Make universities limit ties to China — and fund US STEM students instead

The War Department announcement that thirty universities have “fully mitigated” their relationships with “foreign entities of concern” — most notably Chinese academic institutions — is a welcome development. These “entities” appear on the latest update to the list mandated by the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act to identify “foreign institutions engaging in problematic activities.”

The department’s latest update of the list identified 130 such institutions “located in China, Russia and Iran” whose activities enable “adversarial government interference.”

Not surprisingly, the department’s latest announcement has met some skepticism if not outright opposition from some of the thirty universities that have agreed to mitigation. Several have announced that they will not cut all ties with China; after all, “mitigated” is not the same as “terminated.”

The universities’ reaction should come as no surprise. For years, American institutions of higher learning and their supporters have argued that cooperation with their foreign counterparts is critical to advancing cutting-edge research. As a 2025 letter from the Asian American Scholar Forum to the chairmen and ranking members of the Armed Services Committees put it, “critical to our research enterprise is our ability to attract and retain the best global talents, foster international collaborations, and reduce the chilling effect on the Asian American and broader research community.”

This has been especially true with respect to the longstanding debate over restricting the number of Chinese students attending U.S. universities — an issue over which the........

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