Espionage at Stanford

Summary

Campus Files: “Espionage at Stanford”

Podcast: Campus Files (Audacy)
Episode Date: September 17, 2025
Host/Reporter: Margot Gray

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Episode Overview

“Espionage at Stanford” explores a chilling and underreported reality: U.S. college campuses, particularly elite institutions like Stanford, have become prime targets for Chinese state-sponsored espionage. Through the story of two undergraduates, Elsa and Garrett, the episode uncovers how the Chinese government’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) leverages students and academic networks to funnel cutting-edge research, technology, and know-how back to China—often through coercion and fear. The investigation pulls back the curtain on the tactics used, the challenges whistleblowers face, and the risks posed not just to U.S. national security, but to the very students caught in the crossfire.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Initial Encounter – Elsa and Charles Chen

• Elsa, an East Asian Studies major, is contacted via Instagram by “Charles Chen,” who claims to be a Stanford student (01:03).
• He quickly pivots to asking if Elsa speaks Mandarin. Despite vague mutual connections, Elsa finds this suspicious (01:29).
• Charles offers to pay for Elsa’s travel to China, attempts to move the conversation to WeChat, and later publicly demands she delete their chat screenshots—despite no notification system on Instagram, unsettling Elsa further (02:06, 02:23).
• “That was sort of my last straw with him. And that's when I decided to end communication.” – Elsa (02:23).
• Elsa learns from campus China experts that Charles is likely affiliated with China’s MSS, tasked with recruiting or pressuring Stanford students into espionage.

2. A Parallel Experience – Garrett’s Discovery in Shanghai

• Garrett, an economics major, meets Stanford alumni in senior CCP positions during a university trip to Shanghai (04:17).
• These officials openly discuss programs to place and groom Chinese students at Stanford for the purpose of transferring research or creating similar ventures in China.
• “To hear the extent of direction the CCP uses... and the ways in which they funnel knowledge was brand new to me.” – Garrett (05:01).

3. Forming an Investigation

• Elsa and Garrett unite over their experiences and discover a surprising lack of systematic reporting on the issue (05:39).
• Leveraging Elsa’s ties to Stanford’s Hoover Institution, they gather input from leading policy and foreign affairs scholars (06:24).

4. Why Stanford?

• Experts explain China’s ambition to dominate emerging fields—AI, robotics, biotech—and how its centrally planned system lacks the open innovation ecosystem of Silicon Valley (06:58–07:17).
• American tech companies have often facilitated Chinese access, sometimes providing source code or research in exchange for market access (08:25).
• “Former FBI Director Christopher Wray has described this intellectual property theft as one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history.” – Margot Gray (08:49).

5. The Espionage Ecosystem at Stanford

• Stanford’s location in Silicon Valley and focus on tech startups makes it a “pipeline” for cutting-edge research and a prime target for foreign intelligence (09:29–10:03).
• Chinese universities aspire to “replicate Stanford,” with over 1,100 Chinese nationals currently enrolled (11:07, 11:23).

6. China’s National Intelligence Law & Student Vulnerability

• Since 2017, all Chinese citizens are legally required to aid state intelligence if called upon (14:02).
• This exposes Chinese students at Stanford to coercion—from surveillance to threats against families back home (14:57).
• “We’ve seen that look like parents being brought into police stations when students don’t want to turn over research.” – Garrett (14:57).

7. Culture of Fear, Secrecy, and Policing

• Recruiting sources is difficult. Both Chinese nationals and China experts fear reprisals and blacklistings (15:15–15:51).
• Even communication is surveilled—secure conversations must take place entirely offline (16:32–16:50).
• “There's no encrypted messaging app that is safe enough for them to talk about these things.” – Elsa (16:32).

8. The Mechanics of Academic Espionage

• Chinese students report to handlers, sometimes weekly, on research access and progress; meetings happen in person or via Zoom (17:50).
• “They sort of confessed…that they were meeting with a handler, so to speak, to discuss what they were researching.” – Elsa (18:10).
• Chinese American students are pressured as well, regardless of citizenship status (19:03).
• “They view Chinese Americans as ethnic Chinese, and therefore…loyalty should be with China.” – Garrett (19:03).

