Latest news with #influence
New York Times
3 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
Trump Administration Live Updates: President to Hold Oval Office News Conference With Elon Musk
Elon Musk left his government position on Wednesday, after weeks of declining influence and increasing friction with President Trump and shareholders of his own private companies. Just three months ago, Elon Musk stood before a crowd of roaring conservatives and held up a chain saw. He was at the height of his influence, swaggering in a self-designed role with immense power inside and outside the government. 'We're trying to get good things done,' he said, using the chain saw as a metaphor for the deep cuts he was making in government. 'But also, like, you know, have a good time doing it.' Mr. Musk's time in government is over now. His good time ended long before. Mr. Musk is leaving his government position after weeks of declining influence and increasing friction with both President Trump and shareholders of his own private companies. But Mr. Trump on Thursday suggested that he was still aligned with one of his chief political patrons, saying that he would appear with Mr. Musk at the White House on Friday afternoon for a news conference. 'This will be his last day, but not really, because he will always be with us, helping all the way,' Mr. Trump wrote in a post on his social media site. 'Elon is terrific!' Mr. Musk's time in Washington has brought significant benefits to his fastest-growing company, SpaceX, the rocket and satellite communications giant. Musk allies were chosen to run NASA and the Air Force — two of SpaceX's key customers — and one of the company's major regulators, the Federal Communications Commission. But Mr. Musk never came close to delivering on the core promise of his tenure: that he could cut $1 trillion from the federal budget. His Department of Government Efficiency was full of government newcomers who struggled with both the law and the facts. They posted error-filled data and made procedural mistakes undercutting their credibility. They also rushed through cuts without seeming to understand what they were cutting. On the group's website, 47 percent of the contracts they canceled are listed as saving taxpayers nothing. The group eviscerated agencies and laid off thousands of federal employees, disrupting services — and workers' livelihoods — without providing the payoff Mr. Musk promised. When he left, DOGE said it was only 18 percent of the way toward his savings goal. Mr. Musk's team also saddled the government with dozens of ongoing lawsuits, including several in which judges have paused the cuts. So just months after Mr. Musk wielded the chain saw, playing the villain in Washington's nightmare, he left claiming another role: Washington's victim. He departed complaining. 'The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized,' he told The Washington Post. 'I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in D.C., to say the least.' Mr. Musk has said he is leaving because he has reached the legal limit for how long he can work as an unpaid 'special government employee.' He said in a post on X, his own social media platform, that his budget-cutting group's 'mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.' He did not respond to requests for comment from The New York Times. Image Elon Musk stood before a crowd of roaring conservatives and held up a chain saw during a conference in February. Credit... Eric Lee/The New York Times His departure brought another sign of his waning influence in Washington. Mr. Musk publicly bashed a bill backed by Mr. Trump that recently passed the House. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, thanked Mr. Musk for his service, but said Mr. Trump still supports the bill. 'The president is very proud of the One Big Beautiful Bill, and he wants to see it pass,' she said, referring to the legislation's name. Mr. Musk, a former ally of President Obama's who had been drifting right for years, became Mr. Trump's biggest donor during the 2024 presidential election. During the campaign, he suggested himself as head of a 'Department of Government Efficiency' — taking the name from an internet meme about a Shiba Inu. It was an example of the way Mr. Musk mixed the serious and the ridiculous during his time in power: The most fearsome force in Washington, for several months, was a small group of casually dressed young people named after a dog. Yet Mr. Musk was a highly useful ally for Mr. Trump during the 2024 campaign, and he remained so once he became an official adviser to the president. Mr. Musk's social media presence became a potential weapon against cabinet officials and administration staff members who might have voiced concern about his aggressive measures against the work force. Mr. Musk's power was clear on Feb. 26, when Mr. Trump held his first cabinet meeting. It was Mr. Musk — an unpaid employee with little formal power — who spoke before any of the cabinet secretaries. 'They will follow the orders,' Mr. Trump said. Image In the weeks following President Trump's first cabinet meeting, Mr. Musk became less of a help and more of a magnet for headlines that Mr. Trump's advisers considered damaging. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times But in the weeks that followed, Mr. Musk became less of a help and more of a magnet for headlines that Mr. Trump's advisers considered damaging, particularly in how he described the social safety net, such as claiming he had found 'massive' fraud in Social Security spending. Mr. Musk's budget-cutting group, despite promising transparency, was secretive. It provided one public window into its work: an online 'Wall of Receipts' that listed all the contracts, grants and leases the group had canceled. In early March, it already showed $105 billion in savings, more than one-tenth of the way to Mr. Musk's goal. 