Trump Administration Examines U.S. Universities' Partnerships With Chinese Entities

Ronald Oleynik, J. Michael Cavanaugh and Hongjun Zhang are partners and Sophie Jin is an attorney in Holland & Knight's Washington D.C. office

Amid the Trump Administration's plan to reduce China's access to U.S. intellectual property, the federal government is imposing tighter scrutiny over U.S. universities' research partnerships with Chinese entities. The move is meant to prevent technology transfers that could have national security implications.

Michael Griffin, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, testified on June 21, 2018, at a House Armed Services Committee hearing on military technology transfer. Griffin stated that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) should make sure that research assignments do not go to U.S. universities that have ties to entities such as Chinese tech company Huawei. "Certainly, universities have a very long, multi-decade history of collaboration with the national security community at large on problems of