When Elsa Johnson left her Minnesota home for Stanford University two years ago, the teenager figured she would be approached by campus clubs or student social organizations, not the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Johnson, who graduated from a Chinese-language immersion school before college, majors in East Asian studies, with a focus on China. She is also the editor-in-chief of the Stanford Review, an independent right-leaning campus newspaper.
Following Johnson’s spring semester work as a research assistant at the Hoover Institution, a man who identified himself as “Charles Chen” contacted her via social media, noting that he had mutual followers and friends from Stanford.
He later asked her extensive questions about her background, offered to pay for a flight to China, and pressured her to move their conversation to WeChat, an app that she says is monitored by the CCP. Chen also commented in Mandarin on one of Johnson’s posts on Instagram, asking her to delete screenshots she had taken of their conversation. Johnson said she did not know how Chen knew she had those screenshots.
The incidents worsened after Johnson published articles about that experience. She received threatening calls. In one instance, someone speaking Mandarin referenced her mother. In another, just this week, the caller asked her whether she “had finished dinner.”
Johnson said the Hoover Institution put her in touch with the FBI. Last semester, the federal agency informed her that she is being actively monitored on campus by agents of the CCP and that her family is also being watched. However, she testified, university leaders haven’t done enough to address these concerns.
“I was a freshman navigating a foreign intelligence operation with no institutional support,” she said.
She also said that Chen had approached at least 10 female college students since 2020.
“The university has not established a reporting mechanism for transnational repression,“ Johnson said. ”It has not provided resources for students targeted by foreign governments. Stanford has the resources to build these systems. The question is whether the university has the will.”
Johnson also told the committee that she believes that Stanford’s Association of Chinese Students and Scholars, which receives $64,000 per year from the university for social activities such as Lunar New Year celebrations, engages in “peer monitoring” activities in accordance with a CCP federal law and informs the regime if their fellow citizens are engaging in questionable activities.
Stanford’s Association of Chinese Students and Scholars did not respond to a request for comment.
Leaders from the University of Michigan and the University of Florida testified that they have stepped up measures to scrutinize foreign influence on campus research in accordance with a new policy established by U.S. President Donald Trump and the U.S. Department of Education.
Domenico Grasso, interim president of the University of Michigan, said he is working with federal agencies to conduct more thorough vetting of foreign students, which make up about 8,000 of the school’s 73,000 enrollees. He also said Chinese donors only contributed about $86 million of the $1 billion in foreign donations to the university.
Democrats mostly called on their one witness, Melissa Emerrey-Arras of the Government Accountability Office, to testify about federal staff reductions in student loan operations and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. Their Republican peers criticized them for holding an “alternative hearing” and accused them of not taking the matter at hand more seriously.
Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) called for stronger measures in arresting and prosecuting foreign adversaries on campus, as well as anyone who helps them.
“It’s time to make the word ‘traitor’ fearful again,” he said, and then he commended Johnson for her testimony.
“This is what old school American loyalty and courage looks like.”
Stanford also contacted the FBI after learning of Johnson’s concerns, and its Research Security Office contacted her directly, Angie Davis, a university spokeswoman, said in an email response to The Epoch Times.
A tipline for reporting potential issues with foreign influence has been established on campus, she said.
“We take seriously our responsibility to be a resource for any student who faces intimidation or coercion by a foreign government,” Davis said. “As these threats evolve, we assess and evaluate our practices to ensure they are responsive to the current environment.”
