The communist Chinese government donated roughly $54.6 million to the University of Pennsylvania (where the Pen Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement is) between 2014 and 2020 and gave an additional $15 million in contracts and gifts from 2020-2022. Why are the Chinese so interested in a university in Pennsylvania where the president has a think tank? How does the CCP influence US institutions, corporate America and the Defense Department?
Retired Brigadier General Blaine Holt said, “let’s get to the top level here: we’re at war with China. We’ve been at war with China for a real long time. Their preference for warfare is not throwing missiles and bombs at things–their preference for warfare is what they’ve been doing to us: Get into our systems, undermine us, support corruption everywhere where it may exist and start to co-opt and break down our systems of oversight. Our systems where we hold those to account who might have colluded with China. This is their plan and it’s going quite well for them.”
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Additional
Chinese donations to UPenn are a ‘dark-money nightmare,’ says NLPC chairman (Fox, 14 JAN 23))
PETER FLAHERTY, National Legal and Policy Center Chairman: What’s significant here is that once the Biden Center was established, the gifts accelerated and much of the money was anonymous as you pointed out, there was a single $14 million anonymous gift in 2018 from a source in China. The attention that this whole thing is getting now is a great relief to us because we focused on this issue in 2020. We tabulated the amounts of money from Chinese sources, and we filed a complaint with the Department of Education because universities are supposed to disclose any gift over $250,000. And the University of Pennsylvania did not do that. Unfortunately, to our chagrin, the Education Department didn’t do anything about it. So we now renew our call for the University of Pennsylvania to disclose who in China gave all this money to the Biden Center. . . .
$54M in Chinese gifts donated to UPenn, home of Biden Center (NY Post, 9 Apr 22)
A government watchdog is demanding the US attorney probing Hunter Biden in Delaware investigate tens of millions in anonymous donations from China to the University of Pennsylvania, where an academic center is named for his father, President Biden.
The Ivy League college raked in a total of $54.6 million from 2014 through June 2019 in donations from China, including $23.1 million in anonymous gifts starting in 2016, according to public records.
Most of the anonymous donations came after the university announced in February 2017 that it would create the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. Joe Biden, whose term as vice president had just ended, was to lead the center and was also named a professor at the university. The center, which is located in Washington, DC, opened its doors in February 2018. Antony Blinken, whom Biden named as secretary of state, briefly served as its managing director.
The Ivy League university received $15.8 million in anonymous Chinese gifts that year, including one eye-popping $14.5 million donation in May 2018, records show. . . .
House Oversight Chair Asks University Of Pennsylvania For Chinese Donor List And Visitor Logs (Forbes, 18 JAN 23)
Comer, in a letter to University of Pennsylvania President Mary Elizabeth Magill on Tuesday, asked for all documents and communications related to donations with Chinese origins to the university and the Biden-led Penn Biden Center, along with visitor logs and a list of all employees and others with keycard access to the center. . . ..
UPenn Can’t Explain Mystery Donation From Chinese Company (Washington Free Beacon, 3 Aug 2020)
The University of Pennsylvania pocketed a $3 million donation last year from a mysterious Hong Kong shell company that is owned by a Shanghai businessman with deep ties to Chinese government officials.
The donation from Xu Xeuqing, who has no apparent connection to the University of Pennsylvania and was previously embroiled in a Shanghai public corruption scandal, raises questions about the true source of the money. Documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show Xeuqing has close ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
China has poured money into American universities in recent years, in part to buy influence on campuses, experts say. The donation comes as federal prosecutors have increased scrutiny on the Chinese government’s influence-buying and espionage operations at American universities.
“Unequivocally they’re using the money they’re providing the universities to garner influence there,” said Ben Freeman, the director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy. “It’s not the sole motive, but it’s one of a variety of motives.” . . . .
New Book Reveals Chinese Dollars to University of Pennsylvania Tripled After Biden Center Founding (TN Star, 29 Jan 2022)
A new book reveals that financial support from communist China to the University of Pennsylvania nearly tripled after the school established its Biden Center four years ago.
The flow of dollars from People’s Republic of China entities to Penn has already fueled contentiousness about Gutmann’s nomination. In a November letter to Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) expressed their concern regarding the amount of money the university has accepted from Chinese institutions and companies. Committee Ranking Member Jim Risch (R-ID) has since come out against Gutmann’s prospective appointment and has cited the $86 million in Chinese contributions and contracts that Penn has received since 2014.
Now, reports surrounding a new book by Peter Schweizer, president of the nonprofit Government Accountability Institute, are underscoring the revelation that Chinese support for the school got significantly more generous after the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement opened in 2018. In the three years prior to the center’s launch, dollars from mainland China received by the university totaled roughly $15 million. In the three years following the center’s establishment, Chinese donations and contract payouts to Penn were around $60 million. The creation of the center coincided with Joe Biden becoming Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor at Penn, a position for which he reportedly received $900,000 in compensation.
“…The flow of money to the University of Pennsylvania should raise some eyebrows and offer cause as to who is financing the Biden Center’s Operations,” Schweizer wrote in Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win. “One trend is unmistakable: after the Biden Center’s announcement that it was opening at the University of Pennsylvania, donations from the Chinese mainland to Penn almost tripled.” . . . .
University that housed Biden center pressed to end FBI China spy probe after big Beijing donations (Just the News, 12 JAN 23)
The University of Pennsylvania, the Ivy League institution which collected tens of millions of dollars from China while paying Joe Biden and hosting his foreign policy think tank, successfully pressured the Biden Justice Department to end an FBI counterespionage program targeting Beijing’s increasing influence within U.S. academia.
Attorney General Merrick Garland shut down the FBI’s so-called China initiative in February 2022 shortly after more than 160 members of the University of Pennsylvania faculty signed and made public an open letter demanding the program be shuttered, on the grounds that it amounted to racial profiling. The faculty letter was part of a larger university battle against the program. . . .
Penn Biden Center where classified papers were found is a ‘dark money nightmare’ (NY Post, 11 Jan 23)
The Ivy League think tank where lawyers found classified materials linked to the Obama White House is a patronage mill for the Biden administration, raising suspicions among critics that its establishment attracted tens of millions in donations from anonymous Chinese donors.
The University of Pennsylvania received more than $30 million from Chinese donors shortly after the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, which functioned as an office for Joe Biden before he was elected president, was announced in 2017, according to public records.
“The Penn Biden Center is a dark money, revolving door nightmare where foreign competitors like China donated millions of dollars to the university so that they could have access to future high ranking officials,” said Tom Anderson, director of the Government Integrity Project at the Virginia-based National Legal and Policy Center. . .
