OAN Staff Blake Wolf
12:51 PM – Tuesday, May 6, 2025
The University of California, Berkeley, reportedly received millions in donations from multiple Chinese Communist Party (CCP)- connected organizations, according to records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The announcement follows just days after the Trump administration began investigating the university for “failing to disclose a $240 million” joint tech venture with China, which has been in operation for eight years.
The tech project was set to build a new research campus in China, as the school continued to create partnerships with Chinese companies that have previously been sanctioned by the United States.
According to documents obtained by the Daily Beast, Chinese investors promised “lavish funding,” along with state-of-the-art equipment, “and smart Ph.D. students for Berkeley academics researching national security-sensitive technologies.”
In return, Berkeley researchers provided Chinese officials with private tours of “cutting-edge U.S. semiconductor facilities,” while also providing “priority commercialization rights” for “intellectual properties they produced to Chinese government-backed funds,” according to the Daily Beast report.
Additionally, Berkeley reportedly admitted to failing to disclose a previous $19 million contract, which was paid directly to the university from the CCP-controlled Tsinghua University.
Nonetheless, Berkeley has continued to receive hundreds of thousands of foreign dollars for its various programs, prompting the Trump administration’s investigation.
In one instance, Berkeley received a $60,000 donation from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) for its chemistry program in 2023. A year after the donation was given, the United States Department of Commerce sanctioned USTC for “acquiring and attempting to acquire U.S.-origin items in support of advancing China’s quantum technology capabilities, which has serious ramifications for U.S. national security given the military applications of quantum technologies.”
In response, Education Secretary Linda McMahon slammed the previous Biden administration last week for allowing the Chinese donations into American universities while vowing to “thoroughly examine” Berkeley’s foreign donations.
“The Biden-Harris administration turned a blind eye to colleges and universities’ legal obligations by deprioritizing oversight and allowing foreign gifts to pour onto American campuses. Despite widespread compliance failures, no new Section 117 investigations were initiated for four years, and ongoing investigations were closed prematurely,” McMahon stated.
“I have great confidence in my Office of General Counsel to investigate these matters fully, and they will begin by thoroughly examining UC Berkeley’s apparent failure to fully and accurately disclose significant funding received from foreign sources,” she added.
In response to the findings, Berkeley admitted to failing to disclose millions of dollars it received, while also “misunderstanding its legal duty to disclose that funding.”
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