'Unless we're stopped, we will get to a trillion dollars of savings,' Mr. Musk said on Fox Business on March 10. But from the start, the site inflated what the group had achieved, and often seemed to show that DOGE did not understand the bureaucracy it was cutting. The group double-counted the same cuts, posted a claim that confused 'billion' with 'million,' and boasted about killing contracts that had been dead for years. Some claims were deleted, but the group never solved its problem with errors. More recently, the group's site has shown that Mr. Musk's frenetic cutting fell far short of its goal. On the day he left Washington, it showed his group had cut $175 billion. That may be swamped at the behest of Mr. Trump himself: House Republicans recently passed a domestic policy bill endorsed by the president that could add trillions in new debt. 'The intent and spirit of DOGE were excellent,' said Dominik Lett, a policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute. 'But it clearly fell far short of its goals.' The cuts did have the effect of causing fear and disruption within agencies and reducing the federal work force. It is not yet clear how many employees have been fired at the direction of DOGE. Around 20,000 probationary employees were dismissed in February. But because of legal challenges, many are still getting paid in a leave status. Tens of thousands more have left the government through voluntary departure options. Image Mr. Musk's budget-cutting group had the effect of causing fear and disruption within agencies and reducing the federal work force. Credit... Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times It is also difficult to measure the impact of another project taken on by Mr. Musk's group: accessing and centralizing huge amounts of data about average Americans, including Social Security numbers, immigration records and documents about bank accounts and employment. This information had been kept in separate databases, to limit what any government employee could learn about one person. But Mr. Musk's group sought to collect the data and merge it, alarming privacy and security experts and profoundly refashioning the way government data is used. Already, this newly assembled data seems to have been used in immigration enforcement. The Social Security Administration agreed to provide the addresses of nearly 100,000 people to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Internal Revenue Service's decision to provide taxpayer data to the Department of Homeland Security to help it deport immigrants prompted some longtime I.R.S. officials to resign. Some of the efforts to access and share data have been temporarily held up in court. But DOGE has won key cases that have allowed it to make real progress on a top priority of the Trump administration. Even while he led the government's budget-cutting effort, Mr. Musk also sought to shape public opinion from the outside — using his social media platform X to pressure Republicans and rally public opinion. It worked, at least at first. In December, before Mr. Trump even took office, Mr. Musk convinced House Republicans to block a spending bill. Even after Mr. Musk took on his official role, he regularly weighed in on other matters before the administration, voicing his personal frustrations with tariff policy and Mr. Trump's tax bill in a way that Mr. Trump would not tolerate from others on his staff. In April, Mr. Musk got a harsh lesson in the limits of his power. He and an allied group spent over $25 million to help the conservative candidate in a race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court — turning the race into a referendum on himself at the peak of DOGE's influence. Mr. Musk's candidate lost badly. Mr. Musk appeared chastened by the experience, signaling to others close to him that he realized his public role in the race had become a political liability. At the same time, Mr. Musk's companies began to feel the impacts of his new, polarizing political identity. Tesla sales have slumped in the United States and overseas, as backlash to Mr. Musk's politics combined with greater competition from other electric vehicle makers. In the United Kingdom, one anti-Musk poster showed a picture of the world's richest man emerging from a Tesla's roof with his hand pointing upward in a straight-armed salute. 'Goes from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds,' the ad read, referring to the year that Britain declared war on Nazi Germany. Mr. Musk has said that his gesture, made at an event for Mr. Trump in January, was not intended to echo a Nazi salute. Image People gathered outside a Tesla dealership earlier this month in Austin to protest Mr. Musk. Credit... Desiree Rios for The New York Times Even as Mr. Musk departs, his companies still have their friends — and their business — in Washington. Sean P. Duffy, the transportation secretary, agreed at his confirmation hearing to re-examine $633,000 in safety fines against SpaceX delivered by the Biden administration. The Federal Aviation Administration, meanwhile, has continued to approve launch licenses for SpaceX, even after two recent incidents in which its newest rocket called Starship exploded over the Caribbean, forcing airplanes to divert to avoid falling debris. Asked if Mr. Musk's presence in the Trump administration has affected how the F.A.A. treats SpaceX, the agency on Thursday had a one-word response: 'No.' SpaceX, already one of the biggest NASA and Pentagon contractors, could win billions of dollars in new contracts if Mr. Trump's budget proposal is approved by Congress, particularly plans to build a new missile defense system he has called a 'Golden Dome,' and to accelerate an effort by NASA to bring astronauts to Mars. The Justice Department in February also disclosed that it was moving to dismiss a case against SpaceX, first filed in 2023, that accused the rocket company of discriminating against people based on their citizenship status. Three days before Brett Shumate, a senior Justice Department official, submitted the document to dismiss the case against SpaceX, he filed a separate legal memo on behalf of the government defending Mr. Musk's work at DOGE. 