American universities have reported more than a billion dollars in gifts from China and Hong Kong since 2014, making China their largest source of foreign donations. 

During that same period, some U.S. government agencies and American academics themselves have grown increasingly concerned about China’s influence within U.S. academia, from the Thousand Talents recruitment program discussed in this week’s cover story to concerns about how the new Hong Kong Security Law could impact professors and students in the United States. So this week, The Wire is examining what we know and what we don’t about China’s funding of American universities. 

Data Blackhole

U.S. universities are required to report foreign gifts of $250,000 or more to the Department of Education. However, the data is almost certainly incomplete. Since last year, the Education Department has opened a dozen investigations into schools for inadequate filings, and a 2019 Senate report identified, for one, poor financial reporting around Confucius Institutes, language and cultural programs at dozens of universities across the United States that are funded by the Chinese government. Foreign government spending in U.S. academia, the Senate report says, is “effectively a black hole.” In February, the U.S. Department of Education even said in this release that as much as $6 billion in foreign donations may have gone unreported by American universities.

Available data shows that, of the $5.3 billion in foreign gifts reported since 2014, nearly a quarter (more than $1.2 billion) came from China (including Hong Kong) — far more than any other country. England follows with about $645 million, a little more than half of China’s total. Canada comes in third with $509 million in donations.

Nearly two-thirds of the funds from China come by way of Hong Kong. Some of the funding comes from university foundations set up to give tax breaks to Hong Kong residents who donate. Brown, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of California all have Hong Kong-based foundations that, since 2014, have transferred some $26 million in donations back to the main university. 

Because the foundations are established in Hong Kong, the donors are obscured in U.S. federal reporting. But even removing those funds from the equation, China and Hong Kong still account for the largest share of total foreign donations.

Which Universities?

Harvard received the most foreign funds overall and the most from China. Harvard, Yale, and Stanford have all taken in more than $100 million from Chinese entities since 2014, with Harvard and Yale accepting close to $200 million. None of these schools, however, provide detailed information about their international donors, and all are now under investigation by the Department of Education over their reporting practices. 

Of the universities that received the most funds, roughly half of Yale’s and the University of Pennsylvania’s foreign gifts came from China, while many others came in at around a third or less.

Who Are the Donors?

Almost two-thirds of Chinese donations to American universities were anonymous or unidentified. Of the funds that remain, though, The Wire identified the biggest and most prolific donors.

The biggest donor, Shanda Global Investment, gave $35 million, all to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The owners of the Chinese investment firm funded the eponymous Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute at Caltech to research the human brain. The couple committed $1 billion, according to Shanda’s website.

The next biggest Chinese donor is the GoldenWay Education Foundation, now known as the Tang Family Foundation. It has donated a total of $16.5 million to U.S. universities since 2014 — $4 million to MIT and $12.5 million to Columbia University. At Columbia, the money is going toward researching financial technology, according to their site.

Controversial entities like Huawei and Confucius Institutes also rank highly among reported donors. Huawei has distributed more than $16 million to 12 schools through itself and its subsidiary, Futurewei. Some universities, however, are now cutting ties with Huawei in response to U.S. government investigations into the telecom company, which the U.S. views as a potential security risk.

Funding from Confucius Institutes, which promote Chinese language classes at American universities, comes from China’s Ministry of Education. But that program may also soon be on its way out in the U.S. The U.S. Department of Education’s data only identifies $12.3 million in funds for Confucius Institutes since 2014, spread across 13 schools. But a 2019 Senate report points to financial filings that indicate that nearly $100 million was distributed to Confucius Institutes in that time frame. In the wake of rising tensions between the two countries, the Trump administration recently took aim at the Institutes, saying its D.C. headquarters aims to “[advance] Beijing’s global propaganda,” and claiming that 65 campus Confucius Institutes are active in the country. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently said, “I’m hopeful we will get them all closed out before the end of this year.” 

Other significant names also appear on the donor roll. The charitable arm of Tencent, the giant Chinese tech conglomerate, donated $450,000 to Columbia in 2019. Alibaba and Ant Group have donated $1 million and $1.5 million to Berkeley. And the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a popular choice for Chinese international students, accepted more than $1.3 million from the CRRC, a state-owned railcar manufacturer that was recently included on a Pentagon list of companies controlled by the People’s Liberation Army. (With the funds, the Illinois university founded the Chinese-American Railway Car Joint Research Center, which aims to develop new railway car technologies that make for safer and more efficient equipment.)

You can see more details about funds from the biggest reported donors in the graphic below.

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