Harvard University continues to quietly train members of the Chinese Communist Party’s “quasi-military organization” – the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps – even after the US government imposed sanctions on China for its genocide against the Uighur population. Experts have raised concerns that this could lead Harvard to face serious legal issues.
In 2019, Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health collaborated with China’s National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) to launch an annual health financing program, training government officials from various regions of China.
Initially, Harvard mentioned in a blog post that officials from the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps participated in the initial training. However, after conservative political news media outlet Washington Free Beacon raised questions about this, the content was deleted.
In 2020, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, labeling it as a “quasi-military organization” affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party due to “serious human rights abuses” in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.
Despite this, Harvard continued to train members of the Corps in 2023 and 2024, without publicly disclosing the information on their website.
The research organization focusing on China issues, Strategy Risks, recently revealed in a report titled “Beijing’s Significant Influence on Harvard University in Multiple Fields” that despite Harvard’s attempts to conceal it, official information from the NHSA website showed that the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Healthcare Bureau appeared on Harvard University’s training list in 2023 and 2024.
Michael Sobolik, a senior researcher at the Hudson Institute, told Washington Free Beacon, “This indicates that Harvard is suspected to be involved in Beijing’s atrocities against the Uighurs and other ethnic minorities. … Harvard may face significant legal problems.”
Stephanie Simon, Director of Communications and Strategic Initiatives at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health, attributed the training of Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps members to the Chinese Communist Party. She also stated that the deletion of the 2019 blog content was due to a website redesign “several months ago,” which removed “a large amount of old content.”
For years, the Chinese Communist Party has been accused of carrying out large-scale persecution against the Uighur population, including arbitrary detention, forced sterilization, non-consensual organ harvesting, and unethical medical experiments.
Harvard has faced repeated scrutiny for accepting funding from Beijing and entities affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party. Data from the US Department of Education shows that from 2019 to 2022, Harvard received nearly 70 million US dollars in funding from China, more than from any other country during the same period.
In 2014, Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health received a $350 million donation from the Chan family-controlled Morningside Foundation. The school was named after the late father of Hong Kong real estate tycoon Ronnie Chan, who has close ties to the Chinese Communist Party. However, Harvard claimed that the donation was “unsolicited, unrestricted, and unexpected.”
To date, through its cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party, Harvard has trained hundreds of government officials, including high-profile individuals like Li Yuanchao, a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo and Vice President. In 2022 alone, Harvard trained “188 senior officials from the National Healthcare Security Administration.”
Harvard’s health partnerships include seven Chinese universities, six of which have been flagged by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute for “having security risks” due to their ties to the Chinese military. Universities such as Sichuan University, Xi’an Jiaotong University, and Tsinghua University are assisting in China’s defense technology development, including nuclear programs.