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FOIA Request:
Records Related to Ending DOJ’s China Initiative




Despite China’s ongoing efforts to attack and undermine the national security interests of
the U.S. and its allies, the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Assistant Attorney General
for the National Security Division announced on February 23, 2022, that DOJ was ending its
“China Initiative,” established to counter Chinese national security threats to the U.S. Major
American universities, including the University of Pennsylvania (where the Biden Center for
Diplomacy and Global Engagement was established in 2017), have been recipients of billions
of dollars in value of foreign gifts and contracts. Through DOJ’s China Initiative, criminal
investigations were conducted at major American universities, revealing extensive
vulnerabilities of critical U.S. research and development materials (often developed at
major American universities). Several prominent outside interest groups have lobbied
extensively on behalf of university and college foreign source gifts and contracts, seeking
to eliminate the China Initiative and other federal investigative efforts regarding China’s
efforts to access critical American technologies at American universities. DFI’s FOIA request
(to multiple DOJ entities) is for records of communications from and with outside interest
groups who may have driven the Department’s policy changes.





14 page FOIA request in PDF