Sierra Rayne, American Thinker, May 13, 2015

The latest Pentagon report to Congress on the “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China” specifically highlights the national security risks to the United States (and other Western nations) from Chinese students and researchers studying and working abroad:

China continues to leverage foreign investments, commercial joint ventures, academic exchanges, the experience of repatriated Chinese students and researchers, and State-sponsored industrial and technical espionage to increase the level of technologies and expertise available to support military research, development, and acquisition. China’s long-term goal is to create a wholly indigenous defense industrial sector, augmented by a strong commercial sector, to meet the needs of PLA [People’s Liberation Army] modernization and to compete as a top-tier supplier in the global arms market.

Despite these concerns being voiced over many years inside and outside the education and R&D sectors, Chinese nationals and emigrants continue to make up a substantial–if not nearly dominant in some cases–portion of undergraduate and graduate student, postdoctoral fellow, and faculty member/technician/research scientist populations in many colleges, universities, and government departments.