(Excerpts from Bloomberg News)

• A broad attempt by Congress to stem China’s influence could put at risk research collaborations and funding that U.S. universities count on by subjecting some foreign gifts and contracts to national security reviews.
• The proposal would give U.S. national security officials new authority to scrutinize foreign gifts and contracts of more than $1 million to schools if the funding is related to research and development of “critical technologies” and provides access to material nonpublic technical information.
• The American Council on Education said it identified about 700 contracts and gifts that were reported to the Department of Education worth $1 million or more in 2019 that could potentially be subject to national security reviews under the proposal. The trade group said the proposal could “severely hinder” international research collaborations.
• Reviews would be conducted by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., known as Cfius, an interagency panel led by the Treasury Department that examines foreign acquisitions of American businesses. The panel has the power to impose conditions on investments it reviews or recommend that the president block them.
• But Terry Hartle, a senior vice president of the American Council on Education, said the proposal risks damaging scientific innovation in the U.S. A foreign pharmaceutical company that is developing a vaccine would need Cfius approval to partner with a U.S. university to run a clinical trial, he said.
• “Giving the federal government prior approval on research projects that are not funded by the federal government is unprecedented,” Hartle said.
• Jim Lewisat the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington agreed the U.S. should be paying attention to national security risks around China’s reliance on American universities to learn advanced technology. But he said existing counterintelligence and export-controls laws are probably more appropriate tools rather than Cfius.