9. Resistance and Backlash

• Fear of being seen as racist or anti-Asian deters reporting. Both students were warned their findings could be dismissed as xenophobic (20:03).
• “That claim is exactly what Beijing wants…the culture where we just don't deal with this issue whatsoever.” – Elsa (20:25).
• Garrett and Elsa emphasize the primary victims are the students themselves—especially those being coerced by Chinese security agencies (20:54).

10. Publishing the Findings & Outcomes

• On May 7, 2025, Elsa and Garrett publish their findings in the Stanford Review; the article gains significant media traction (22:16).
• The Chinese embassy denounces their reporting in strong terms, with Chinese media attacking their use of anonymous sources—glossing over the real risks of identification (23:33, 24:13).
• “When you upset the Chinese Communist Party, Garrett and I knew that we were…doing something right.” – Elsa (24:13).
• Campus reaction is supportive; students share similar stories and express little surprise (24:35–25:02).
• “Everybody was like, we already knew about this...This is so obvious.” – Garrett (25:02).

11. Stanford's Response and Institutional Inertia

• The administration issues a generic statement about commitment to national security, perceived by Elsa and Garrett as a “non-response” (25:26, 25:44).
• Financial incentives play a role: Most Chinese nationals pay full tuition and the university has received large sums from anonymous Chinese donors (26:11, 26:35).
• “Chinese nationals are the number one victims of the CCP. It's really heartbreaking…that nothing is being done about it.” – Elsa (26:42).

12. Limits of University and Possible Solutions

• Stanford’s hands are tied on visas and sensitive work assignments; meaningful action must come from federal policy (27:32).
• No support system exists for Chinese students facing intimidation, nor for protecting their families (27:12).

13. The Broader and Growing Problem

• The issue of espionage is not unique to Stanford—it’s systemic across major U.S. research universities (27:54).
• Short of banning all Chinese students—a move they do not support—solutions are elusive given the regime’s reach (28:17, 28:32).
• “We do want to have the best talent...but...you have an authoritarian regime...exert[ing] so much control over its people.” – Elsa (28:32).

14. Personal Consequences and Looking Ahead

• Elsa and Garrett are now likely blacklisted from entering China. “We were aware that we'd probably never be able to go back to China.” – Garrett (29:16).
• They are continuing their reporting, hoping to foster more awareness and concrete policy response (29:54–30:03).

15. Escalating Stakes

• Plans by U.S. leadership to increase the number of Chinese students to 600,000 would massively expand the scale of the issue (30:33).
• “We need to be on our guard because…I think it would be really catastrophic if the CCP were to surpass the United States in technological advancements.” – Elsa (30:53).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I had no idea how he would know that I had been documenting our conversations, because Instagram doesn't notify people. So that was sort of my last straw with him.” – Elsa (02:23)
• “They have programs whereby they specifically pick and groom people to get into Stanford. Then when they're there, they ask them to either send back research or come back to China and replicate the stuff they've learned.” – Garrett (05:01)
• “If you want to research China, you can’t be sort of saying bad things about China publicly…because…it’s very easy for the CCP to restrict these researchers’ ability to gain any access whatsoever to China.” – Elsa (15:51)
• “Some Chinese students will be required to have a weekly basis of reporting with a Chinese national or CCP member, whereby they go through the work they're doing in Stanford.” – Garrett (17:50)
• “Chinese nationals are the number one victims of the CCP. And I think it's really heartbreaking to hear these stories and…nothing is being done about it.” – Elsa (26:42)
• “This is happening, and if you don't talk about something that's obviously happening, you're not going to have a clear picture of the world when…decision makers are making important decisions about US-China Competition.” – Garrett (20:54)
• “We already aren't doing anything about it. We need to be on our guard because…I think it would be really catastrophic…if the CCP were to surpass the United States in technological advancements.” – Elsa (30:53)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Elsa’s Initial Encounter with Charles Chen: 01:03–02:38
• Garrett’s Experience in Shanghai: 04:17–05:39
• Hoover Institution Consulting: 06:24–06:58
• China’s Systemic Innovation Strategies: 07:17–08:49
• Mandates for Chinese Citizens under National Intelligence Law: 14:02–14:57
• Challenges of Reporting/Communication: 15:51–16:50
• Mechanisms of Espionage (Reporting to Handlers): 17:50–18:48
• Publication, Backlash, and Campus Reaction: 22:16–25:44
• Stanford’s Financial Incentive and Response: 26:11–26:42
• Limits of University Action and Need for Federal Policy: 27:32–28:32
• Personal Consequences for Investigators: 29:16–29:36
• Raising the Stakes: Student Visa Policy Concerns: 30:33–30:53

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Tone & Language

The episode maintains a measured, investigative journalism tone: candid, clear-eyed, and deeply empathetic towards affected students. Elsa and Garrett come across as curious, principled, and persistent, their words evoking both the gravity and personal risks of taking on such a story.

