DeSantis should keep pushing
Over the last couple of weeks
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has come under intense scrutiny from critics for its hardline stance against Chinese citizens and entities’ collaborating with Florida’s schools.
The principal topic of controversy is the governor’s signing of SB 846 into law. The measure, in effect since July, prohibits employees of the Sunshine State’s educational institutions from accepting funding or gifts from China and prohibits residents of the country from receiving research contracts with Florida’s schools unless they receive a waiver from the state.
As a result, some universities ended their partnerships with Chinese entities right before 2023 came to a close, sparking condemnation from some, who argue there’s no place for such a law in America, a melting-pot nation. These critics’ concerns, while understandable, are myopic.
For years the FBI and public-safety experts have warned that China, which conducts at least $225 billion worth of espionage on the United States annually, likely uses its proximity to American schools to steal sensitive information from this nation. They have also found that the country uses its connections to American academia to covertly promote CCP propaganda and subtly advance the communist regime’s aggressive, anti-American aims of geopolitical dominance.
SB 846, which commendably allows the state to permit exemptions for carefully vetted Chinese entities, is not overly exclusionary or aggressive. If anything, it needs strengthening. Despite this legislation having been in effect for six months now Chinese entities are still embedding themselves into Florida’s colleges and are moving into K-12 classrooms.
In September the DeSantis administration acted against four private and preparatory schools that it found had direct ties to the CCP, including two in Winter Park. To discourage this behavior from persisting, the governor directed the Department of Education to suspend school-choice scholarships to those schools.
That said, if CCP-based investors have successfully taken ownership of these schools, what is stopping them from doing the same with others?
Since SB 846’s passage the CCP has also appeared intent on obtaining back doors into the Sunshine State’s colleges and universities through its strategic contracting arrangements with U.S. companies.
For example, one month after SB 846 took effect the McKinsey Company received a multimillion-dollar contract from University of Florida President Ben Sasse. Despite assuring Sen. Marco Rubio in 2020 that it does not work with the CCP, McKinsey admitted in a court hearing one year later that it is effectively the People’s Liberation Army’s maritime logistical arm.
As part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, China’s nationwide push to gain geopolitical supremacy, the company invests CCP government money into ports worldwide. It has also admitted to maintaining ties with entities that the U.S. Treasury has sanctioned for threatening the United States’ national security interests, all while hosting corporate retreats in Xinjiang, where the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority has drawn international condemnation.
For all these reasons and more, it is fair to worry that the company may share sensitive information and strategies with the Chinese government, especially because the country’s military civil fusion laws mandate data sharing upon the CCP’s request. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, has proposed legislation to stop McKinsey from receiving national security contracts on the national level. Yet this company is now heavily entrenched in the operations of one major Florida university.
Rather than cower to pressure and reverse course on divesting potential CCP influence from Florida’s schools, Gov. DeSantis and his appointed officials should double down.
That should start with addressing SB 846’s lack-of-enforcement mechanism and working with his state’s college and university presidents (especially likeminded ones like Sasse, who was briefed on these threats when he served in the U.S. Senate) to rid Florida’s academic community of any and all CCP ties and vulnerabilities. Only then will this state’s citizenry receive the security and protection it needs and deserves.