House Republicans to Investigate UC-Berkeley’s Ties to China

House Republicans on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party are planning to investigate ties between the University of California at Berkeley and China.

This is long overdue and should probably happen at a number of American universities.

When Republicans still controlled the Senate, Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio were just beginning to get into this topic, looking at various Confucius Institutes on American college campuses.

American Greatness reports:

House of Representatives to Investigate UC Berkeley’s Ties to China

A committee in the United States House of Representatives has expressed concerns over the ties between Communist China and the University of California Berkeley.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party sent a letter to Berkeley’s president Michael Drake last week; the letter focused on the school’s Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, a collaboration between Berkeley and the Tsinghua University in Shenzhen, located in southeast China.

In the letter, House Republicans voiced their opposition to the institute’s development of “dual-use technologies” which could benefit Chinese military technology. The letter also demanded information from the school regarding the institute’s funding and research.

“Berkeley’s P.R.C.-backed collaboration with Tsinghua University raises many red flags,” said the letter, signed by committee chairman Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) and Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.).

Here’s more from the Washington Free Beacon:

Berkeley told the New York Times that it takes national security “very seriously.”

“The campus is reviewing past agreements and actions involving or connected to Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute” and would “fully and transparently cooperate with any federal inquiries,” the university said…

The letter comes after the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee in May called out Berkeley’s failure to properly report more than $200 million in funding it received from China.

While they’re at it, Republicans should look at the ties between China and Joe Biden’s think tank at the University of Pennsylvania.