This report and its accompanying data were drawn from a larger dataset compiling information on the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) Defense S&T Key Lab (DSTKL) system. Defense S&T Key Labs constitute the PRC’s highest-level network of national labs for military research, focusing their work on the PRC’s most critical and cutting-edge defense needs. The resulting report, which exhaustively catalogued 56 of these labs, along with their research foci, applications, funding, facilities, collaborations, leadership and key personnel, aliases, and other useful information, was published in 2022. An updated volume, which provides both an additional 42 labs (bringing the total to 98) as well as information on the existing labs, was released in 2025.
In the course of compiling the comprehensive dataset on these labs and their activities, the author incidentally gathered a significant amount of data on contact between Defense S&T Key Labs and foreign institutions and individuals, including universities, companies, and research labs in the U.S., Europe, Australia, Japan, and others. This contact ranged from visits, teaching and training agreements, and conference participation and co-organizing, to research collaborations and long-term institutional cooperation.
Needless to say, such interactions between Western research institutions and PRC military research labs is at the very least problematic, and at most an urgent security concern. While some instances described herein are more troubling than others, even the seemingly less problematic cases provide opportunities for the gathering of valuable technology and knowledge by actors whose main goal is to develop new technologies for the PRC military. This report and its accompanying dataset catalogue 131 instances of contact and/or cooperation between PRC defense labs and foreign institutions, including the nature of contact, which defense labs and foreign institutions were involved, the research topics which may have been covered, and any other problematic PRC military, defense SOE, or research institutes which were also involved.
Click here for the full report
