The U.S. may not be on the coziest terms with the People’s Republic of China, but it seems the PRC has found a tidy workaround for the sharing of American aerospace expertise with a university that’s been blacklisted by the U.S. for the past quarter-century.
Advertisement
A new report from journalist Natalie Winters reveals an alarming arrangement that appears to completely undermine that firewall.
🚨 NATIONAL-SECURITY SCANDAL: Stanford’s former aerospace chief spent 14 years reviewing engine programs for the F-22 and F-35.
Then he quietly trained researchers at a blacklisted Chinese defense university—and presented unpublished sensitive work there. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/GO5tNyOusj
— Natalie Winters (@nataliegwinters) August 17, 2026
The U.S. government has restricted exports to China’s Beihang University since 2001 over missile-related concerns. Yet in May 2025, longtime Stanford aeronautics professor Brian Cantwell spent nearly a month at Beihang under what the Chinese university described as an “expertise introduction” program.
READ MORE: Stanford Hit With Explosive Allegations Over Chinese State-Linked Funding
America’s Top Generals Walked Straight Into China’s Influence Machine
As Natalie Winters reports, Cantwell wasn’t merely attending a conference: He lectured, advised researchers and graduate students, toured labs, and discussed future cooperation.
What makes this arrangement particularly notable is Cantwell’s résumé:
- He’s the former chairman of Stanford’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
- From 1994–2008, he served on an Executive Independent Review Team overseeing the F119, F135, and F136 fighter-engine programs.
- He also previously served on NATO’s aerospace research advisory group.
Advertisement
As Winters notes: “The F119 powers the U.S. Air Force’s F-22 Raptor. The F135 powers the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.”
So what exactly was Cantwell’s role at Beihang? Per the university’s own descriptions, he led a six-part lecture series on turbulence/fluid mechanics. Not only that, but according to Beihang, much of the material concerned post-2019 research, and the university specifically noted that some of the latest research had not yet been published.
While there, Cantwell met with Chinese researchers, discussed their projects with graduate students and offered “opinions and suggestions”; he also toured labs and an aeroacoustic wind tunnel. Beihang said this visit laid the groundwork for further joint research and academic cooperation.
Even without the established restrictions, the arrangement raises obvious national-security concerns given Cantwell’s background and the nature of the research involved. But here, we have a university that has been on the U.S. Commerce Department Entity List since 2001. Exports involving the university face licensing restrictions tied to missile-related end-use concerns. Yet, in 2013, Commerce identified intermediaries it said helped procure at least 75 export-controlled shipments for Beihang. (In other words, another attempted workaround.) And Beihang conducts UAV research, including autonomous flight control and long-endurance unmanned aircraft.
Advertisement
Even more concerning is that Beihang is commonly identified as one of China’s “Seven Sons of National Defense,” universities closely connected to China’s defense-industrial/military research system. According to the Hoover Institution, the Seven Sons “operate as prime pathways for harvesting US research and diverting it to military applications.”
For additional insight on the Seven Sons, see, for instance, the policy the University of Arizona has adopted on the matter:
The Seven Sons of National Defense is a group of leading Chinese universities that are directed by and subordinate to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (CMIIT), which oversees China’s defense industry through its subordinate agency, State Administration for Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND). While we recognize the benefit of appropriate international collaborations, the close affiliation between these universities and CMIIT introduces atypical security risks and concerns about misuse of research for military purposes. For this reason, University Employees must not have any interactions, in their role as a University Employee, with any Seven Sonsof National Defense universities, including with faculty, researchers, or students associated with those universities.
Advertisement
And which university sits atop U of A’s list? Beihang University.
ALSO SEE: They Haven’t Stopped: Chinese Students Attempted to Smuggle Agricultural Bioweapon Into US
To be clear, nothing in the report establishes that Cantwell transferred classified information or violated export-control law. However, what it does reveal is a glaring policy/security question: What good are restrictions on transferring sensitive American technology if institutions tied to China’s defense apparatus can recruit Americans possessing decades of highly valuable expertise?
Washington may restrict the technology, but Beijing appears more than happy to simply recruit the people who know it instead.
Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy RedState’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical Left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join RedState VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.