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Summary

Through firsthand testimony, expert analysis, and investigative rigor, “Espionage at Stanford” vividly illustrates the complexity and urgency of foreign academic espionage on U.S. campuses. It highlights the sophisticated tactics of the Chinese government, the vulnerability this creates for both the American innovation ecosystem and individual students, and the difficulties in balancing openness, security, and inclusion. The episode underscores the need for transparency, policy action, and above all, support for at-risk students—making the hidden threats of academic espionage impossible to ignore.

Transcript

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[Margot Gray]

Elsa had just wrapped up her freshman year at Stanford when she got an unexpected Instagram message from someone named Charles Chen.

[Elsa]

I didn't really think anything of it because I had a lot of mutuals with him. He had Stanford in his Instagram bio, so I sort of just assumed that he was a Stanford student. And he had asked if we had met on campus before, to which I obviously said no.

[Margot Gray]

When Charles proceeded to ask if she spoke Mandarin, it caught her off guard. She did speak Mandarin, but how did he know that?

[Elsa]

I kept the conversation going and we talked about China, and he was telling me to come to China. He was offering to pay for my travel to China. He even sent a screenshot of a bank transaction to prove that he could afford my travel to China. And then he was trying to get me to add him on WeChat, which is a heavily monitored Chinese communication site.

[Margot Gray]

For six weeks, Elsa kept the conversation going, secretly taking screenshots of their DMs. Then came the moment that unnerved her. Charles left a public comment on one of her Instagram posts in Mandarin, asking that she deleted delete those screenshots.

[Elsa]

I had no idea how he would know that I had been documenting our conversations, because Instagram doesn't notify people. So that was sort of my last straw with him. And that's when I decided to end communication.

[Margot Gray]

Elsa turned to China experts at Stanford for guidance, and they encouraged her to go to the FBI. What Elsa learned there was chilling. Charles Chen was likely working for China's Ministry of State Security the country's top intelligence agency. He was tasked with identifying vulnerable Stanford students who could be pressured into espionage. And as Elsa would soon discover, Charles Chen was only the tip of the iceberg. I'm Margot Gray. This week on Campus Files, the vast network of Chinese espionage quietly unfolding on America's college campuses.

[Elsa]

I became interested in all things China from a pretty young age. My parents sent me to a Chinese immersion school in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where I grew up. And I very quickly sort of fell in love with learning the language and learning about the culture and history of China.

[Margot Gray]

When Elsa arrived at Stanford, East Asian Studies was an obvious choice for her major. It was an opportunity to deepen her understanding of Chinese language and culture. But her encounter with Charles Chen pushed her curiosity beyond textbooks into questions of power, influence, and espionage.

[Elsa]

That's when I got a lot more interested in the national security implications and what the US can do to combat these situations.

[Margot Gray]

Elsa wasn't the only Stanford student to stumble into this territory. That summer. Halfway around the globe, another Stanford student was having his own eye opening experience. Garrett, an economics major in Elsa's grade, was on a Stanford affiliated trip to Shanghai. While there, he and his classmates met with university alumni. To Garrett's surprise, some of those Stanford alumni now held senior positions in the Chinese Communist Party, or ccp, meaning one of America's top universities had trained officials serving its greatest geopolitical rival. That alone was striking. But what those officials told Garrett was even more unsettling.

[Garrett]

They explained to us that the CCP is very interested in sending students to Stanford. They have programs whereby they specifically pick and groom people to get into Stanford. Then when they're there, they ask them to either send back research or come back to China and replicate the stuff they've learned. And I knew that Stanford was obviously on the west coast, located very close to China. So they have a huge interest in sending students here, particularly China's CCP elite. So it wasn't a surprise to me at the time, but to hear the extent of direction that the CCP uses in order to get people to come to Stanford and then bring it back. And the ways in which they funnel knowledge was brand new to me.

