The FBI has charged two Chinese post-graduate researchers with attempting to smuggle agroterrorism agents into the University of Michigan, the second such bust at that same institution within the week. The smuggling charge provides a glimpse into the depth of our academic espionage problem. To anyone with common sense, this story is riddled with red flags and suspicious details, raising the question of what the universities knew.

The couple—described as a romantic pair, but who knows—didn't both work at the University of Michigan, but they both had ties to Texas A&M through common research advisors. Yunqing Jian, the University of Michigan researcher, had CCP loyalty content on her devices and had received funding from a CCP-backed Chinese foundation for her research.

The pathogen, a fungus called Fusarium graminearum, can wipe out 70-100% of a country's wheat yield and has already cost the US billions in losses just in the Midwest. When ingested, it causes vomiting, kidney damage, and reproductive failure. In addition to being an agroterrorism agent, as the FBI noted, it could reasonably be described as an ecoterrorism and bioterrorism agent. And they brought that here in little Walmart Ziploc bags.

"But maybe they're doing legit research, and you need access to the disease to test potential cures!" some might say. The problem is that an academically unaffiliated "boyfriend" illegally smuggled the disease sample here from China, stuffed deep in his backpack. This disease has affected crop yields in the US since the 1990s, so we should have access to a plentiful supply of samples. Is China using American labs to do its desired dirty work or worse? Did these state universities knowingly agree to host a CCP-funded researcher with party loyalty declarations to study a biohazard that could destroy our food supply chain if leaked out of a lab? 

Now is a good time to remember that the CCP's 2017 National Intelligence Law requires all Chinese citizens to spy overseas at the CCP's will (often with punishment for failure to comply), and all U.S. governors were warned about this in February 2020.

Academic visas as a Chinese Trojan Horse for biohazard terrorism, spying, and IP theft are beyond our control. Chinese students are spying on military bases. Professors and researchers employed by US institutions are currently returning to China in large numbers, likely lured back with a carrot or a stick to harvest what they've learned or developed there (credit to @Byron_Wan on X for tracking these). A Chinese foreign national here illegally on an expired student visa was arrested by the FBI in December for shipping US guns to North Korea. The FBI arrested a Chinese cybersecurity professor at Indiana University in March on unspecified charges; the university subsequently fired him and removed his biography page.

One person forensically identified as a member of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) entered the US in 2013 under the guise of being a high school student – only to take several advanced weapons training courses with retired veterans around the country and return to China to teach these tactics to other PLA members and brag about it online.

How many such cases do we need to see before we can acknowledge there's a systemic problem? Insane, perplexing, and indefensible are all the hallmarks of the autopen administration that promoted this America-last treachery. Thankfully, Secretary Rubio is applying a diplomatic curb-stomp to all such activity with his cancellation of Chinese student visas.

The universities may collectively cry, scream, throw up, or sue over their naked loss of premium income, but they should know they had their chance to avoid being petri dishes for foreign espionage and blew it. The CCP has declared unrestricted warfare and is demonstrably using the porous, well-funded soft target of academia as part of its maneuvers; this is a matter of national security.