Chinese government-linked donations to U.S. universities and think tanks

45 abroad.** This is potentially a good thing for American universities. Indeed, since 2011, Chinese sources have participated in at least 1,186 donations or contracts worth more than $426 million to seventy-seven American universities, according to disclosures made to the US Department of Education, making China the fifth most active country by number of gifts, and fourth, behind Qatar, England, and Saudi Arabia, in total monetary value of gifts. (These disclosures are only required of universities that accept federal aid, and the figures also include funds from Taiwanese sources.)”° All US institutions of higher education cultivate lifetime giving from both graduates and their families. Given the numbers of Chinese students matriculating from American universities and the wealth of many of their families back in China as well as their own potential career earnings, Chinese students have become a growing priority for university development officers. Indeed, some Chinese families also seem to believe that they can ensure, or at least enhance, their children’s chances of acceptance into top colleges through charitable gifts.’” Given the government’s extensive role in China’s economy, acceptance of all Chinese gifts and grants requires due diligence that should be above and beyond the standard practices currently employed by universities for other charitable giving. This is obviously the case when funding comes from the Chinese government itself, for example via the Hanban (the oversight body of the Confucius Institutes), which doles out research grants via its Confucius China Studies Program,’* the “Young Sinologists” program of the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,’ and, in one instance, the endowing of a faculty position at Stanford University. Chinese corporate and private donors are now also starting to pour millions of dollars into the US educational system, think tanks, and nonprofit organizations. Given that privately owned companies in China exist and prosper at the sufferance of political authorities there, even seemingly independent actors are often likely to act at government direction or in ways that they believe will please the government. Major mainland Chinese and Hong Kong companies and individuals with active business ventures in China have now pledged or donated substantial funds to US universities. This is also the case with some Hong Kong-based or US-based foundations that are linked directly or indirectly to the Chinese government or to enterprises and families that have prospered with the help of the Beijing government. The most notable case is the China-United States Exchange Foundation.*° CUSEF was established in 2008 on the initiative of former Hong Kong chief executive and shipping magnate Tung Chee Hwa (C.H. Tung) who continues to be the chairman of the foundation. Tung is also the vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China’s highest-level “united front” organization™ and he attended the Communist Party’s 19 Congress in October 2017. Moreover, the number of mainland-based members of Section 4 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020504