Harvard's China ties become new front in battle with Trump

In his war with Harvard, President Trump has sought to withhold billions of dollars in federal funding from the school and strip its tax exemptions, measures the White House initially tied to perceived antisemitism at the school amid Israel's war in Gaza.

- James T. Areddy

In recent weeks, long-simmering Republican anger over Harvard's links to China has increasingly gained traction. In escalating calls to punish the school, a training event two years ago in the Chinese city of Kunming has emerged as Exhibit A.

The training, on the bland topic of healthcare financing, was co-hosted by a Harvard professor and involved a few dozen provincial-level bureaucrats. Among them was at least one representative from Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a large Chinese Communist Party paramilitary organization in the country's far west that also handles civilian government services, including managing hospitals.

U.S. authorities in 2020 imposed sanctions against the Xinjiang corps, accusing it of ethnic and religious abuses against Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minorities and forbidding U.S. persons from providing it "funds, goods, or services."

On Wednesday, as Trump moved to bar Harvard from enrolling foreign students, his order cited the event, charging that in exchange for Chinese funding the school "has, among other things, 'repeatedly hosted and trained members of a Chinese Communist Party paramilitary organization.'"

Harvard, which didn't respond to questions, hasn't publicly addressed the allegations involving the Xinjiang corps. The school is fighting Trump in court, calling some of the administration's measures illegal.

China dependence

To its detractors, Harvard epitomizes American elite universities' dependence on Beijing as a profit center—and how that helps the country's rulers, the Chinese Communist Party, challenge the U.S.