[Margot Gray]

Back at Stanford that fall, Garrett and Elsa caught up about their summers. They'd first met in a Chinese economy class the year before and bonded over their shared interest in China. Now they were comparing notes on their strange experiences. Elsa's encounter with Charles Chen and Garrett's discovery that China directed its Stanford students to funnel back information. And a question emerged. Just how pervasive was Chinese espionage on Stanford's campus. Their initial research turned up very little. To their surprise, no one had systematically investigated the issue. So they decided to do it themselves. Starting with the most obvious step, talking to China experts.

[Elsa]

Because I was already working at the Hoover Institution, my bosses and sort of mentors there were a great resource for us.

[Margot Gray]

The Hoover Institution is a think tank based at Stanford with a strong focus on foreign policy and global security. It's directed by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. And many of the fellows there devote their work to studying China.

[Elsa]

They are obviously extremely intelligent and knowledgeable and they've been researching China for their entire careers for the most part. So they were a great start for us.

[Margot Gray]

The experts provided important context, namely that China wants to lead in artificial intelligence, robotics and biotechnology, the fields that will define economic and military power in the decades ahead. But despite its vast resources, China isn't positioned to get there alone.

[Garrett]

China doesn't have Silicon Valley's venture capital ecosystems. They're not funding small scale startups. Beyond that, it's all government directed. So everything is centralized. So you don't have a free market at play whereby the best ideas are being sent out and fought over by companies. So China needs to be able to go and take America's innovation in hard tech in many categories, take it back to China and then try replicate that.

[Margot Gray]

It's no secret that when China opens its doors to US companies, it's not just an act of goodwill, it's a chance to absorb and often replicate American innovation. For decades, any US Company hoping to break into the Chinese market couldn't do it alone. The CCP required them to partner with a Chinese firm. That arrangement gave China a front row seat to sensitive information technology and business practices.

[Garrett]

The state will then subsidize a spin out company that will recreate the exact same technology the American company had. Eventually we'll see competition against the American company and the American company is driven out of the Chinese market and you're left with a Chinese manufacturer of whatever product, whether it be solar panels, EVs or other forms of high technology.

[Elsa]

A lot of American companies have not been careful in China. A lot of our big tech companies, particularly Apple and Microsoft, have had huge presences in China and they have invested billions of dollars into the Chinese economy and often give China source code and sort of all these backdoors into how all of it works.

[Margot Gray]

Former FBI Director Christopher Wray has described this intellectual property theft as one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history.

[Garrett]

There is just no country that presents a broader threat to our ideas, our innovation and our economic security than China. The Chinese government steals staggering volumes of information and causes.

[Margot Gray]

For Garrett and Elsa, the idea that China was stealing America's intellectual property wasn't surprising. What did shock them was how much of that theft was happening on America's college campuses, particularly at Stanford.

[Elsa]

Stanford has always been a leading institution in the future of US technology. It's located in Silicon Valley. We've had this startup culture from early on. PayPal, Snapchat, those kinds of companies that have all come out of Stanford, especially now with AI in the Bay Area. We have OpenAI, Anthropic, all of the AI companies and then a lot of other tech companies. And so Stanford is a pipeline for a lot of these companies.

[Margot Gray]

That makes Stanford a prime target for Chinese espionage. The University sits at the center of cutting edge research and technology and China isn't just interested in accessing this research. They also want to understand how American innovation actually works. How do labs operate and how does collaboration happen?

[Elsa]

I think that's what makes these things very concerning, is that it's one thing if China is getting these research papers and they get to read them a little early or something, but I think it's concerning that we're literally educating people, a lot of whom are going to return to China and go work at Peking University or Tsinghua and are going to be conducting similar or the same research, or are going to become professors and are going to start their own AI labs.

[Margot Gray]

Beyond the sensitive information and research methodologies, the CCP is also interested in learning about the American university system itself.

[Elsa]

It's pretty widely known at this point that China was trying to replicate Stanford in its universities in China. A lot of their websites say we are the MIT and Stanford of China.

[Margot Gray]

Luckily for the CCP, access to Stanford isn't a problem. More than 1100 Chinese nationals are enrolled there today, the largest international student group on campus. And from Beijing's perspective, every single one of those students represents a potential asset.

