Huawei, a state-linked technology company in China, allegedly has been” secretly funding cutting-edge study at American colleges” through a Washington-based volunteer called the Optica Foundation.
According to a report from Bloomberg News on Thursday, Huawei is the only source of funding for a study competition run by the Optica Foundation, which is then run by a professional organization that specializes in visible-light solutions like fiber optics and lasers. The opposition receives hundreds of entries each year and offers a substantial million-dollar reward for visual research projects.
Bloomberg contacted school authorities, applicants for the contest, and even one of the courts, and they all said they had no notion Huawei was involved. Reporters discovered a secret record that specifically instructed the Optica Foundation to keep the Chinese tech company’s activities a secret.
The agreement’s existence, content, and relationship between the Parties may also be regarded as private information, according to the document. The ten-year agreement it outlines was signed in 2021 and is scheduled to last ten years, which means it will award a total of$ 10 million in awards.
Optical also offers ten additional “early job prizes and fellowships” that do not appear to be related to Huawei, as well as many less expensive cash prizes and grants.
Optica claimed for Bloomberg that the panel reviewed and approved Huawei donations after they were reviewed by lawful teams. The foundation argued that the donor’s policy of remaining anonymous was” not uncommon.”
Legal professionals told Bloomberg that Huawei’s gifts to Optica are probably legal, but absolutely miserable, and there could be some federal safety consequences:
Despite the lack of accountability surrounding the agreement, according to research security experts, it still goes against the spirit of US funding regulations that require researchers to disclose whether they are receiving foreign money.
Additionally, they added that some of the research’s findings are likely to include both business and defense implications. ” High awareness optical sensors and detectors” are two topics that the Optica Foundation points out in an online blog as being” of attention.”
According to James Mulvenon, a security company who has worked on study safety issues and co-authored a groundbreaking guide on Chinese industrial espionage, “it’s a terrible look for a renowned research foundation to be accepting money from a Chinese company that raises so numerous federal security concerns for the US government.”
Texas A&, M University’s protection officer indicated the class would not have participated in the research competitors if Huawei’s presence had not been “heavily obfuscated”. Due to the fact that Eric Mazur, the president of the Optica Foundation board, is a Harvard science professor, Harvard also stated that its policy prohibits “working with Huawei,” which is uncomfortable.
The foundation should address Huawei like any other business donor, but at best that seems counterproductive. Huawei’s products have been categorized by U.S. knowledge and law enforcement as significant security threats that could be compromised by Chinese military intelligence. The organization has been targeted by U. S. sanctions, placed on industry restriction lists, denied permission to obtain delicate U. S. electronics components, and also prohibited from using Google’s common Android smartphone operating system.
Since one of the ten members of the competition’s selection committee is a Huawei executive named Xiang Liu, it may also be unfunny for university officials to be completely unaware of Huawei’s involvement with the research competition after the Bloomberg report exposed it.
According to a report released two weeks ago, businesses associated with the People’s Liberation Army of China have spent more than$ 24 million on lobbying the US government since 2020. Huawei was by far the biggest spender on lobbyists, accounting for$ 10.8 million of the total.
The Chinese Communist Party’s influence over American universities, corporations, and government is a subject of growing concern. Although the Trump administration attempted to investigate Chinese financial contributions to American universities, those inquiries were not conducted as diligently under President Joe Biden.
