From the NY Times: Secretary of State Marco Rubio is pushing to investigate whether Harvard University violated federal sanctions by collaborating on a health insurance conference in China that may have included officials blacklisted by the U.S. government, according to people familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by The New York Times... Whether the agency within the Treasury that handles sanctions, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, opened an investigation in response was unclear — but such a move could expose Harvard to significant legal risks...
Mr. Rubio’s action is the latest example of the Trump administration’s whole-of-government approach to bringing the Ivy League university to heel. President Trump has sought for months to impose his political agenda on Harvard by reshaping its curriculum, admissions and hiring processes. The effort initially relied primarily on accusations that university officials had not done enough to address antisemitism on campus. In recent weeks, however, the administration’s focus has expanded to other issues, including allegations about Harvard’s foreign ties, particularly to China.
...The health insurance conference, known as the Training Course on Health Financing, began in 2019 as a joint venture between Harvard, the World Bank and the National Health Insurance Administration, the arm of the Chinese government that oversees the state-backed health care system, according to the university’s website. Over the years, training has focused on topics like “innovative provider payment methods” and “pricing and payment for internet health.” ...
Behind Mr. Rubio’s sanctions push is the presence of officials from a Chinese state-run group called the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps at some, if not all, of the conferences since 2019. The X.P.C.C. is known in northwest China for building towns and running its own university and hospital systems. The group is also responsible for systemic human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in the region, according to the U.S. government...
Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/us/politics/rubio-harvard-sanctions-investigation.html.
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