'He is an employee of the White House office,' Mr. Shumate wrote in his Feb. 17 memo to a federal court in Washington, referring to Mr. Musk. 'And he only has the ability to advise the president, or communicate the president's directives, like other senior White House officials.' Image Mr. Musk's SpaceX, already one of the biggest NASA and Pentagon contractors, could win billions of dollars in new contracts if President Trump's budget proposal is approved by Congress. Credit... Gabriel V. Cárdenas for The New York Times Another thorn in SpaceX's side was also curtailed while Mr. Musk worked in government. The Fish and Wildlife Service had two local staff members who routinely monitored SpaceX activities in South Texas. They had raised questions since testing operations started there in 2019 about harm that SpaceX had caused to an adjacent state park land and a National Wildlife Refuge, including fires from launch mishaps and damage to nests of threatened bird species. One of those wildlife biologists retired, and a second was transferred late last year to a new post. 'There is not any real oversight going on now there on a regular basis,' said Jim Chapman, a board member at SaveRGV, an environmental group in South Texas. An email sent to the spokeswoman still listed on the agency website as the regional contact bounced back, saying she no longer worked for Fish and Wildlife. Reporting was contributed by Maggie Haberman , Zach Montague , Theodore Schleifer , Michael D. Shear and Eileen Sullivan .
Forbes
4 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
The Architecture Of Influence
Peter Accettura : executive leadership coach; enhancing resilience, executive presence, and decision-making confidence. getty I have always been intrigued by the concept of influence, both in one's personal life and, especially, in a business setting. The idea that someone can enter a high-stakes meeting; put forth a well-articulated proposal whose execution requires a significant investment of time, capital and human resources; face a room full of seasoned executives that either hold a contrarian view or vet the concept viability to its limit; and, despite all of that, win the day and get the hard-fought approval fascinated me in the early stages of my business life. As I proceeded through my career, moving up the ranks in a well-known, highly successful, global media company, I soon came to realize that the notion of influence was morphing in my mind from interesting to necessary as I sought to help drive the business outcomes that I passionately felt would continue to move our company upward and forward. But where do I begin? How can I develop this essential competency? In my role as an executive coach, many of my clients choose influence as a competency to develop. My first question for them: Who are your role models? In most organizations, you likely already know someone who is successfully modeling influence (or any other skill that you wish to develop). Observe them carefully. Notice what, when and how they attempt to influence the room. If you pay attention, you will notice their 'success pattern;' they are not constantly reinventing themselves. Rather, executives who do this well are unconsciously competent: It has become part of their executive DNA. They do what they do effortlessly and in flow (or it will seem that way to you). This is what I did throughout my career. Observe role models, attempt something similar, assess whether I achieved my objective, then reflect on how to do it better next time. After a while, and with many fine-tuning adjustments along the way, I became influential in my organization and can now articulate what I did to get there and how I think about (and coach) this essential, impactful skill today. There are three distinct but interrelated pillars of both personal and professional influence. Once understood and mindfully applied, they can increase your impact, earn the trust of those around you and help drive meaningful change within your organization. The three pillars are agency (the power to act), alliance (the power of relationships) and advocacy (the power to be heard). Agency is the power to act. One of the most impactful ways (there are others) to develop agency within an organization is to develop subject-matter expertise. Make yourself indispensable and unforgettable! You should seek to make your presence and participation in significant meetings a no-brainer. Those who demonstrate agency take responsibility, lead with clarity and conviction and speak up even when things become uncomfortable. Make no mistake: Influence is virtually impossible without agency. Alliance reflects the power of relationships. In fact, I believe an individual's network is their most important asset that never makes it onto their résumé. The quantity and quality of these relationships can be a game-changer