University of California-Berkeley campus.
The University of California-Berkeley, a research center jointly operated in China, provides economic advice to the Chinese Communist Party. The research center has received millions of dollars in funding from the Beijing government to operate a big data research center that advises the Chinese Communist government and to fund cutting-edge research on autonomous vehicles.
The Washington Free Beacon revealed Feb. 8 that the university began operating the Guizhou Berkeley Big Data Innovation Research Center (GBIC) in September 2016, in conjunction with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the local government of Guizhou province. As the name implies, the center is located in the relatively poor and underdeveloped province of Guizhou.
The Guizhou Berkeley Big Data Innovation Research Center, jointly operated by Berkeley, the local government of China’s Guizhou Province, and the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, helps “the Guizhou government make economic decisions and improve public services,” according to a 2016 Communist government press release. Meanwhile, the taxpayer-funded California school has also enlisted the help of Chinese technology companies Baidu and huawei to enhance its Berkeley DeepDrive autonomous vehicle program.
Berkeley’s overseas ties give China access to U.S. expertise in two key areas: big data and autonomous vehicles. According to a report by RAND, the Beijing government sees big data analytics – the use of computers to analyze large data sets – as critical to strengthening its domestic surveillance apparatus and military capabilities. The Communist regime has long viewed the automated vehicle sector as a key growth area, and its spies have stolen trade secrets from tesla and other car companies to fuel their own growth.
The Communist Party is using the power of artificial intelligence and big data analytics to build the world’s oldest state surveillance and repression system,” said Ian Easton, senior director of the Project 2049 Institute, a think tank. repressive system. Any U.S. university or research lab that collaborates with the Chinese Communist regime or its proxies on technology research is working directly with a hostile foreign power. The moral, ethical and legal risks of such behavior should be obvious to any educated American.”
The Berkeley Center for Big Data Innovation and Research in Guizhou opened in September 2016 with the ambitious goal of becoming a “big data research center for world-class California universities and Chinese researchers” at a ceremony attended by Chinese Communist Party officials. According to U.S. Department of Education data on foreign donations to U.S. universities, the Guizhou Berkeley Big Data Innovation Research Center has funneled nearly $1.9 million into the state university’s coffers since its opening.
A press release from the Chinese Communist government vaguely describes the mission of the Guizhou Berkeley Center for Big Data Innovation and Research, saying it will “provide data support for the Guizhou government to make economic decisions and improve public services. A Berkeley website touts the relatively benign work the Guizhou Berkeley Big Data Innovation Research Center has done for the Chinese government, such as its big data analysis of elder care. The university removed the page after an inquiry from the Washington Free Beacon.
Berkeley’s work for the Beijing government is much more extensive than its website advertises. The Berkeley Big Data Innovation Research Center in Guizhou, according to one researcher, has also helped local governments in Guizhou establish big data collection protocols and analyzed a database of more than a million people on behalf of the provincial government. The Berkeley Center for Big Data Innovation and Research in Guizhou, is also training Chinese researchers on how to handle big data, offering courses to students at top Chinese universities such as Tianjin University. Training big data professionals is a top priority for Communist Party leaders like Xi Jinping, in part because the technology is a cornerstone of the Communist Party’s growing surveillance apparatus in Xinjiang and elsewhere.
A Berkeley spokesman said the Guizhou Berkeley Big Data Innovation Research Center program is “no longer operational” on the Berkeley campus and hasn’t been since last year. He did not respond to inquiries about whether the Guizhou Berkeley Big Data Innovation Research Center has put in place any measures to ensure that Berkeley’s big data expertise does not contribute to human rights abuses by the Chinese Communist Party.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said it’s Time for universities like Berkeley to review their ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
Every American academic institution needs to review its relationship with China,” McCarthy told the Washington Free Beacon. Given China’s surveillance state, which collects more data on its own citizens than any other country in the world and is responsible for some of the largest data hacks against the U.S. government, collecting vast amounts of information on U.S. citizens, there should be a special review of the handling of big data.”
Berkeley’s autonomous vehicle program, which also has extensive ties to Chinese tech companies, includes those deemed a national security threat by the U.S. government. Berkeley DeepDrive, a consortium formed in 2016 to advance autonomous vehicle development, counts Huawei, Baidu, Drip and other Chinese tech companies as research partners, according to a 2018 research slide deck and corporate website depository.
Chinese tech giants, collectively, have sent millions of dollars to the University of California, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Huawei and its U.S. subsidiary, donated $6.8 million to Berkeley, while Baidu gave $1.5 million. Berkeley, also received a $450,000 grant from the Guolian Institute for Automotive Power Battery Research, which is state-owned with China.
This research collaboration has proven beneficial to Baidu’s ApolloScape project, an autonomous driving dataset that is much smaller than Berkeley’s DeepDrive. Baidu’s press release reads, “The collaboration between Baidu and [Berkeley DeepDrive] will integrate Apollo’s industrial resources and Berkeley’s top academic team to increase innovation in theoretical research, applied technologies and commercial applications.”
After U.S. authorities indicted Huawei in 2019, Berkeley said it would no longer receive funding from the Chinese tech company. However, Berkeley DeepDrive still lists Huawei’s U.S. subsidiary Futurewei as a corporate sponsor. A Berkeley spokesperson said all Berkeley DeepDrive corporate sponsors, including U.S. entities, have equal access to commercial intellectual property that is not available to non-sponsors. The spokesperson said, “Our sponsors are all treated equally and their funds are managed centrally.”
Berkeley’s relationship with China extends beyond the Big Data Center and autonomous vehicle programs. Chinese students make up more than half of Berkeley’s international student body. The university also runs a joint institute with Tsinghua University, a top Chinese university that conducts extensive defense research and has been linked to Communist espionage, according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
The University of California is not unique in its close ties to the Chinese Communist government and corporate elite. Huawei has also donated millions of dollars to other top universities, such as MIT, and the Chinese company exerted enough influence to ghostwrite a pro-Huawei op-ed in the name of a prominent MIT scholar. more than 100 U.S. universities also operate Confucius Institutes controlled by the Chinese Communist government. Dozens of universities have severed ties with the Empty Institute following bipartisan congressional scrutiny.
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