The Department of Defense has ordered 30 U.S. universities to audit their partnerships with mostly Chinese universities and military training institutions as the Trump administration scrutinizes the country’s .
If the schools don’t complete a review and terminate any arrangements deemed problematic within the next two weeks, they face losing funding. The goal is to protect taxpayer-funded research from theft and exploitation, the Pentagon said Monday.
鈥淭he Department of War has zero tolerance for academic partnerships that compromise our national security,鈥� Emil Michael, the Pentagon鈥檚 chief technology officer, said in a news release.
The release didn’t name the schools, but a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters said they include , the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Johns Hopkins University.
The schools didn’t immediately respond to emails from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Sarah Spreitzer, vice president at the American Council on Education, which represents college and university presidents, raised concerns that the announcement suggests, without any evidence, that the schools are engaged in wrongdoing.
The order comes after the Pentagon last month released an updated list of 130 foreign institutions it accused of engaging in 鈥渁ctivities that increase the likelihood of U.S. government-funded research and development efforts being misappropriated.鈥�
While the vast majority were Chinese, such as the University of Science and Technology of China and the country’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences, several Iranian and Russian institutions also appeared on the list.
The first version of the list was developed during Trump’s first term, with the help of the American Council on Education, Spreitzer said.
She said most of the council’s member institutions moved away from research partnerships with those institutions in the years that followed. She said she worries U.S. schools will be held liable for partnerships that predate the creation of the list.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 appreciate the implication that we are not good partners on research security, given that we helped create this list, and given that we鈥檝e always partnered with the federal government when there has been national security concerns,鈥� she said.
The audit comes as the Trump administration continues to about China鈥檚 activities in the Americas, pushing back on at either end of , infrastructure projects funded by China鈥檚 Belt and Road initiative in the region and Chinese .
The Justice Department also is investigating whether Harvard University is allowing Chinese donors to create scholarships that exclude American students, adding to the barrage of the Trump administration has opened in against the Ivy League school.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy said in a statement that the country opposes what it described as the politicization of 鈥渘ormal scientific, educational, and academic exchanges.鈥�
鈥淭he U.S. side,鈥� the statement continued, 鈥渟hould abandon the Cold War mentality and foster an open, fair, and non-discriminatory environment for educational, scientific, and people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States.鈥� ___
Associated Press writer Collin Binkley contributed to this report.
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