Pompeo alleges UW didn’t help student detained in China to preserve ‘multi-million dollar deal’

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo levied criticism against the University of Washington on Wednesday, accusing the university of failing to render aid to one of its students, Vera Zhou, after she was detained by the Chinese government in 2017.

UW responds to pressure from Trump administration to reopen

In a speech delivered at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Pompeo alleged that the UW balked at rendering assistance to Zhou to preserve an alleged “multi-million dollar deal” between the university and Beijing.

“Now, thank God, Vera was eventually released, and returned to the U.S,” Pompeo said. “But no thanks to the University of Washington, and no thanks to its deal with China.”

“What more bad decisions will schools make because they are hooked on Chinese Communist Party cash?,” he continued. “What professors will they be able to co-opt or to silence? What theft and espionage will they simply overlook? What business deals will get done as a result of that?”

The UW issued a statement shortly after Pompeo’s speech, saying that his allegations represent “the latest false statement and shameful deflection from an administration whose State Department and Department of Education took no effective action on behalf of Vera Zhou in response to the University’s requests, and now wishes to shift attention from that failure.”

“That the Secretary of State would think a university has more power in this situation than the United States government is bizarre,” the university added, going on to deny knowledge of any “multi-million dollar deal” between the UW and China that would have compromised the university’s efforts to save Zhou.

Ursula: Making students pay full tuition during pandemic is unethical

Zhou — who became a permanent U.S. resident in 2010 — was a junior at the UW when she was taken by Chinese authorities in October 2017 while visiting her father in Xinjiang. She was arrested for using an illegal VPN to log into an online portal for the UW to turn in her homework.

Shortly after being interrogated, Zhou was sent to a reeducation camp, where she was held in a cell with 11 other women, and forced to watch and study pro-Chinese government propaganda. Zhou’s mother called on the UW to step in and help bring her back to the United States, but was rebuffed, with the university claiming there was little it could do without the State Department’s aid, given that Zhou wasn’t a U.S. citizen.

Zhou was released by the Chinese government after two years in custody, and now resides in Vancouver, Wash., with her mother. According to the UW, she is again enrolled at the school as of this quarter.