[Garrett]

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[Margot Gray]

When most of us think about foreign espionage, we picture elite operatives from agencies like the CIA and MI6 trained spies carrying out covert missions for their governments.

[Garrett]

But China doesn't view it like that. Their form of intelligence gathering views all Chinese citizens as people who are capable of collecting information for the Chinese government. And that's why they brought in that 2017 national intelligence law that required all Chinese citizens to cooperate with intelligence services.

[Margot Gray]

Under this law, the CCP can compel any Chinese national to spy, gather intelligence and hand over sensitive information. And that includes the more than 1100 Chinese nationals walking around Stanford's campus. These students didn't sign up to be intelligence assets when they applied to college, but legally they have no choice. Some may cooperate willingly out of a sense of patriotism or to boost their careers back in China, but for many, compliance is driven by fear, fear of punishment and fear of what could happen to their families back home.

[Garrett]

We've seen that look like parents being brought into police stations when students don't want to turn over research. Recently we had a case whereby a student was receiving anonymous calls in Mandarin, would be called from an anonymous number and they would simply read out his address and they would read out his parents address, implying that if he didn't help them with the various research that they wanted handed over, there'd be threats to both him and his family.

[Margot Gray]

This environment of fear created a major challenge for Garrett and Elsa. Finding Chinese nationals who were willing to speak with them, even anonymously.

[Garrett]

It's very, very hard and we only got a subset of people who talk to us Chinese nationals. So you can imagine we're getting a subset of people who are able to overcome their fears of potential oppression. So a tiny minority of the people actually face repression and forced replication of their research abroad.

[Margot Gray]

But it wasn't just Chinese nationals who were reluctant to talk. Even China experts were wary.

[Elsa]

If you want to research China, you can't be sort of saying bad things about China publicly in an article. So a lot of the experts that we talked to had to speak anonymously or off the record because it's very easy for the CCP to restrict these researchers ability to gain any access whatsoever to China.

[Margot Gray]

In the end, out of hundreds of outreach attempts, Garrett and Elsa managed to speak with about 30 people, a mix of Chinese nationals studying at Stanford, Chinese American students and China experts. Each conversation required caution and discretion.

[Elsa]

We can do any of those things through like messaging apps or anything. There's no encrypted messaging app that is safe enough for them to talk about these things.

[Margot Gray]

This forced everything offline. If they wanted to talk, it had to be in person.

[Elsa]

It's important to not have your phone or any devices on you and to just try to be casual, not look out of place. It is difficult with Chinese nationals because they're also often required to report on each other. But I think at that point nobody knew that we were writing this article and nobody knew that we were student reporters. We were kind of unknown at that point, so it wouldn't have been something that would have raised alarm bells.

[Margot Gray]

What emerged from these conversations was staggering. A sprawling espionage operation unfolding right on Stanford's campus. Here's how it works. The Chinese government maintains deep knowledge of its overseas students, with a particular focus on identifying which students have access to sensitive information that aligns with government interests. Once a student is identified, it's relatively easy for the government to get what it needs.

[Garrett]

Some Chinese students will be required to have a weekly basis of reporting with a Chinese national or CCP member, whereby they go through the work they're doing in Stanford. They give updates on what's happening with their research, the processes of their research, the future directions of their research, and they Meet a person regularly, either on zoom or in person, to document this.

[Elsa]

We heard one story from a professor who was doing summer research and had some Chinese nationals on her team. And the Chinese nationals sort of had to leave early at certain points to go to different meetings. And the professor asked them, where are you guys going? And the student said, you know where we're going, but we can't tell you. Then they sort of confessed to her that they were meeting with a handler, so to speak, to discuss what they were researching. And a lot of them are very open about this because it's just seen as very normal for a lot of them.

[Margot Gray]

One of the most surprising things Garrett and Elsa learned was that when it came to students being targeted, it wasn't only Chinese nationals. Chinese American students were also caught up in it. Even though China's intelligence law technically doesn't.

[Garrett]

Apply to them, the Chinese intelligence agencies view Chinese Americans as ethnic Chinese, and therefore they think that their loyalty should be with China. And we see Chinese Americans being some of the groups of people that are pressured by the Chinese government, either through threats against their family at home or threats against them.

