A Strategy Risks report says Michigan State University’s academic relationships with Chinese institutions warrant additional scrutiny because communications, artificial intelligence and public-opinion expertise can have applications in propaganda and information operations.
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Academic partnerships involving Michigan State University and two Chinese universities are drawing scrutiny over whether U.S. research-security reviews adequately account for communications and public-opinion expertise that could have national-security applications beyond traditionally sensitive technologies such as weapons and semiconductors.
A new analysis from Strategy Risks, a New York-based global business intelligence firm specializing in geopolitical risk, examines MSU’s relationships with the Communication University of China and Shanghai Normal University. The firm argues that American universities should scrutinize not only the subjects involved in international collaborations but also how foreign partner institutions are governed and where knowledge developed through those relationships could ultimately be used.
The findings were reported by Just the News, which said Strategy Risks identified potential national-security concerns arising from the Chinese universities’ reported connections to Communist Party propaganda organizations and, in some cases, institutions supporting China’s military. MSU did not respond to an inquiry from the outlet.
Strategy Risks CEO Isaac Stone Fish said the concern is not ordinary academic cooperation between universities in the United States and China, but whether existing safeguards are broad enough to recognize that communications-related research can have security applications.
“The Michigan State case shows that expertise in strategic communications, artificial intelligence, public-opinion analysis, and social media can have serious national-security applications. MSU has worked with Chinese universities that maintain close relationships with the Communist Party’s propaganda apparatus and provide training and institutional support to the People’s Liberation Army,” Fish told Just the News. “The problem is not academic collaboration with China in itself. The problem is that the U.S. research-security system still tends to think about risk primarily in terms of semiconductors, weapons systems, other hard technologies, and less so in terms of communications and influence disciplines that can support psychological warfare and other information operations.”
One of the relationships highlighted involves Shanghai Normal University, a public research institution in China.
An SNU master’s program in advertising and communications includes areas described as “public information dissemination and management, public communication, public psychological warfare, ideological warfare, and information warfare, monitoring of social media information dissemination, and organizational strategic public influence,” according to the materials cited in the Strategy Risks report.
The program states that it draws on international educational resources that include its relationship with Michigan State University. Other university materials describing international academic relationships also reference connections involving MSU.
The concern identified by Strategy Risks centers on what can happen after expertise moves through an academic partnership.
Communications research, audience measurement, artificial intelligence, digital media and social-media analysis all have conventional academic and commercial applications. Those same disciplines, however, can also be employed to analyze public sentiment, construct influence campaigns, measure audience responses and conduct information operations.
Strategy Risks argues that research-security programs in the United States have historically concentrated more heavily on areas with obvious military applications, including advanced semiconductors, weapons technology and other sensitive engineering fields.
The firm says that approach can overlook academic disciplines whose potential security applications are less immediately visible.
Shanghai Normal University’s institutional relationships are particularly important to the report’s analysis.
Strategy Risks alleges that SNU worked with the Shanghai Municipal Propaganda Department in 2022 to establish a public-opinion monitoring center. According to the report, information generated through the center was provided to Shanghai propaganda authorities and the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department.
The report argues that such institutional connections create a potential route through which expertise obtained through international university collaborations could eventually enter China’s state communications infrastructure.
Fish emphasized that Strategy Risks did not uncover evidence that Michigan State knowingly provided expertise to the Chinese military.
“We found no evidence that MSU knowingly transferred expertise to the Chinese military, but the institutional pathways are there,” Fish told Just the News. “The U.S. government needs to broaden its approach to research security and require universities to conduct much deeper due diligence on foreign partners — not just on what a collaboration is studying, but on who the partner works with, how it is governed, and where that knowledge can ultimately flow.”
That distinction is central to the report.
Strategy Risks is not alleging that the existence of an academic partnership itself establishes improper conduct by Michigan State. Instead, the firm is calling for a broader assessment of foreign institutions before U.S. universities enter or continue relationships with them.
Such reviews, the report argues, should consider whether the foreign institution trains military personnel, works with government propaganda bodies, participates in public-opinion monitoring or has other relationships that could result in academic expertise being applied outside its original educational purpose.
The Michigan findings arrive amid broader disputes in the state involving Chinese investment and activity, although those cases are separate from Michigan State’s academic partnerships.
Green Charter Township became the focus of one such dispute in 2023 when residents opposed plans by Gotion Inc., a subsidiary of a Chinese company, for a $2.4 billion electric-vehicle battery plant.
An October 2023 New York Times report described local opposition that included concerns about potential Chinese Communist Party influence.
“It’s the Communist influences that I’m bothered by, because they have shown repeatedly that they don’t care about our rules, our laws or anything,” resident Lori Brock told the Times. “They shouldn’t be able to buy here.”
Gotion rejected assertions that it had political ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
Company spokesman John Whetstone told the Times that Gotion is “in no way affiliated with any political party.”
A separate Michigan case involved Haoxiang Gao, a Chinese national who attended the University of Michigan and was charged by the Justice Department with illegally registering and voting in the 2024 presidential election.
Federal prosecutors alleged that Gao falsely claimed U.S. citizenship while registering and then cast an early ballot at a polling location at the University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor. He was initially charged in state court and ordered not to leave Michigan while the case was pending.
According to the Justice Department, Gao surrendered one Chinese passport as required by the court but departed the United States on Jan. 19, 2025, using another Chinese passport with a different number and boarded a flight to Shanghai. Federal authorities later charged him with flight to avoid prosecution. The allegations contained in the criminal complaints are charges and do not constitute proof of guilt.
FBI Detroit Special Agent in Charge Cheyvoryea Gibson said the case demonstrated the bureau’s approach to allegations involving election laws.
“The federal charges filed against Haoxiang Gao, a Chinese national, serve as a clear and unequivocal reminder that the FBI will investigate anyone who attempts to unlawfully interfere with the electoral process in the United States,” Gibson said. “The FBI treats all allegations of voter fraud with the utmost seriousness, and we are committed to holding accountable those who violate our election laws.”
Neither the Gotion dispute nor the Gao prosecution establishes wrongdoing involving Michigan State University or its academic relationships. They represent separate controversies involving China that have unfolded in Michigan.
The Strategy Risks report instead focuses on a narrower question confronting universities nationwide: whether existing safeguards designed to prevent sensitive U.S. expertise from benefiting foreign military or state institutions adequately cover fields outside traditional defense-related science and technology.
In the MSU case, the firm points specifically to communications, artificial intelligence, audience analysis, social-media research and public-opinion work.
The report’s argument is that the potential destination of academic knowledge deserves scrutiny alongside its original subject matter.
That approach would require universities to examine not merely whether an academic program appears civilian or legitimate on its face, but also the government, military and political institutions with which an overseas university maintains relationships.
Fish said the goal should not be to stop academic engagement with China generally.
His stated concern is that U.S. research-security policies may not yet fully account for disciplines capable of supporting psychological warfare, propaganda and other information operations even when no weapons technology or classified research is involved.
The MSU relationships highlighted in the report therefore present what Strategy Risks describes as a broader research-security issue: determining how American universities can continue international academic cooperation while understanding not only who their overseas partners are, but how the expertise exchanged through those partnerships could subsequently be used.
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