The Georgia Institute of Technology announced on Friday, September 6th, that it will terminate its cooperation with Tianjin University in China after a review by the U.S. Congress. The Congress had raised concerns about their collaboration on cutting-edge semiconductor technology.
According to Reuters, in May of this year, the U.S. House Committee on the Communist Party of China sent a letter to the Georgia Institute of Technology requesting detailed information on their research cooperation with Tianjin University.
The committee pointed out in the letter that a research center at Tianjin University was collaborating with a Chinese company, and a subsidiary of this company is one of the suppliers to the Chinese Communist military.
Tianjin University and its various affiliated institutions were placed on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s export restriction list in 2020 due to some projects violating U.S. national security, including theft of trade secrets and research collaborations aiding the development of the Chinese Communist military.
Abbigail Tumpey, a spokesperson for the Georgia Institute of Technology, told Reuters in an email that since Tianjin University was added to the Entity List, the school has been evaluating its developments in China.
Tumpey stated, “Tianjin University has had adequate time to correct this situation. As of now, Tianjin University remains on the Entity List, making the cooperation between the Georgia Institute of Technology and Tianjin University’s joint venture, the Georgia Tech Shenzhen Institute (GTSI), no longer feasible.”
According to the official website of the project, the Georgia Tech Shenzhen Institute is a Sino-foreign cooperative educational institution established in March 2020 with the support and approval of the Chinese authorities by Tianjin University and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
“GTSI fully incorporates the professional education system of the Georgia Institute of Technology, with admission standards, curriculum design, teaching methods, assessment modes, and degree awarding all consistent with its U.S. headquarters.”
The Georgia Institute of Technology is the largest engineering college in the United States and a major recipient of funding from the Department of Defense. The school stated in a release that it will terminate the Shenzhen Institute project, but around 300 students currently enrolled in the institute will have the opportunity to complete their studies.
In January of this year, the Georgia Institute of Technology announced that researchers in Atlanta had collaborated with researchers at the Tianjin International Nanoparticles and Nanosystems Research Center to create the world’s first functional semiconductor made of graphene, a nanomaterial. The center stated that this would bring a “paradigm shift” in the field of electronics and lead to faster computing speeds.
A scientist leading the Tianjin project at the Georgia Institute of Technology defended the research, stating that all research outcomes were public, and the collaboration had undergone extensive legal reviews.
Virginia Foxx, a Republican member and chair of the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor, stated in an email, “Congressional investigations should not be used to compel the Georgia Institute of Technology to terminate cooperation with a blacklisted Chinese entity.”
She added, “Nevertheless, we are pleased that the Georgia Institute of Technology has made the right decision, and we hope other universities will follow suit.”
In recent years, as China’s increasingly evident expansionist ambitions and military aspirations have become apparent, U.S.-China relations have continued to deteriorate, and tensions in the technology sector have escalated.
To prevent China from exploiting the open and federally funded research environment in the United States to circumvent export controls and other national security regulations, U.S. government departments and Congress have increased scrutiny of China’s growing influence in American universities and technology theft.