American universities cut ties with Huawei and the Confucius Institute

Stanford University, the University of California’s flagship Berkeley campus and other US schools have decided to cut ties with the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, said the South China Morning Post.

Many other universities, including Harvard University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Chicago, the University of California-Los Angeles, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have yet to reveal the status of their relations with the Chinese tech giant.

Huawei and the Confucius Institutes, reporting to a Beijing-linked body that promotes Chinese language and culture, have been targeted by some US lawmakers and federal departments in the belief that both organizations undermine US interests in various ways.

Huawei’s primary connection to American universities is through the Huawei Innovation Research Programme (HIRP), which the company calls a global initiative “to identify and support world-class, full-time faculty members pursuing innovation of mutual interest.”