for you. You want your network dispersed widely throughout the organization. Alliances must also be authentic and based upon trust, shared goals and mutual benefit. Alliances create possibility and momentum while helping shield you from resistance. It's how you can turn the potential of influence into actual leverage. No influential leader succeeds alone. Advocacy is the power to be heard. It is the outward expression of agency, which includes the support and guidance of your alliance. Effective advocacy is often demonstrated with one's clarity and conviction of ideas, with the help and participation of your alliance, which may result in the adoption of a new, bold product, service or strategy. Business Case If, as an executive in your organization, you have an idea that is contrary to the popular consensus of its leaders, what can you do? • Agency: Describe your vision, tie it to outcomes and offer to take the first exploratory step. • Alliance: Enlist cross-departmental believers willing to share time and resources. • Advocacy: Do the homework, shape the narrative and inspire with purpose and conviction. Getting Started With Influence Assess where you are concerning the three pillars. • Agency: Where are you strong? Are you a subject-matter expert? Are you unforgettable? • Alliance: Invest in key relationships across many diverse functions in your organization. • Advocacy: Start small, with low-risk cases, in preparation for bigger, future opportunities. Final Thoughts You may have a leadership title, but that alone does not bestow upon you the ability to influence. Influence is earned through impactful agency, strategic alliances and purposeful advocacy. Agency provides you with legitimacy and a platform, advocacy allows you to state the case with urgent conviction and alliance is the glue that holds it all together. Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. Do I qualify?
CNA
7 days ago
- Business
- CNA
A look at China's influence in Southeast Asia through its infrastructure drive
China has poured billions of dollars into infrastructure projects across Southeast Asia. But perceptions of the intent of the initiatives are mixed. CNA explores China's regional influence through its infrastructure drive. Amir Yusof reports from the Philippines.
The Guardian
26-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Academic with apparent ties to Beijing has forged links within UK parliament
An academic with apparent connections to the Chinese Communist party has forged links inside the UK parliament and met King Charles and Queen Camilla. Yu Xiong, a professor of business analytics at the University of Surrey and a cryptocurrency entrepreneur, has attended a dozen events in the House of Lords since 2022 and had regular contact with peers including Baroness Uddin, a cross-bencher. Xiong appears to be connected to the Chinese Communist party (CCP), having until May 2023 led a branch of the Western Returned Scholars Association (WRSA), which states that it is 'managed by' the United Front Work Department. He was president of the UK branch of the WRSA, representing Chongqing, China's largest city. Described by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, as his party's 'magic weapon', the United Front exists to advance China's aims abroad. Under party regulations, its principles include 'upholding the leadership of the CCP' and opposing Taiwanese independence. Security agencies in the UK, US and other western countries have issued public warnings about the United Front's activities. Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5, said in 2022 that the United Front was mounting 'patient, well-funded, deceptive campaigns to buy and exert influence'. Xiong has also attended at least three meetings in 2023 and 2024 with Chinese officials to discuss advancing their controversial plans for a new mega-embassy in Tower Hamlets. The plans were originally blocked by the local council but are being reconsidered by ministers after China resubmitted its application last year. His apparent connections to the Chinese government are likely to come under scrutiny as ministers in the UK target parts of the Chinese state under new foreign influence rules. Xiong denies that he is linked to the United Front and strongly rejects that he has extensive connections to the CCP. He said he had not attended any meetings of the WRSA since 2019, and that he had allowed his role as UK president to lapse in 2023. Xiong said the WRSA obtains its relevant permissions from the United Front, along with many other associations with hundreds of millions of members between them. Through his solicitors, Xiong stated that it is 'absurd', 'grossly unfair', and 'overly simplistic' to identify him as someone with links to the United Front and said that it was disingenuous and racist to connect him with the CCP. 