‘When you are doing research or you are drawing compensation from a foreign state, particularly China … that has to be something that is disclosed…’
(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said Chinese students do not absorb “Western ideas” when they study at American universities because “they are being watched” by the Chinese Communist Party.
Rubio made the comments on Wednesday in a discussion with Campus Reform and the Leadership Institute about the influence that the Chinese government has on American universities, according to a press release.
He said Chinese foreign-exchange students do not get “the full university experience” because the Chinese government monitors them “to prevent them from becoming infected with Western ideas, human rights, freedom of speech and the like.”
U.S. officials generally take into account the influence that the Chinese government has on its students but still believe that “diversity, plurality of opinions and our society” will “balance it out,” Rubio said.
“I don’t believe Chinese students are getting that experience any longer when they come to the U.S., and that is not a conspiracy theory,” Rubio said. “That is something that we have been able to document and to see and many on campuses will tell you it’s been a reality as well.”
He said the United States needs to be more cautious about admitting Chinese graduate students and about “foreign nationals of a variety of different places who are known for active efforts to steal trade secrets and technological secrets.”
Following revelations that professors at America’s once-prestigous institutions lied about taking Chinese money, Rubio called for financial-disclosure laws.
“When you are doing research or you are drawing compensation from a foreign state, particularly China, who has a track record of trying to steal research or at a minimum getting you to duplicate it for them, that has to be something that is disclosed and there needs to be criminal penalties for people that deliberately hide it,” he said.