Thirty U.S. academic institutions have until Aug. 31 to examine specified foreign research ties or risk losing eligibility for future federal research funding.
Seven days after the Pentagon ordered the reviews, an Air Force-affiliated institute published a study cataloging 204 interactions involving U.S. institutions and laboratories at the center of China’s defense research system.
CASI describes the Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratories as China’s highest level national laboratory network for military research. The contacts it identified ranged from academic visits and conferences to coauthored technical research and formal joint laboratories in fields including aero-engines, underwater sensing, hyperspectral target detection, advanced communications, and aerospace materials.
CASI described interactions between Western researchers and Chinese military laboratories as “at the very least problematic,” saying even seemingly benign exchanges could give Chinese defense researchers access to knowledge and technology useful to the People’s Liberation Army.
CASI Director Brendan Mulvaney told The Epoch Times that institutional collaborations—including joint laboratories, long-term partnerships, and mutual study or training agreements—were the most concerning because they represented sustained cooperation rather than one-off encounters.
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The Pentagon’s Aug. 17 order directs 30 U.S. institutions to review academic, financial, and research relationships with foreign entities of concern and report what action they have taken by Aug. 31.
The Pentagon did not publicly identify the schools. According to a list DefenseScoop obtained from a U.S. official, Harvard University, MIT, the University of California–Berkeley, Duke University, Penn State, the University of Texas at Austin, New York University, and the University of Southern California are among institutions on that list that also appear in CASI’s records.
The Pentagon has not said that the relationships identified by CASI prompted the Aug. 17 notices.
Purdue and Beihang Built Joint Research Labs
In 2011, Purdue and Beihang formally established the BUAA–Purdue Joint Laboratory on Energy Systems and the BUAA–Purdue Joint Laboratory on Low Emissions Combustion.
Then-Purdue President France Córdova and Beihang President Huai Jinpeng signed the agreements.
The energy laboratory paired Purdue’s computational modeling with Beihang’s experimental capabilities. The combustion laboratory focused on low emission gas turbine combustors used in aircraft and power generation.
Beihang records also describe the two laboratories as formal joint research arrangements and say the universities discussed broader scientific research, teaching, and faculty and student exchanges.
Beihang later described the combustion laboratory within a research program that also undertook Chinese National Defense 973 projects, a state-backed basic research program supporting its defense science and technology.
CASI identified Beihang’s thermal engineering department—which oversees a Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratory for aero-engine aerodynamics and thermodynamics—as having established a joint combustion research team with Purdue.
Beihang is now on the Pentagon’s Section 1286 list of foreign institutions subject to tighter research security restrictions.
Harvard Listed by Chinese Defense University as Collaborator
The Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), one of China’s leading defense linked universities, currently lists Harvard among the international collaborators of its Center for Composite Materials and Structure.
The center works on aerospace structures, smart and composite materials, sensors, structural health monitoring, multifunctional nanocomposites, and related technologies, according to its research description.
CASI also cites an earlier HIT description saying its composite materials research institute had established an overseas joint laboratory with Harvard and maintained long-term exchanges and cooperation with other foreign universities.
Research Reached Underwater and Missile Fields
The links also extended into published technical research.
In 2017, researchers affiliated with the University of Houston and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University joined researchers from Harbin Engineering University on a study of underwater wireless sensor networks.
The paper, published in Sensors, developed a method for accessing data through an underwater sensor network.
The authors included Houbing Song, then affiliated with Embry-Riddle; Albert M. K. Cheng of the University of Houston; and Xuefei Ma, who was affiliated with both Harbin Engineering University’s College of Underwater Acoustic Engineering and its National Key Laboratory of Underwater Acoustic Science and Technology.
The author-contribution statement credits the U.S.-based researchers with experimental, analytical, and research work. Funding listed in the paper came from Chinese sources, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China, basic-research projects, and the China Scholarship Council.
CASI classified the work as research collaboration involving a Chinese defense laboratory in underwater acoustics.
Another collaboration reached into hyperspectral target detection.
A 2021 study coauthored by Ying Qu, listed with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, developed a neural-network method for identifying anomalous targets in hyperspectral images.
One of Qu’s coauthors was Xuemei Liu of Beijing’s Space Vehicle Survival Technology and Effectiveness Evaluation Laboratory.
Researchers from that laboratory have separately published work on missile trajectory tracking, missile attack-and-defense simulations, and radar-seeker countermeasures.
CASI said the Beijing laboratory appears closely affiliated with a Chinese defense laboratory involved in ballistic-missile penetration technology.
Harbin Engineering University, like Beihang and HIT, is on the Pentagon’s Section 1286 list.
Advanced Communications Contacts Continued Into 2025
Mulvaney said conference participation could also be consequential because of how common it is and how little scrutiny it has received compared with formal research collaboration.
Some contacts cataloged by CASI are more recent.
University of Houston professor Zhu Han delivered keynote speeches at the International Conference on Communication Software and Networks in China in both 2024 and 2025.
His 2024 keynote focused on federated learning and multi-access edge computing, technologies used to distribute artificial intelligence processing across communications networks and connected devices.
The conference listed China’s National Key Laboratory of Electromagnetic Space Security among its technical sponsors.
Han returned as a keynote speaker at the 2025 conference, which again listed the laboratory among its sponsors.
CASI traces the laboratory to a predecessor known as the Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratory of Communications Countermeasures Technology.
The 2025 keynote roster also included Nian Fushun, identified by organizers as a chief scientist of test instruments at China Electronics Technology Group Corp. and its 41st Research Institute.
China Electronics Technology Group is a state-owned defense electronics conglomerate involved in radar, communications, electronic warfare, and other military technologies.
Han’s University of Houston profile lists wireless networking, security, and data analysis among his research interests.
Pentagon Restrictions Take Effect
Beginning in fiscal 2026, Pentagon funds cannot be used for fundamental research involving collaboration with institutions on the department’s Section 1286 list.
The restriction applies to grants, contracts, and other assistance to higher education institutions and bars Pentagon funded fundamental research from collaborating with, or using equipment from, listed entities. It also extends to employees of those institutions.
Beihang University, Harbin Engineering University, and Harbin Institute of Technology—the Chinese universities involved in several of the relationships identified by CASI—are on the list.
The 30 U.S. institutions notified this month must report their findings and any mitigation measures to the Pentagon by Aug. 31.
