China is exploiting the U.S. Department of Energy to access and divert taxpayer-funded research to bolster its own technological and military development, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party warned this week in a report. The committee’s probe identified approximately 4,350 research papers, published between June 2023 and June 2025 that acknowledged funding from the agency and involved relationships with entities in China, including research institutions with close ties to the Chinese military. About half of the publications “were conducted in partnership with entities within China’s defense research and industrial base,” the committee concluded.
Committee chair: “Exploited by China”
“This investigation reveals a deeply alarming problem: The Department of Energy failed to ensure the security of its research, and it put American taxpayers on the hook for funding the military rise of our nation’s foremost adversary,” the committee’s Chairman, John Moolenaar, R-Mich., said in a statement.
“The department, which oversees critical research and technological innovation, allowed research collaborations that were exploited by China. The department must stop providing funding to grantees who allow this exploitation and protect hard-earned taxpayer dollars,” he continued.
You can read the report below:
Several awards, some that are still active, were carried out in collaboration with research institutions in China that are known to be affiliated with or part of China’s military research apparatus, such as the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics (responsible for nuclear weapons research), the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) National University of Defense Technology, and “state-owned enterprise defense conglomerates.”
Some of these institutions are in the U.S. Commerce Department’s entity lists for roles in Chinese military research or engaging in human rights violations, the committee said. Take the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics, CAEP, which is labeled by the Commerce Department the leading entity of China’s nuclear program.
The committee cites numerous case studies to show how researchers from America’s leading institutions collaborated, whether knowingly or unknowingly, with Chinese scientists affiliated with Chinese government or military-linked laboratories.
In one example of how U.S.-based research boosted China’s military research efforts, the committee highlights the case of a Stanford University professor who has collaborated for years for at least two decades with a research institute affiliated with China’s nuclear weapons program. The committee did not identify her, but she is listed on Stanford’s website as Wendy Mao, Stanford’s Earth Sciences Chair.
Mao’s work with the Center for High Pressure Science and Technology (HPSTAR), which was added to the U.S. Commerce Department’s entities list in 2020 and is considered a subsidiary of the “technology complex” leading China’s nuclear weapons program, was first exposed earlier this month by the student-run The Stanford Review and reported by Just the News.
Though the research papers authored by Mao and HPSTAR do not deal directly with nuclear weapons research, the kinds of experimental techniques and theoretical knowledge required in their geological and materials research could be used to study such materials relevant to nuclear weapons, a respected materials scientist and physicist told The Stanford Review.
Mao primarily conducts research into “the behavior of materials under compression” with applications for Earth and planetary studies and the development of new materials for “energy related applications like hydrogen fuel storage and advanced batteries,” according to her faculty page.
HPSTAR, according to the Commerce Department, is “owned by, operated by, or directly affiliated” with the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP) which is the “technology complex responsible for the research, development and testing of China’s nuclear weapons.” CAEP has been listed on the Entity List since 1997.
Not only has Mao purportedly conducted research alongside HPSTAR’s scientists, but she also served as a visiting scholar for the center from at least 2016 to 2019, an archive of the HPSTAR’s website shows. As of this writing, HPSTAR’s website is currently inaccessible.
Mao also has a familial connection to HPSTAR. Her father, a Taiwanese-American scientist Ho-Kwang Mao, founded the center in Shanghai in 2013 while he was simultaneously working for the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C. His research focuses on the same area of study as his daughter.
Chinese Gov says it’s a “smear”
The Chinese Embassy in the United States pushed back on the committee’s report. A spokesperson said the panel “has long smeared and attacked China for political purposes and has no credibility to speak of.
“A handful of U.S. politicians are overstretching the concept of national security to obstruct normal scientific research exchanges, a move that wins no public support and is bound to fail,” said Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson, in a statement to the Associated Press.
At a House Science Committee hearing this week, multiple science agencies warned Congress that China is still attempting to recruit U.S.-based researchers despite recent tensions and heightened scrutiny.
“Just in the past week, I have received three emails that were forwarded to me from researchers in the community who had been approached for recruitment by Chinese malign foreign talent recruitment programmes,” Rebecca Keiser, the acting chief of staff of the National Science Foundation, told lawmakers.
Commitee asks for “damage assessment”
Jay Tilden, director of counterintelligence at the energy department, said that American universities in particular were a key target in need of heightened security and called for the government to provide more resources to vet potential partners and invest in “US-born talent.”
The House China committee recommended that the Department of Energy conduct a damage assessment of all the research grants it identified. “This review should…assess whether any such advancements were simultaneously or subsequently diverted to China’s military—due to research collaboration…” the committee wrote.
The panel also suggested that Congress create a new federal agency tasked with monitoring federally funded research and ensuring proper security measures are followed, eliminating “duplicative efforts” across all the federal grantmaking agencies.