[Elsa]

Personally, I think it's hard as a US Citizen sometimes to comprehend the level of power that the Chinese Communist Party has over its people. As we were doing this investigation, I really was awakened to the reality that a lot of these Chinese nationals don't have any of the freedoms that we have here as students. So it was all very shocking and sobering.

[Margot Gray]

After about a year of reporting, Garrett and Elsa had built something impressive, a damning report backed by solid evidence. But as they prepared to go public, they were met with resistance. People warned them to think twice before publishing.

[Elsa]

With this investigation, we were cautioned that bringing attention to these issues would be considered to be very racist and anti Chinese people, anti Asian people.

[Margot Gray]

And suddenly, Garrett and Elsa understood what had stopped so many investigations before theirs.

[Elsa]

That claim is exactly what Beijing wants the American public to believe because it creates this sort of culture where we just don't deal with this issue whatsoever.

[Margot Gray]

It's important to note reporting on Chinese espionage could fuel racial profiling, or at least cast suspicion on Chinese students. But Garrett and Elsa maintain that the greater danger for these students is the profiling and harassment they face from their own work government.

[Garrett]

So we said we were just going to publish the truth because this is happening, and if you don't talk about something that's obviously happening, you're not going to have a clear picture of the world when you're making policy or when decision makers are making important decisions about US China Competition Decision makers, students, faculty should be aware of the truth.

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[Margot Gray]

On May 7, 2025, Garrett and Elsa published their piece in the Stanford Review with the title Uncovering Chinese Academic Espionage at Stanford. The opening of the article reads, for years concerns about Chinese espionage have quietly persisted at Stanford, yet until now no attempt has ever been made to gauge how pervasive it is. The answer we discovered after a years long investigation is very pervasive. After interviewing multiple Stanford professors, students and China experts, virtually all of whom requested anonymity fearing retaliation, we found overwhelming evidence that the CCP is orchestrating a widespread spying operation at Stanford. Almost immediately the article drew far more attention than either of them had expected. Their reporting got picked up by outlets ranging from the Free Press to the Washington Post opinion page.

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[Margot Gray]

Response from the Chinese embassy was less congratulatory.

[Garrett]

So the Chinese embassy sent a statement back to us saying their article was unfounded, ideological, completely incorrect, ludicrous. These are long list of adjectives that they usually do when someone criticizes China. And then you see kind of reports in Chinese outlets. So the said China Morning Post basically published a piece that was just totally trying to eviscerate our article and explain why everything that we wrote was incorrect. And they basically said that we couldn't be trusted because we use anonymous sources. Of course they were going to be anonymous. These Chinese nationals would have their family taken away and brought to police stations if they had published their names. So that is, I think, an unfair criticism to make on the article.

[Elsa]

So I think that was sort of a gold star in our minds that we're headed in the right direction. When you upset the Chinese Communist Party, Garrett and I knew that we were.

[Margot Gray]

Doing something right almost as soon as the article went live. Feedback also poured in from across campus and the reaction was far more positive than they'd expected.

[Elsa]

We were cautioned that bringing attention to these issues would be considered racist and anti Asian people. So we were kind of expecting to hear a lot of that sentiment from the student body especially. But people honestly were sort of sharing their stories and saying, oh, you know, I actually had something kind of similar happen to me.

[Garrett]

People at Stanford were not surprised by article. We have an internal social media media called Fizz whereby only Stanford students can access it. And everybody was like, we already knew about this in response to our article. This is so obvious. This is not a surprise. And that was getting thousands of upvotes, people being like, no, it's not a surprise responding to articles. So that just goes to show that people in Stanford are very aware of this. They know it's happening.

[Margot Gray]

The response from Stanford itself wasn't nearly as positive. The administration issued a statement that read, stanford takes its commitment to national security with the utmost seriousness and we are acutely aware of the threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party to all research universities.

[Elsa]

It was sort of just a non response. I think Garrett and I sort of knew that this would be the reaction just because this has been going on for so long and nothing's ever been done about it. And that was sort of the extent of Stanford's concern for the case.

[Margot Gray]

I asked Elsa why she thought the university hadn't done more. She pointed to two reasons. Fear of being seen as discriminatory and the financial incentives at play.

