Michigan State master's program partners with Chinese institutions tied to Communist propaganda

A new report details the relationship between Michigan State University (MSU) and Chinese institutions that support Chinese propaganda, including one that covers “psychological warfare.”

The report, from marketing research firm Strategy Risks and shared exclusively with Just the News, says that MSU’s collaboration with the Communication University of China (CUC) and Shanghai Normal University (SNU) may open the U.S. to national security risks. Strategy Risks is a for-profit global business intelligence firm that services companies, investors, and governments to identify, measure, and reduce their geopolitical risks across supply chains, partnerships, investments, and talent networks.

Company says more due diligence is required when it comes to Chinese partners

While the report explains that communication, audience analysis, digital media, and artificial intelligence can have legitimate purposes, they can also be used for China’s extensive propaganda machine. It warns MSU – and other U.S. universities with similar relationships – to perform due diligence in evaluating the subject matter of such collaborations and the relationships of the partner university.

“The Michigan State case shows that expertise in strategic communications, artificial intelligence, public-opinion analysis, and social media can have serious national-security applications. MSU has worked with Chinese universities that maintain close relationships with the Communist Party’s propaganda apparatus and provide training and institutional support to the People’s Liberation Army,” Strategy Risks CEO Isaac Stone Fish told Just the News. “The problem is not academic collaboration with China in itself. The problem is that the U.S. research-security system still tends to think about risk primarily in terms of semiconductors, weapons systems, other hard technologies, and less so in terms of communications and influence disciplines that can support psychological warfare and other information operations.”

MSU did not respond to a Just the News inquiry.

For example, SNU, a Chinese public research university, supports a master’s program in advertising and communications that covers “public information dissemination and management, public communication, public psychological warfare, ideological warfare, and information warfare, monitoring of social media information dissemination, and organizational strategic public influence.” The program specifically states that it uses international education resources, including what’s available through its relationship with MSU. SNU webpages boast of the relationship with MSU in other disciplines.

"Pipeline already established" report says

In 2022, SNU purportedly worked with the Shanghai Municipal Propaganda Department to open a public opinion monitoring center, with reports going to the Central Propaganda Department and Shanghai propaganda authorities, Strategy Risks’ report alleged. The connection could provide a channel for MSU’s communications expertise and educational resources to end up in China’s propaganda machine.

“We found no evidence that MSU knowingly transferred expertise to the Chinese military, but the institutional pathways are there,” Fish told Just the News. “The U.S. government needs to broaden its approach to research security and require universities to conduct much deeper due diligence on foreign partners — not just on what a collaboration is studying, but on who the partner works with, how it is governed, and where that knowledge can ultimately flow.”

Not Michigan's first dance with China

The state of Michigan is not without its Chinese controversies. In October 2023, The New York Times reported that Green Charter Township fought against a plan by Gotion Inc., a subsidiary of a Chinese company, to build a $2.4 billion electric vehicle battery factory in the town. As the Times reported, residents opposed infiltration by the Chinese Communist Party into their town.

“It’s the Communist influences that I’m bothered by, because they have shown repeatedly that they don’t care about our rules, our laws or anything,” resident Lori Brock told the outlet. “They shouldn’t be able to buy here.”

Gotion denied any ideological ties to China, and company spokesman John Whetstone told the Times that it is “in no way affiliated with any political party.”

And last year, the Department of Justice charged Chinese national Haoxiang Gao with illegally voting in Michigan during the 2024 election.

“The federal charges filed against Haoxiang Gao, a Chinese national, serve as a clear and unequivocal reminder that the FBI will investigate anyone who attempts to unlawfully interfere with the electoral process in the United States,” said Cheyvoryea Gibson, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office. “The FBI treats all allegations of voter fraud with the utmost seriousness, and we are committed to holding accountable those who violate our election laws.”

Gao fled to China the day before President Trump took office in January 2025.