According to the Institute of International Education and Statista, in the 2023-2024 academic year there were 277,398 Chinese national students studying in the United States. And as of Spring 2025, there were 2,043 Chinese national students at Purdue University with 1,340 of them being graduate students. Indiana University had over 1,000 Chinese national students over the same periods.
There is a big issue. This has been going on for years. These students are in a position to steal all sorts of intellectual property and be involved in cutting edge technology, the life blood of the United States of America. Congress has told us over and over that billions of dollars of intellectual property are stolen each year and fed back to Communist China. I have to suspect part of it sources at Purdue.
And what is the big draw for universities? Money! Tuition and fees money are in the tens of millions of dollars yearly. Then there are room and board fees for students as well. More millions. Another word for this may be greed.
Purdue is one of the top national research universities in the country. Indiana University not so much. The largest on-campus student organization at the Purdue campus is the “Chinese Students and Scholar’s Association”. Even this suggests something is amiss.
It is not without note that the current President of Purdue University is Dr. Mung Chiang, a naturalized American citizen of about 20 years but from China. And the acting department head of the Forestry and Natural Resource Department for a time was Dr. Zhao Ma who was born in China and whose undergraduate education was in Beijing, China. She is now the head of the Human Dimensions Lab in the FNR department. I do not know if she is a naturalized US citizen. So, the presence on the Purdue campus of people either Chinese citizens or former Chinese and now US citizens is substantial.
There is more. Foreign entities own a total of 40 million acres of US farmland and China has bought up nearly 347,000 acres, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. We are well aware, too, that Smithfield Foods, an icon of the American food industry, was purchased by the Chinese in 2013 for $7.1 billion. More inroads into our food supply.
It seems the Chinese Communists are finding ways to infiltrate the US economy and society more and more with each passing day. They have been selling more product into our country than any other foreign country. And they have control of the precursor materials for literally all of our prescription medicines.
Fortunately, very recently it was announced that the Select Committee on the Communist Party in the US Congress is pursuing investigation about the presence and research activities of students from Communist China at Purdue University and several other universities. That has been needed for years.
The entanglement with and gradual encroachment of China into the United States cannot go on if we want to have a viable and vibrant Constitutional Republic. President Trump is well aware of this and is trying to take corrective measures. Democrats and RINOs are road blocking whenever possible. That must stop.