Texas A&M Shut Down a Major Climate Change Modeling Center in February After a ‘Default’ by Its Chinese Partner

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Texas A&M Shut Down a Major Climate Change Modeling Center in February After a ‘Default’ by Its Chinese Partner

The abrupt closure of the college's climate lab came the same month that Sen. Marco Rubio pressured universities to cut ties with a Chinese institution affiliated with A&M's research.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio in February mailed letters to 22 U.S. universities: Cut ties with Chinese institutions that have previously “ensnared” scholars in schemes to steal valuable information, he wrote. China’s military, he said, is attempting to acquire and develop cutting-edge technology, sometimes through theft under the guise of academic collaboration.

Texas A&M University and its governing system responded one day later with a letter to the Florida senator. They had already “mitigated” or eliminated 200 A&M “instances of activity” with evidence of foreign influence, including a climate modeling center called the International Laboratory for High-Resolution Earth System Prediction, according to the letter written by administrators.

The university system coordinates with the FBI on a “near daily basis,” the administrators said. And one affiliation that Rubio specifically questioned—Ocean University in Qingdao—is being severed, according to the letter.

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