'In my role as an associate vice-president and academic, I am required to network with political figures in the UK and stakeholders across the globe in order to advance international cooperation in my field for the benefit of Surrey University. There is nothing unusual about my membership of various Chinese academic/trade associations.' Uddin said she had not been aware of Xiong's role with the WRSA before she was contacted by the Guardian, but stressed that there was nothing improper about their friendship. The pair collaborated on an all-party parliamentary group (APPG) and attended meetings together in London, China and Bangladesh, including one with the Chinese ambassador to Dhaka. Experts said that Xiong's role as UK president suggested 'a high level of integration into the CCP-led United Front system' and 'should trigger further scrutiny of the WRSA's activities in the UK'. Alex Joske, a director at the Australian consultancy McGrathNicol who is an expert on the WRSA, said the United Front 'plays a fundamental role in expanding the CCP's political influence internationally, and it has sought to mobilise its international contacts in support of Chinese government interests. Prof Xiong's connections into UK politics should trigger further scrutiny of the WRSA's activities in the UK.' Xiong has established connections inside parliament and briefly met the king and queen. In June 2023, Xiong posted on LinkedIn that he had met King Charles while attending a charity ball at St James Palace, saying the men 'discussed AI and technologies that will change the world'. In October that year, he posted that he had a 'private meeting' with Paul Scully, then technology minister, through his role at Surrey University. Since 2022, Xiong has attended at least a dozen events in the House of Lords on digital technology and interacted with Uddin and Lord Taylor of Warwick, cross-bench peers who were formerly affiliated with Labour and the Conservatives respectively. Xiong said there was nothing improper about his interactions with politicians, businesspeople and members of the royal family. Xiong addressed several of the events he attended in parliament in his capacity as an adviser to the all-party parliamentary group on the metaverse and web 3.0, which was co-chaired by Uddin until parliament was dissolved in May 2024 for the election. The APPG's secretariat was run by the UK International Innovation Centre (UKIIC), a company that listed Xiong among its directors until April 2024. The UKIIC, whose website was taken down for several months after the Guardian's inquiries, stated its aims as 'upgrading China's soft power and international influence'. Xiong said he was not aware this phrase had appeared on the website and he did not share that aim. At the same time as forging connections in British politics and academia, Xiong has been an outspoken supporter of Beijing's foreign policy aims, including its claim over Taiwan. In 2023, Xiong was quoted in a Chinese state media article about a meeting between Xi and the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League. According to the report, he said: 'As new immigrants in the UK, we will leverage the unique advantages of Chinese people overseas in promoting the complete reunification of the motherland' – a reference to China's claim over self-governing Taiwan. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Xiong's solicitors in response said that he 'considers that any peaceful resolution of the issues between China and Taiwan is better than a non-peaceful one'. They said: 'Our client is not a politician, and his views about reintegration of Taiwan into China are informed only by his desire to see a peaceful outcome. 'His comments were made shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which caused many people to consider how other territorial disputes could best be resolved peacefully. None of our client's views on this subject should be taken to mean that he does not respect the Taiwanese people's right to self-determination, which is absolute.' In 2019, he was pictured in the VIP section of the celebrations for the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. He was invited to attend by the Organisation Department, one of the most important organs of the CCP, which oversees staffing in the party. Through his lawyers, Xiong rejected the suggestion that his attendance at the celebrations on Tiananmen Square represented a relationship with the CCP or the United Front. In December 2023 and February and March 2024, Xiong attended meetings with Chinese officials, which were held to discuss ways of progressing proposals to build a super-embassy at Royal Mint Court, according to evidence seen by the Guardian. Present at all three meetings was Xia Yuzi, the Chinese embassy official responsible for the planning application. The Guardian has seen a business proposal addressed to Xiong by a third party after one of the meetings offering to advise the Chinese embassy on the matter. Dated March 2023, the proposal said it was 'a pleasure to sit down with the key people in the proposed project of the Chinese embassy at Royal Mint Court', adding: 'We would be happy to help you on an advisory basis.' Xiong accepted that he received the proposal but said it was unsolicited. After being told there were text messages showing he asked for costs and timeframes, Xiong said that he offered to review the proposal as a way of rejecting it and that he never passed it on to the Chinese embassy. He strongly denied acting as an interlocutor between the embassy and other parties. Uddin, a former Labour councillor in Tower Hamlets, was present at two of the meetings with Chinese embassy officials. The peer said she did not know the purpose of the meetings she attended and did not discuss the embassy plans. Messages seen by the Guardian suggest that in late 2023, she sought to arrange a meeting with Xiong and an intermediary to discuss the Chinese embassy. Uddin said this might have been about the embassy's community impact. Over the last two years, Xiong and Uddin spent time together abroad in Bangladesh and China. In February 2024, they met Yao Wen, China's ambassador in Dhaka, and in April they attended a conference in Chongqing aimed at fostering UK-China cooperation. Separately, draft marketing materials seen by the Guardian list both Taylor and Uddin as advisers to the 'Thames Fund', an investment fund by a crypto company named JKL Capital, where Xiong is a director. Taylor declared he was a paid consultant to JKL Capital between November 2023 and December 2024, when he removed the entry from his register of interests after the Guardian started making inquiries. He said the entry had been made in error. Both Uddin and Taylor said that they had never heard of the Thames Fund and were unaware they had been pictured on its marketing materials. Xiong said the document was a draft which had only been circulated internally, and that the Thames Fund did not exist yet. He said no one had been paid by JKL Capital in the UK. Additional research by Jason Tzu Kuan Lu
