For centuries, the traditional role of elite universities like Harvard has been to train the next generation of leaders in every field of endeavor, to hold before them an open door to power and influence. So why on Earth are we holding that door open to communist Chinese nationals?

I had a good friend in high school, sharp as a tack, double legacy at Yale, graduated Harvard Law and by 30 she was at the State Department. The joke was, "Don’t piss off Becca, she can pick up the phone and have you killed."

HARVARD'S ENDOWMENT HOLDS $7 MILLION PER STUDENT, STILL RECEIVES $550M FROM GOVT ANNUALLY

The point here is that, for better or worse, and it's often the latter, graduates of top schools are meant to create a class of people who lead the country, who lead its industries and sciences, who stay at the Princeton Club in midtown, and wear their college ties.

A top American degree opens up a world of the powerful that most Americans don’t even know exists, much less ever interact with. Yet thousands and thousands of communist Chinese nationals are invited to this table every year.

Why?

There may have been a time when this influx of foreign students could be seen as exerting informational power around the globe, the idea being these students will go home and spread the gospel of democracy, free markets, and blue jeans.

But let’s not kid ourselves, these scions of Chinese Communist Party members who pay their way at Harvard aren’t going home and creating movements for democracy in Beijing, not if they want to make it to grad school alive and well.

In fact, we are the decided losers in this informational power exchange, as not just the Chinese, but Qataris, and 10,000 Iranian students for good measure, bring ideas and attitudes that undermine American foreign policy to the doorstep of the very people who will implement it.

This brings us back to the question: Why are we doing this? Why are we training our foes and giving them access to the inner corridors of American power, and I’m sure nobody will be shocked that the answer is money.

Foreign interests lavish our top universities with gifts like a rich guy who got caught cheating on his wife. In just the last five years, the Harvard Crimson reports $151 million from foreign governments and over a billion from foreign donors flowed to Cambridge.

For hundreds of years, Harvard had educated the nation's great industrialists, financiers, and business magnates who kept the coffers of its endowment, still at a robust $52 billion, overflowing. But the blue-blood spigot is running dry.

No, the non-binary womyns studies majors at the Harvard Divinity School are not going to be donating a new football stadium anytime soon. For that, these institutions have learned to rely on foreign money, and we all know that money ain’t free.

The money buys influence, it buys some say in how our nation conducts itself. During COVID, with a few notable exceptions, our country’s entire healthcare apparatus just nodded along slavishly to every lie China and its mouthpiece the World Health Organization uttered. Why do you think that happened?

It happened because China pays for research. It happened because China infiltrates the highest levels of our society, and sadly, they have become quite expert at it. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is obviously right to insist that we vigorously investigate any student from any nation that is a political or ideological foe of the United States, and frankly, any association with the Chinese Communist Party should be a dealbreaker.

The first Harvard graduate to become the president of the United States was John Adams, who once famously wrote of his revolutionary adventures, "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy."

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But today, it is our sons and daughters losing opportunities to study mathematics and philosophy to people from countries that hate America, and it is also those countries which stand the most to gain in terms of politics and war.

American universities need to be American universities, not cosmopolitan, non-affiliated islands of corrupt foreign influence, and if the Harvards of the world can’t be that, then places like conservative Hillsdale College or the University of Austin may well need to replace them.

If Harvard and other storied elite universities want to return to serving the mission of helping America to be great, it would be welcome. But in the meantime, we don’t have to give them taxpayer money, and we don’t have to let them invite our enemies into the inner circle of American power.

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Saturday told allies in the Indo-Pacific that the U.S. has their back against increasing military and economic pressure from China, while insisting that they also contribute more to their own defense.

Hegseth said the U.S. will bolster its defenses overseas to counter what the Pentagon views as rapidly developing threats by China, particularly toward Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own. China has conducted numerous exercises to test what a blockade of the island would look like.

The Chinese army "is rehearsing for the real deal," Hegseth said in a keynote speech at a security conference in Singapore. "We are not going to sugarcoat it — the threat China poses is real. And it could be imminent."

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China has said it wants its military to be in a position to take Taiwan by force if necessary by 2027.

China is no longer building up its military forces to take Taiwan, but it is "actively training for it, every day," Hegseth said on Saturday.

Not only has China created man-made islands in the South China Sea to support new military outposts, but it has also developed highly advanced hypersonic and space capabilities, prompting the U.S. to begin creating the "Golden Dome."

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In his speech, Hegseth called out China's ambitions in Latin America, specifically attempts to increase influence over the Panama Canal.

He also urged countries in the region to increase their defense spending to be in line with the percentage of gross domestic product that European nations are being pressed to contribute.

"We must all do our part," Hegseth said.

The European Union's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, pushed back against Hegseth after his speech for a comment he made about European countries putting focus on defending their own region while the U.S. mostly handles the Indo-Pacific.

Kallas said European and Asian security are "very much interlinked" at the moment as North Korean troops are fighting for Russia and China is supporting Moscow.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.