A sweeping congressional investigation has concluded that the United States unknowingly helped finance China’s expanding nuclear program through federally funded research partnerships. According to a report released on December 17 by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, American taxpayer dollars supported thousands of joint research efforts that flowed directly into China’s military linked nuclear ecosystem.
Lawmakers say the findings expose long standing failures in oversight that allowed sensitive research to be shared with Chinese institutions tied to Beijing’s defense industry, all while these collaborations were labeled as routine academic exchanges.
Federal Research Dollars and the Department of Energy
At the center of the investigation is the Department of Energy, which oversees nuclear weapons development, nuclear energy research, and a broad range of advanced scientific fields. The report found that between June 2023 and June 2025, DOE funded more than 4,300 academic papers and experiments related to nuclear technologies that were coauthored by American and Chinese researchers.
Investigators said this funding covered basic research that China has historically struggled to finance on its own. While basic research is often described as nonmilitary, committee staff concluded that it remains critical to the development of emerging technologies, including nuclear weapons and advanced energy systems.
The Energy Department distributes hundreds of millions of dollars each year for research and oversees 17 national laboratories that have played key roles in major scientific breakthroughs. According to the report, those funds were provided without sufficient safeguards to prevent them from benefiting China’s military programs.
Who in China Received the Benefits
Roughly half of the identified papers involved Chinese authors affiliated with military or industrial entities. These included state owned laboratories directed by China’s central government, national defense universities, and firms identified by the Pentagon as part of China’s military defense industrial base.
Investigators also found collaborations involving organizations blamed for cyberattacks and human rights abuses. Some Chinese partners were listed in a Defense Department database of Chinese military companies that operate in or have ties to the United States.
The report concluded that these were not incidental connections. Lawmakers said the institutions involved sit at the core of China’s nuclear and defense research apparatus.
The investigation emphasized that China’s academic research system cannot be separated from its military goals. Despite being labeled civilian, Chinese universities and laboratories play a direct role in supporting Beijing’s military modernization.
China’s leadership has openly called for faster conversion of civilian research into military technology. Under President Xi Jinping’s directive to build a modern and technologically advanced military by 2027, Beijing has restructured its science funding to prioritize applied research aligned with defense needs.
Committee investigators wrote that these reforms have made academic research a key pipeline for military advancement. They concluded that U.S. funded nuclear research had clear military relevance once it entered China’s tightly integrated research system.
How Much of the Research Aided Military Applications
While the report did not assign a dollar value to individual military outcomes, lawmakers said the scale and scope of the research made its impact unavoidable. Thousands of nuclear related papers, experiments, and collaborative projects gave Chinese researchers access to knowledge that could be adapted for weapons development, nuclear energy systems, and advanced materials.
The authors warned that taxpayer funded research was left vulnerable to what they described as state directed technology transfer. They concluded that these failures allowed China’s defense research and industrial base to exploit American openness.
“These longstanding policy failures and inaction have left taxpayer funded research vulnerable to exploitation by China’s defense research and industrial base and state directed technology transfer activities,” the report stated.
Thousands of U.S. researchers and academics were involved in the collaborations identified by the investigation. Lawmakers said this was driven in part by how federal research grants are structured.
To maintain access to funding, American scholars are often under pressure to publish frequently. According to the report, this incentivized partnerships with well supported Chinese researchers who could help place work in top academic journals.
Committee staff said these incentives helped normalize collaborations that should have raised national security concerns, especially in sensitive fields like nuclear science.
Investigators said the Department of Energy failed for decades to develop a consistent process for assessing national security risks tied to research partnerships. In many cases, information about Chinese research ties was not shared with other federal agencies, making it difficult to spot patterns of concern.
The lack of coordination meant that sensitive collaborations were approved and renewed with little scrutiny. Lawmakers described this as a systemic breakdown rather than a series of isolated mistakes.
Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, who chairs the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, said the findings revealed a fundamental failure in protecting American research.
“The investigation reveals a deeply alarming problem,” Moolenaar said in a statement. “The Department of Energy failed to ensure the security of its research and it put American taxpayers on the hook for funding the military rise of our nation’s foremost adversary.”
Moolenaar introduced legislation aimed at preventing research funding from going to collaborations with entities controlled by foreign adversaries. Although the bill passed the House, it failed to advance into the final defense policy legislation after opposition from parts of the academic community.
Pushback From China and U.S. Academia
China’s embassy in Washington rejected the report outright. Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said the committee “has long smeared and attacked China for political purposes and has no credibility to speak of.”
“A handful of U.S. politicians are overstretching the concept of national security to obstruct normal scientific research exchanges,” Liu said, adding that such efforts were “bound to fail.”
At home, a group of more than 750 faculty members and senior university staffers sent a letter to congressional leaders warning that overly broad restrictions could damage America’s scientific edge. They argued that the United States is in a global competition for talent and called for “very careful and targeted measures for risk management” rather than sweeping bans.
The Energy Department Responds
The Department of Energy said it would review the findings and reassess its policies. In a statement, the department said it “takes seriously its responsibility to steward federal funds and safeguard critical research capabilities.”
A spokesperson added that DOE would continue “rigorous due diligence and oversight of awards” to ensure the integrity and security of its research programs.
The report builds on earlier congressional investigations that found hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research funding over the past decade flowed into U.S. China collaborations involving hypersonic weapons, nuclear technology, artificial intelligence, and defense related projects.
Taken together, lawmakers say the findings serve as a warning about the risks of unchecked academic collaboration with strategic rivals. What was presented as open scientific exchange ended up strengthening China’s nuclear and military capabilities at a pivotal moment in global competition.
The challenge now, lawmakers argue, is protecting national security without undermining legitimate research. The investigation makes clear that without stronger oversight, American funded science can be turned against American interests.
ACZ Editor: Basic research is very expensive and the results are often disconnected financially and time-wise from the practical applications that follow and so are difficult to justify in the short-sighted views of the non-scientific political world. Assistance with research that is too expensive or outside the expertise of the Chinese academicians is devastating to our goal of maintaining a technical lead over China.