Spies on Campus: Chinese Espionage Exposed at Stanford

The Chinese Communist Party is “orchestrating a widespread intelligence-gathering campaign at Stanford,” according to The Stanford Review.  

“In short, ‘there are Chinese spies at Stanford,’” the university’s independent student-run newspaper writes in an investigation published this week.  

After learning of multiple incidents of unusual behavior from a handful of Chinese students, or those who claimed to be students, members of The Stanford Review launched an investigation to determine whether the CCP was attempting to gather information on the campus.  

The paper interviewed “over a dozen individuals, including Stanford professors, current students, and China experts specializing in technology transfer and espionage,” the Review explained, adding that most individuals asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from the CCP or the academic community at the California university.

In one account, a student named Anna was contacted by someone using the name Charles Chen, who claimed to also be a Stanford student. What began as casual conversation quickly turned into persistent requests for Anna to visit China.  

“He sent videos of Americans who had gained fame in China, encouraged Anna to visit Beijing, and offered to cover her travel expenses,” the Review writes. “He would send screenshots of a bank account balance to prove he could buy the plane tickets. Alarmingly, he referenced details about her that Anna had never disclosed to him.” 

After Chen asked Anna to delete screenshots of their conversations, Anna contacted authorities who determined that Chen had no affiliation with the university.  

For years, authorities found that Chen had slightly altered his name and persona online, “targeting multiple students, nearly all of them women researching China-related topics,” according to the paper. “According to the experts on China who assisted Anna, Charles Chen was likely an agent of the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS), tasked with identifying sympathetic Stanford students and gathering intelligence.”  

It’s no secret that China is attempting to surpass the U.S. in technology dominance, and given Stanford’s cutting-edge artificial intelligence research, the paper concludes the university is a prime target for Chinese interests.  

The information-gathering system the CCP employs is strategic, the paper’s investigation explains.  

The Stanford review spoke with an anonymous China expert who confirmed that among the more than 1,000 Chinese International students at Stanford, “a select number are actively reporting to the Chinese Communist Party. China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law mandates that all Chinese citizens support and cooperate with state intelligence work, regardless of location.”  

While the level of cooperation varies, even resistant Chinese students appear to have little choice but to comply with CCP requests for information, especially when the Chinese Scholarship Council funds an estimated 15% of Chinese students at American universities, according to the Review.  

“China experts speaking anonymously confirmed that it requires students to regularly submit ‘Situation Reports’ to Chinese diplomatic missions about their research,” the Review explains. “These experts also confirmed that the CCP uses these reports to identify and acquire sensitive technological information.” 

Matt Turpin, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution specializing in U.S. policy towards China, told the Review that the “Chinese government spends a lot of time collecting data on its overseas students; it has a pretty good understanding of who is doing what and if someone is working in an area of interest [frontier technology].”  

“If students have access to things the government would like access to,” Turpin continued, “it is relatively easy to reach out to an individual. They use carrots and sticks. If you turn over information, you may get a reward; if you don’t, there is a punishment.” 

There is ample evidence to prove that the “CCP runs an extensive intelligence-gathering network at Stanford,” the paper concludes. “The existential question is straightforward: How should we respond?”  

“First and foremost,” according to the Review, “the status quo of branding those who discuss this issue as ‘racist’ must end. We wrote this article not to advance a policy position, but to highlight a silenced reality. Sound policy depends on evidence, not repression.”  

“The nation that develops superior technologies will gain a critical military edge over its adversaries. China cannot be that nation,” the Stanford Review writes. “Working together, U.S. universities and the federal government need to take serious steps to defend the integrity of our nation’s mission-critical research. The future of freedom depends on it.”