WASHINGTON—The University of Michigan is ending its partnership with a prominent Chinese university, a few months after five Chinese students in the joint program were charged over their suspicious activities outside a remote military site.
In a letter to a congressman, Santa Ono, president of the University of Michigan, said following a thorough review the university has initiated the six-month process to “officially end the partnership” with Shanghai Jiao Tong University in the Chinese metropolis of Shanghai.
Ono said the university, while valuing academic international partnerships, takes “matters of national security very seriously” and will better vet visa requirements for international students.
The end to the academic partnership is the latest case of American universities moving away from Chinese universities over concerns by U.S. lawmakers that Americans could be helping the Chinese to develop critical technology to boost China’s military capabilities.
The Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley, both have said they are discontinuing their partnerships in China.
In Michigan, Rep. John Moolenaar, who chairs the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, wrote Ono to ask that he close the joint program after the Chinese students were charged in October with lying and trying to cover their tracks. The students were first confronted in August 2023 after midnight near Camp Grayling, where thousands of people had gathered for summer drills.
The five likely are no longer in the U.S. and have not appeared in court.
In his letter, Moolenaar wrote that the Chinese university has “extensive military-aligned departments and laboratories, advanced dual-use research programs, and large-scale operational training platforms” to help drive China’s military modernization and intelligence capabilities. Ono on Friday informed Moolenaar of the university’s decision to end the partnership.
In 2020, two Chinese nationals who were pursuing master’s degrees at the University of Michigan were sentenced to prison for illegally photographing sites at a naval air station in Key West, Florida.
In October, a Chinese student from the University of Michigan was charged with casting an illegal ballot during early voting, in a rare case of a non-U.S. citizen voting.
By Didi Tang