CNA
24-05-2025
- Politics
- CNA
Long advantageous, Harvard's China ties become a political liability
WASHINGTON: Harvard University's links to China, long an asset to the school, have become a liability as the Trump administration levels accusations that its campus is plagued by Beijing-backed influence operations. On Thursday (May 24) the administration moved to revoke Harvard's ability to enroll foreign students, saying it fostered antisemitism and coordinated with the Chinese Communist Party. Among them are Chinese nationals who made up about a fifth of Harvard's foreign student intake in 2024, the university said. A US judge on Friday temporarily blocked the administration's order after the Cambridge, Massachusetts, university sued. The concerns about Chinese government influence at Harvard are not new. Some US lawmakers, many of them Republicans, have expressed worries that China is manipulating Harvard to gain access to US advanced technology, to circumvent US security laws and to stifle criticism of it in the United States. "For too long, Harvard has let the Chinese Communist Party exploit it," a White House official told Reuters on Friday, adding the school had "turned a blind eye to vigilante CCP-directed harassment on-campus." Harvard did not respond immediately to requests for comment. The school has said the revocation was a punishment for Harvard's "perceived viewpoint," which it called a violation of the right to free speech as guaranteed by the US Constitution's First Amendment. Harvard's links to China, which include research partnerships and China-focused academic centers, are longstanding. The ties have yielded major financial gifts, influence in international affairs and global prestige for the school. HEALTH TRAINING In a statement, the Chinese embassy in Washington said: "Educational exchanges and cooperation between China and the United States are mutually beneficial and should not be stigmatized." The presence of Chinese students at Harvard and the school's links to the country are not evidence of wrongdoing. But the complexity and overlapping nature of the connections have been opaque enough to attract attention and criticism. The China-related issues cited by the Trump administration echo the work of the Republican-led House of Representatives' Select Committee on China. For example, Harvard provided public health-related training to Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) officials after 2020. That year the US imposed sanctions on the Chinese paramilitary organization for its role in alleged human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang. The Department of Homeland Security said those engagements with XPCC continued "as recently as 2024". China vehemently denies any accusations of wrongdoing in Xinjiang, but both the Trump and Biden administrations have defined Beijing's policies in the region as "genocide." In another episode that has drawn questions, US business intelligence firm Strategy Risks said that Ronnie Chan, who facilitated a US$350 million donation to Harvard in 2014 that led to its school of public health being named for his father, property developer T.H. Chan, is a member of the China-United States Exchange Foundation. The Hong Kong-based organization, which says its aim is to foster dialogue between the two countries, has been classified as a foreign principal under US law, requiring US lobbyists working for it to disclose that work to the US government. FORMER PROFESSOR CONVICTED Former Harvard Professor Charles Lieber was scrutinized by a Trump program started in 2018 called the China Initiative, which was focused on fighting Chinese espionage and intellectual property theft and investigated researchers and universities over whether they disclosed financial ties to Beijing. He was convicted in 2021 of lying about his ties to China in connection with federally funded research. In April, he became a full-time professor at a Chinese university. The initiative was halted under the Biden administration after critics said it led to racial profiling and a culture of fear that chilled scientific collaboration. US lawmakers from both parties have expressed worries about the efforts by Beijing-linked student associations to monitor political activities. In April 2024, a Harvard student activist was physically ejected from an event by a Chinese exchange student - not faculty or security staff - for interrupting a speech by China's Ambassador Xie Feng. Pressure has mounted on Harvard in Trump's second term, with the Education Department in April asking the university to provide records on its foreign funding after it said a review of required reporting on large foreign-source gifts and contracts revealed incomplete and inaccurate disclosures. The Trump administration's moves against Harvard have nonetheless alarmed some China experts. Yaqiu Wang, a US-based human rights researcher who came to the US from China as a student, said the Trump administration's move to ban foreign students at Harvard was "completely counterproductive".
