China targets US citizens with biowarfare weapons

On June 3rd the Department of Justice announced charges against two nationals of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The offenses ranged from conspiracy and false statements to visa fraud and smuggling. The final charge was the most concerning, as the item in question was a fungus called Fusarium graminearum. According to DOJ, this fungus is “a potential agroterrorism weapon” responsible for head blight, a disease that targets multiple crops from wheat and maize to barley and rice. It causes billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year, and its effects are pronounced: vomiting, liver damage, and reproductive disruptions in both humans and livestock.

Welcome to the newest front in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) cold war against Americans. Beijing is adding to its repertoire of weapons that target U.S. citizens within our borders. The CCP kills tens of thousands of Americans with fentanyl each year, and injects communist propaganda to half of the U.S. population with TikTok. This incident of agroterrorism, however, suggests that Beijing sees an opportunity to attack Americans with our food supply. It underscores how the CCP views its relationship with the United States: not as a competition or contest, but as a war. There are no civilians or noncombatants in Beijing’s book.

This is, of course, a clarion call to shore up America’s food security and fully resource all requisite authorities to block imports of toxic substances. This moment, however, raises questions: how were these PRC nationals planning to execute their plan? How did they successfully smuggle the fungus into America? According to the DOJ’s complaint, “These two aliens… apparently intended to use a University of Michigan laboratory to further their scheme.” It gets worse: “These individuals exploited their access to laboratory facilities at [the University of Michigan] to engage in the smuggling of biological pathogens.” They enjoyed such access because one of the Chinese nationals was an enrolled student at UM.

U.S. higher education’s addiction to CCP money is endangering Americans. Chinese students account for roughly 25 percent of all foreign students in the United States. Due to the high tuition fees international students pay, U.S. universities have come to rely on this steady stream of income – regardless of potential national security implications.

University administrators may challenge these assertions and insist that the incident in Michigan was isolated. They would be mistaken. In 2020, three PRC nationals were arrested and sentenced after taking pictures and recording videos near a restricted naval base in Florida. Two of those nationals were students at the University of Michigan. In 2024 five UM students from China were charged for spying on a U.S. military training facility. Last year, a PRC national at UM illegally voted in the 2024 presidential election.

Americans would be equally mistaken to view the University of Michigan as a bad apple. It is one of countless universities that have served as vectors for CCP intelligence collection and research theft. In March 2025, Chairman John Moolenaar of the House Select Committee on China sent letters to Carnegie Mellon, Perdue, Stanford, the University of Illinois, the University of Maryland and the University of Southern California requesting their enrollment policies for Chinese nationals in STEM programs.

Of course, the prime example of CCP capture is Harvard. A recent report revealed that officials at Harvard offered technical training on healthcare to a CCP entity directly implicated in the ongoing genocide of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China’s westernmost region. Apparently forced sterilization and compulsory organ harvesting weren’t sufficient concerns for Harvard to rethink its partnership.

If universities will not police themselves, Washington should do it for them. The Trump administration and Congress should work together to prohibit any federally funded university from enrolling PRC nationals in STEM programs. Moreover, universities should prohibit Chinese students from changing their major into STEM programs after admissions. The Department of Education should enforce legal requirements for universities to report gifts from foreign sources, and Congress should lower the monetary threshold and require more detailed disclosures.

The Trump administration should resurrect the China Initiative, a project set up at DOJ in President Trump’s first term to address these problems. The Biden administration yielded to the university lobby and shut down the initiative over false accusations of racism. It isn’t racist to blunt the CCP’s malign influence. Anyone who says otherwise is doing the party’s work for it.

Washington should also avoid the equally racist pitfall of coloring every Chinese student as a CCP agent. The Chinese people have suffered more than anyone else from the party’s authoritarian rule. Americans should welcome vetted students into our country, especially those fleeing political persecution from Xinjiang, Tibet, or Hong Kong.

Beijing’s unrestricted warfare demands a nuanced response from Washington. For universities that carelessly compromise U.S. national security, the rule of law. For PRC students doing the work of the CCP, swift legal action. For Chinese nationals fleeing totalitarianism and experiencing freedom, welcome and inclusion.

America’s values dictate nothing less, even – perhaps especially – in the midst of a cold war.