Chinese Graduates of ‘High Risk’ Shanghai University Charged with Lying about Trip to Sensitive Military Drills

Five Chinese nationals who studied in Michigan were charged by the Justice Department yesterday with lying to federal agents about their visit to the site of a major military exercise with Taiwanese troops in the state, the FBI said in a court filing.

In an affidavit filed in federal court this week, FBI counterintelligence agent Caroline Colpoys described a months-long investigation into the five individuals, who graduated in May from the University of Michigan through a dual degree program with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which a recent congressional report flagged for its extensive ties to China’s military.

The court filings said that the five defendants, all men, departed after their graduation in May, and it did not say that federal agents arrested them. It’s not clear where they are now. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Michigan did not return a call on Wednesday afternoon.

The incident that led to the charges took place in August 2023 on a boat launch at Camp Grayling, the site of a “Northern Strike,” a large National Guard exercise that includes thousands of troops from several allied countries. That year’s iteration of the drills included a Taiwanese contingent.

According to the filings, a Sergeant Major from the Utah National Guard encountered the defendants “while standing in close proximity to numerous military vehicles, tents, and classified communications equipment” near a live fire drill. The five people claimed that they were taking pictures and claimed, “We are media.” Questioned further and asked if they were with the Taiwanese, they said that they were Chinese.

The Sergeant Major told them to “get the F*** out of there,” and he reported the encounter to Camp Grayling authorities.

The following morning, local law enforcement determined that people matching the description of the men had checked into a nearby Super 8 Motel shortly after the incident at the lake.

On two separate occasions, each of the five defendants was later interviewed by federal law enforcement. The first interview took place in December of 2023, as one of the defendants sought to leave Detroit on a flight to South Korea before connecting to Shanghai.

During that interview, CBP searched his devices and found images on an “external hard drive showing military vehicles on the media storage device taken the night of” the encounter at the lake.

Then, on March 3 of this year, FBI agents interviewed each of the four other men separately at Chicago O’Hare International Airport after they landed on a flight that arrived from Iceland. While their stories were somewhat similar, “there were notable discrepancies and conflicts with one another,” Colpoys wrote.

The affidavit accuses each of the five of making false statements during their interviews and of destroying, altering, or falsifying records under federal investigation.

They arrived in the U.S. in 2022 as part of the program between the University of Michigan’s School of Information and Shanghai Jiao Tong University after completing the first part of the program in China. The two schools operate a “joint institute,” through which Michigan students study in Shanghai and Shanghai Jiao Tong students can opt to enroll in one of several dual degree and accelerated masters degree options at the College of Engineering, the School of Information, and other programs.

A report issued by House Republicans on two congressional committees last week states that the Shanghai school is “supervised by the Chinese state with a goal of strengthening the PRC’s military and technological prowess.” The findings from the House Select Committee on the CCP and the House Education Committee specifically flag the joint institute as a national security concern due to its work in the fields of advanced materials, advanced computing, and control and systems engineering.

The joint report from the House committees also flagged Shanghai Jiao Tong’s supervision by “an arm of the Chinese government whose stated purposes include ‘strengthen[ing] military forces with additional personnel and more advanced equipment’” and for being a civilian university that has “significant defense-related features.”

A report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tank previously referred to Shanghai Jiao Tong as a “high risk” university, given allegations that it is linked to a Chinese military hacking unit and defense research initiatives.

“All of our nation’s universities must shut down their joint institutes with Chinese universities, and enact stricter guardrails on emerging technology research. American universities must realize they are a target for espionage and protect the critical taxpayer-funded research they do,” said Representative John Moolenaar, the chairman of the House committee on the CCP in a statement responding to the charges today.

In recent years, there has been a spate of incidents in which Chinese nationals have attempted to enter or photograph secured military sites in the U.S., leading to their conviction on trespassing charges.