The end of a decade-long partnership between a leading public research university in the United States and China’s Tianjin University was a “direct consequence” of a US strategy to decouple from China in hi-tech fields, and a worrying sign of dwindling academic exchanges between the two countries, analyst have warned.
The Georgia Institute of Technology announced last week that it would sever its relationship with the Georgia Tech Shenzhen Institute (GTSI) – a joint venture with Tianjin University – and shut down its degree programmes in China’s technology hub.
The announcement by one of the country’s leading technological universities followed accusations from US lawmakers that the school’s partnership with blacklisted Tianjin University might have compromised US national security.
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In May, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party opened an investigation into its collaborations with Tianjin University and asked Georgia Tech’s leaders to clarify details of their research collaboration on semiconductor technologies.
The lawmakers said the relationship was problematic since Georgia Tech was home to the Georgia Tech Research Institute, which collaborates with the US Department of Defense on national security issues.
Tianjin University was added to the Commerce Department’s Entity List in late 2020, which restricts the export, re-export and transfer of items to entities believed to be involved in activities that threaten US national security.
The committee said that such activities include the theft of trade secrets and research collaboration to advance China’s military.
Soon after, Georgia Tech started re-evaluating its partnerships in China, halted plans to introduce PhD programmes, and limited enrolment to just 10 per cent of its initial target, a school official said.
“To date, Tianjin University remains on the Entity List, making Georgia Tech’s participation with Tianjin University, and subsequently GTSI, no longer tenable,” the institute said in a statement published last week.
The institute said that about 300 students currently enrolled in programmes in Shenzhen would be able to complete their degree requirements, adding that the university would continue to offer global experiences to students, including in Shenzhen.
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In 2016, Georgia Tech collaborated with Tianjin University and Shenzhen’s municipal government to establish the GTSI, which began offering master’s degrees in engineering programmes in 2021.
Academic exchanges and cooperation between Tianjin University and Georgia Tech date back to 2009, with nearly 800 students exchanges since then, according to the GTSI website.
In 2014, the two universities launched a joint master’s programme in electrical and computer engineering in Shenzhen, after it was approved by China’s education ministry.
The GTSI had planned to expand its campus area with a new construction project in Shenzhen’s Nanshan district in beginning in 2022, but the sudden departure of Georgia Tech has further clouded the institute’s future operations.
The Post has contacted GTSI for comment.
Georgia Tech’s exit not only mirrors the broader challenges facing academic exchanges, but also underscores the growing unease in interuniversity partnerships as American academic institutions get caught in the crossfire of intensifying strategic and technological competition between Beijing and Washington.
Zhu Feng, executive dean of Nanjing University’s School of International Studies, said Georgia Tech’s exit from its association with Tianjin University is a direct consequence of America’s ongoing strategy to decouple from China in hi-tech fields.
He warned that the sudden end of the partnership signaled a “continued downturn” in academic and scientific collaborations between the two nations.
“Amidst escalating strategic and technological rivalry between the two global powerhouses, American institutions would inevitably become vigilant over any future partnerships with Chinese counterparts,” he said.
Diao Daming, a professor of international relations at Beijing’s Renmin University, said that the termination of such cooperation has been excessively politicised by the US.
“The incident demonstrated a widespread application of ‘securitisation’, leading to an outcome where the concept of security exceeds its proper boundaries,” Diao said, adding that the approach is now evident across multiple facets of US-China interactions.
He added that maintaining this approach would undermine regular interactions and constructive engagement between the two countries, ultimately impeding the continuous development of the US itself.
“Although it may seem that only some cooperative projects are being disrupted now, in the long run, these actions are eroding the foundation of stable public opinion necessary for sustaining stable ties between the US and China,” Diao said.
Other American universities have also faced public scrutiny over their ties with Chinese universities.
In June last year, the same US select committee expressed “grave concerns” and launched an investigation into ties between the University of California, Berkeley, and Tsinghua University.
It targeted the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, a joint initiative established in 2014, and questioned whether the university had adequately disclosed China’s funding for the institute.
The lawmakers also focused on the institute’s ties with Chinese universities and companies that have faced US sanctions, such as the National University of Defense Technology and telecoms giant Huawei.
Also in June 2023, Alfred University in New York found itself at the centre of a controversy and subsequently closed its Confucius Institute. The spotlight intensified when it was revealed that the university had received a defence department grant for hypersonic weapons research while simultaneously hosting the Confucius Institute.
A month before the closure, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party had launched an investigation into the university.
In 2018, Cornell University suspended a partnership with China’s Renmin University due to concerns over academic freedom. Two undergraduate exchange programmes have been suspended due to concerns that the Chinese partners had taken disciplinary actions, monitored or suppressed students who advocated for workers’ rights during a labour dispute at the time.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Publish date : 2024-09-09 15:30:00
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