papers with scholars from China's so-called "Seven Sons of National Defense," according to a report from the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party reviewed ahead of its public release. The Seven Sons are seven Chinese universities that the Pentagon and other U.S. agencies have identified as central pillars of China's military modernization program.

The committee, chaired by Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., argues Harvard's research-security procedures were too narrow. Investigators say the school evaluated partnerships case by case rather than screening for the type of dual-use technology that can serve both civilian and military purposes.

One example cited in the report is a 2023 study on soft, bio-inspired underwater robots, co-written by a Harvard-affiliated scientist and a researcher at Beihang University. Beihang, also called Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, has been on the U.S. Commerce Department's export restriction list since 2001. Committee investigators say the robotics research could have applications in underwater detection, a claim Harvard's compliance office disputes, describing the project as strictly civilian.

A separate 2023 paper on magnetic materials was co-authored with a researcher from China's National University of Defense Technology, another institution on U.S. restricted lists. That project reportedly received partial funding from the U.S. Army Research Office.

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Engineering Research Under the Spotlight

According to the committee, engineering made up the largest share of the joint publications between Harvard and Seven Sons-affiliated researchers. The report frames this as evidence that oversight gaps extended well beyond a handful of isolated projects.

"From allowing violence against anti-China protestors to collaborating with entities linked to the PLA, Harvard has made serious mistakes and must act now to prevent more," Moolenaar said in a statement accompanying the report, referring to the People's Liberation Army.

The committee also criticized testimony from Harvard research-compliance official John H. Shaw, who said the university does not categorically bar research involving robotics or Chinese partner institutions. Investigators countered that unclassified, publicly available research can still carry military value once it reaches entities embedded in China's military-civil fusion system — a state policy that blends civilian research with defense applications.

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Harvard's Largest Foreign Donor Is China

The committee's report lands alongside separate scrutiny of Harvard's finances. Under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, U.S. universities must publicly disclose foreign gifts and contracts worth $250,000 or more. Harvard's own disclosures, tracked on a U.S. Department of Education database, show the university received more money from China-based sources than any other American school — more than $600 million, according to the committee report, with the Education Department's own figures citing over $610 million.

That places Harvard well ahead of the next-largest recipients of Chinese funding, including MIT, NYU, Stanford and Yale. The Department of Education has separately opened an investigation into Harvard over what it called incomplete and inaccurate foreign-funding disclosures. The Department of Justice has also opened a civil rights probe into whether some China-linked gifts to Harvard came with conditions that gave preference to certain nationalities in financial aid, a possible violation of federal civil rights law.

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A Sanctioned Paramilitary Group in the Classroom

The report also revisits a separate controversy involving Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Attendance records reviewed by the committee show that officials affiliated with the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) were listed as participants in Harvard executive training sessions on health insurance policy, held in partnership with China's National Healthcare Security Administration.

The U.S. Treasury sanctioned the XPCC in 2020 under the Global Magnitsky Act for its role in the mass detention, surveillance and forced labor of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang — abuses the U.S. government has formally labeled a genocide. Sanctions generally bar U.S. individuals and institutions from most forms of engagement with the group.

The committee found that Harvard had advance notice that XPCC-linked officials were expected to join a 2020 online session, yet took no further action. Harvard professor Winnie Yip, who helped organize the training program, told investigators she was unaware at the time that the XPCC was under U.S. sanctions and had not received compliance training on the issue.

Uyghur rights advocates have raised similar concerns since Strategy Risks, a China-focused research firm, first documented XPCC participation in the same Harvard program in 2023 and 2024. "The XPCC is not a neutral administrative body — it is the paramilitary arm of the Chinese Communist Party," Sabrina Sohail of Campaign for Uyghurs said at the time, adding that training its officials risks lending the group legitimacy.

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Harvard's Wider China Problem

The new findings build on more than a year of congressional scrutiny of Harvard's China ties. In 2025, the committee opened a broader investigation into the university, citing research partnerships funded by the Department of Defense with Chinese military-linked universities, collaborations tied to Iranian government funding, and organ-transplantation research involving PRC-based partners amid international concern over forced organ harvesting in China.

The committee also flagged Harvard Global Research and Support Services, a university-affiliated nonprofit that can accept research awards when Harvard itself cannot agree to a sponsor's terms. Investigators allege the structure could be used to sidestep federal foreign-gift reporting rules, an allegation Harvard is expected to contest. Harvard did not respond to requests for comment on the committee's latest findings.

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What Comes Next

The report recommends that Harvard bar research relationships with any entity on U.S. government restricted or sanctioned lists and centralize oversight of its research-security process under a single office. It also calls on Congress to tighten foreign-funding disclosure rules across all U.S. universities, not just Harvard.

The findings arrive as the Trump administration keeps up pressure on Harvard over a range of issues, including its handling of campus antisemitism and its foreign funding disclosures. Congressional Republicans have signaled they see the China research ties as part of a broader pattern requiring legislative action, including a proposed bill that would end joint U.S.-China university institutes altogether.

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Sources

1. https://chinaselectcommittee.house.gov/media/press-releases/lawmakers-demand-answers-from-harvard-over-ties-to-chinese-military-sanctioned-entities-and-iranian-government
2. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/5/20/republicans-investigate-harvard-china/
3. https://www.rfa.org/english/uyghur/2025/05/01/uyghur-harvard-xpcc-xinjiang/
4. https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-releases-latest-foreign-funding-disclosures-federally-funded-american-universities
5. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/7/27/doj-harvard-china-financial-aid-data/

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