The company, WuXi AppTec, ‘operates genetic testing centers established in coordination with the PLA,’ lawmakers warned last year
A Chinese investment firm—lavishly funded by some of the United States’ most elite institutions, including Yale and Princeton universities—has purchased part of a biotech business that works with the Chinese military and has faced accusations of helping Beijing identify Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.
Hillhouse Investment Management purchased the tech company WuXi AppTec’s China-based clinical research services business in October, according to a company press release.
“We are confident that Hillhouse’s expertise and teams will enable these businesses to reach new heights and deliver continued excellence in clinical research and site management,” gushed Steve Yang, Co-CEO of WuXi AppTec, in the release.
Multiple elite U.S. universities have poured millions of dollars into Hillhouse. Yale, which invested an initial $20 million in 2005, has since seen a $2 billion return. Stanford in 2015 announced its plans to invest $200 million from its then-$22 billion endowment in the fund. Princeton, as well, has invested some of its $36.4 billion endowment in Hillhouse, though the exact total has not been made public.
In February 2024, former congressman and then-chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.) wrote that WuXi AppTec “operates genetic testing centers established in coordination with the [People’s Liberation Army],” allowing Beijing “to identify and separate Uyghur Muslims from other residents.”
Gallagher wrote that “this practice has been a key pillar of the CCP’s genocide in the region.”
The former chairman also warned that the tech company “has received investment from numerous PLA investment funds, including from organizations with a stated goal of investing in companies directly tied to military-civil fusion and military production.”
That same month, intelligence officials told senators that Wuxi AppTec handed over U.S. intellectual property to Beijing without consent.
The revelations of U.S. universities’ new business ties to Wuxi AppTec come after increased concern from lawmakers about U.S. investment benefiting China. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) demanded earlier this month that “investments propping up Communist China’s aggression must come to an end.” Congress has also turned its eye toward keeping endowments out of the hands of Chinese companies. Rep. Greg Murphy’s (R., N.C.) Protecting Endowments From Our Adversaries Act would levy stiff taxes on any amount of their endowments U.S. colleges and universities invest in Chinese companies.
Hillhouse itself has long faced scrutiny over its role in the CCP’s persecution of Uyghurs. The firm is a significant investor in Yitu Technology, a company the United States blacklisted over its role in enabling China’s human rights abuses. Hillhouse founder Lei Zhang, who reportedly joined the Communist Party at age 17, held a meeting with the Shanghai party secretary in October 2024. He was also once a business partner of Hunter Biden, the New York Post reported in April 2023.
Zhang has deep ties to Yale. He got his start as an intern for the school’s late chief investment officer, David Swensen, who gave Zhang $20 million of Yale’s money to invest. Zhang used it to become an early investor in Tencent, which the United States has designated as a Chinese military company, and showered Yale with donations. He was named a Yale Corporation trustee in 2016 but left the governing body in 2022. Hillhouse is named after a street at Yale.
China has locked up an estimated one million Uyghurs in reeducation camps in the country’s western Xinjiang region since 2017, where the state has subjected them to forced labor and sterilization, among other abuses. In 2021, the United States declared Beijing’s treatment of the Uyghurs a genocide.
Other reported investors in the fund include left-wing organizations like the Ford Foundation and the Pritzker Foundation, as well as cultural institutions like the Metropolitan Opera, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Washington Free Beacon reported in 2021 that former secretary of state John Kerry has invested $1 million in Hillhouse.
None of the universities mentioned in this story responded to Free Beacon requests for comment. Of the other organizations with reported investments in Hillhouse, only the Metropolitan Opera responded to a comment request, stating that it redeemed its investment in September 2021.
