U of A shuts China micro-campuses under U.S. House pressure

The University of Arizona has shut down its four micro-campuses in China, after a U.S. government report released last week criticized such partnerships and said “the Chinese Communist Party exploits U.S. universities to fuel its military and technology use.”

The U.S. congressional directive — by the U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Committee on Education and the Workforce — said the committees had conducted investigations over the past two years and found that the partnerships between U.S. institutions and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “facilitate technology transfer and pose national security risks.”

“Last fall, the Committees released ‘CCP on the Quad,’ a report exposing how American researchers — many funded by the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and National Science Foundation — enabled major advancements by the People’s Republic of China in nuclear technology, artificial intelligence, robotics, and quantum computing,” the Sept. 11 directive said.

The directive also said that, since release of the report, universities including the University of California Berkeley, the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois had done “the right thing for academic freedom and U.S. national security by shuttering their joint institutes with Chinese partners.”

It said universities, including the UA, New York University, the University of North Alabama, the University of Houston and the University of Miami, had chosen to not do so.

The UA had a total of five micro-campuses in China in Beijing, Qingdao, Tianjin, Xi’an and Harbin, one of which was terminated in 2023. The other four were shut down this week, confirmed UA spokesperson Mitch Zak.

The university’s business school had terminated the fifth micro-campus — with the Harbin Institute of Technology — in December 2023, said Zak, but did not clarify if it was due to a similar congressional directive as the current one.

The current closure will affect 2,200 students, 36 faculty, and four staff members, and the employees in China who will be moving back to their home country will be given financial support for relocation, he said.

“Acknowledging a congressional directive, the University of Arizona immediately terminated its China-based micro-campus agreements,” wrote Zak to the Arizona Daily Star. “We have communicated directly with those affected and are working with enrolled students to help them continue their education.”

In an X post Wednesday, the House Committee on Education and Workforce praised the UA’s decision.

“(The University of Arizona) @uarizona is making the right decision to end its China-based campus agreements,” the post read. “The CCP uses these programs to steal cutting-edge research for its own military buildup and promote communist ideology. These programs are a direct threat to U.S. national security. Every American school should follow suit and end agreements with the CCP.”

The Sept. 11 directive described the “joint institutes” between Chinese and U.S. institutions as not “typical academic collaborations that benefit students from both countries,” and said they were under “the thumb of the CCP.”

“They operate under PRC law; are run by Chinese-majority boards and have Party presence in leadership; and are aligned with the CCP’s national strategy, including its military buildup,” said the directive.

“Chinese government funding dominates these joint institutes, and the use of funds is restricted by law to align with CCP goals. Curriculum and research prioritize CCP-defined goals — especially in military-relevant science and technology fields. Finally, U.S. institutions agree to PRC-imposed limits on academic freedom, speech, and governance independence.”

In an email sent Monday to students at the micro-campuses, Jenny Lee — UA’s vice president for Arizona International — said the partnerships were ending because their “continued participation would run counter to current U.S. government expectations”. She said the UA courses won’t be available after the fall 2025 semester is over.

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“The U of A is committed to supporting you in the completion of your degree,” Lee told students. “We welcome you to join us at our main campus, in Tucson, Arizona, under an extended Study Arizona Program for up to 4 semesters (usually during the junior and senior years). The U of A will follow up soon with further guidance regarding Study Arizona and other possible options for your degree completion pathway.”

The UA has a total of 11 micro-campuses across 10 countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Peru, Mexico, Kazakhstan and Cambodia.

The university launched its first micro-campus in China in 2015 at the Ocean University of China, where students could earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in law. Each of its four micro-campuses in China offered one degree, the Star previously reported.

In a June 2024 UA news release celebrating the Yangling, China, micro-campus’ first graduating class, Jon Chorover, interim associate vice president for research in UA’s College of Agriculture, Life and Environmental Sciences, said the partnership was an exciting opportunity for the college and the department of environmental sciences.

This micro-campus was formally established in 2020.

“The U.S. and China are two of the largest and most powerful economies in the world, and in the realm of the environment, we are two of the most impactful countries,” Chorover had said in the 2024 release. “We both have large and substantial environmental and agricultural footprints, so maintaining an open dialogue between our countries is really important to both our economies and our understanding of the natural world and how best to care for it going forward.”

Ken Smith, a global professor and the director of UA’s Yangling, China, micro-campus, told the Star Friday that the program has graduated two classes with 83 students each since being established. The program has a total of 340 students, six UA environmental science faculty working on site, one Arizona International employee and four Chinese staff working directly for the program.

All faculty members working on-site in China will lose their jobs, Smith confirmed. The Chinese will not trust the UA with another partnership for a long time and they feel “burned by the sudden announcement and pull-out,” he said.

“All the programs in China produced revenue, and for our program, it provided a valuable source of income to our department during the difficult financial times at UA the past couple of years,” said Smith, referring to UA’s 2023 financial crisis, which led to an initial deficit of $240 million. “These were not taxpayer-funded programs, they produced annual revenue.”

Smith said the program will graduate its current fourth-year students this coming June, since they will be done with their course requirements by the end of the fall semester, when the program will end. The current third-year students in the program, UA and its partner Chinese university, the Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University or NWAFU, are working on a plan to help them graduate by June 2027.

As for first-year and second-year students, they will have to migrate to NWAFU’s environmental science program, Smith said. He said the first-, second- and third-year students will likely receive a refund for half of their tuition this year, and that the tuition for each year is collected by NWAFU and transferred to UA in December so they could hold some of it back this year.

“Our students were going on to do amazing things and their dual degree with the UA was viewed very positively in China and by institutions around the world,” he said.

“Currently, we have our former students in graduate programs throughout China, Europe, Australia, and North America. We also have several students who became interns with international organizations like the UN (United Nations),” he said.

The students, who come from 22 provinces around China from both wealthy and middle-class families, “were not required to come to the United States to study, which made the program affordable to many families,” Smith said. “Our program was recently reviewed by both the Chinese federal and provincial Ministry of Education, and we were viewed as one of the best dual-degree programs in China.”

“We were not in any way a threat to national security. We were teaching about soil, air, water, waste management, and many other environmental topics — problems all countries around the world encounter,” he said.