[Elsa]

The vast majority of international students at Stanford are paying full tuition. I think there's like one or two international students a year who receive any sort of financial aid. So you can imagine over a thousand Chinese nationals paying full tuition. Great for Stanford because, you know, a lot of American students end up getting financial aid.

[Margot Gray]

Since 2010, Stanford has received over $64 million from anonymous Chinese donors.

[Elsa]

And I think they also don't want to do anything about it because they don't want to claim any sort of responsibility for it. I think they want to keep this as quiet as possible. It's concerning to me that there's very little concern for, for the students Themselves, the Chinese nationals are the number one victims of the ccp. And I think it's really heartbreaking to hear these stories and to also hear that nothing is being done about it.

[Margot Gray]

When I asked her what solutions might look like in practice, Elsa suggested that Stanford set up hotlines for students experiencing intimidation or look for ways to bring endangered family members to safety in the U.S. still, both Xi and Garrett conceded that there's a limit to what one university can realistically do.

[Garrett]

Stanford doesn't do visa processing. The US government does that. So it's very hard for Stanford as a university alone to say Chinese students can't work in XYZ labs because of fear of infiltration. And for one university to unilaterally implement that policy isn't going to work. So I think that it would really be a federal responsibility to come up with a response to this.

[Margot Gray]

And to be fair, Stanford isn't the only university in America where this is happening. The issue of Chinese espionage is widespread.

[Garrett]

It's 100% not just happening at Stanford. Any university that has valuable information to the advancement of Chinese strategic industrial aims will be a target. The federal government does have a role to play in fixing this.

[Margot Gray]

Garrett says that action is needed both by Stanford and by the federal government. But what that action should look like is far less clear. Short of banning Chinese students from American universities altogether, there's no easy answer.

[Elsa]

I think Garrett and I are definitely not a fan of banning all Chinese nationals from studying in American universities. We do want to have the best talent in the world and we need that in order to win the technology race. But it's difficult when you have an authoritarian regime that is able to exert so much control over its people.

[Margot Gray]

This creates a challenging situation. You don't want to deny people opportunities simply because of the government they come from. But the Chinese government's influence is impossible to ignore. It's even affecting Garrett and Elsa.

[Garrett]

Elsa, who speaks Mandarin, has unfortunately never got the chance to go to China. I did go to China for an extended period of time, but when we published this piece, we were aware that we'd probably never be able to go back to China. The people that we've talked to in government, in national security have all recommended against going back to China after publishing this piece.

[Margot Gray]

But to Garrett and Elsa, it's worth it. And they're already reporting follow up stories, including a deep dive on the way Chinese American students are pressured by the ccp. Their hope is that the coverage will encourage conversation and maybe even lead to solutions.

[Garrett]

We wanted people to talk about it. And policymakers can't make policy if they don't understand what's happening in universities. So that was really the incentive for the piece.

[Elsa]

It's very shocking to me that there's so little being said about this right now. China is our greatest competitor and our greatest threat. And to think that our leading universities are being targeted every day and these massive amounts of information about Stanford and Silicon Valley and these emerging technologies are being reported back to China on a near daily basis, I think is really concerning.

[Margot Gray]

And the issue of Chinese espionage on college campuses may be about to escalate. In August, in a move that shocked intelligence officials and policymakers in Washington, President Trump announced plans to bring 600,000 Chinese students to American universities, more than double the current number.

[Elsa]

I think that's frustrating for Garrett and I because it's just such a massive number and we already aren't doing anything about it. We need to be on our guard because I think it would be really catastrophic for the world if a regime like the CCP were to surpass the United States in technological advancements.

[Margot Gray]

Campus Files Is an Odyssey Original Podcast this episode was written and reported by Margo Gray. Campus Files is produced by Ian Mont, Eliot Adler and me, Margo Gray. Our executive producers and story editors are Maddie Sprunkheiser and Lloyd Lockridge. Campus Files is edited, mixed and mastered by Chris Basel and Andy Jaskowicz. Special thanks to Jenna Weiss Berman, J.D. crowley, Leah Rhys, Dennis, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, Hilary Schuff, Sean Cherry, Laura Berman and Hilary Van Ornam. Original theme music by James Waterman and Davy Sumner. If you have tips or story ideas, write to [e-mail].

[Jordan Robinson]

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