Stanford’s Weakest Link To China’s Bomb Lab

A recent investigative report published by The Stanford Review should have shaken up the country’s national security, administration, and scientific community. The muted response indicates that people in those departments are familiar with and accepting of the lay of the land. However, the matter does raise serious questions and calls for a change of course.

The Stanford Review, Stanford’s independent newspaper, conducted an investigation and found that Wendy Mao, Stanford’s Earth Sciences Chair and Deputy Director of Stanford’s Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences at SLAC, has deep ties with China, and specifically, its nuclear program.

The investigation was triggered by an issue identified and scrutinized by LJ Eads, a China research-security expert and developer of Data Abyss, a platform that analyzes U.S.–Chinese research collaboration.

According to the Review, Mao has co-authored over 50 publications, trained five employees, and held a visiting scholar position at the Center for High Pressure Science & Technology Advanced Research or HPSTAR, a Beijing-based research institution that is funded by China and linked to the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP), involved in nuclear weapons research and development.

The fact that HPSTAR has been on the U.S. Department of Commerce's Entity List for almost a decade should automatically flag her collaborations and dealings with the institution. (The Entity List identifies organizations that pose a significant risk to national security.) According to the Entity List, HPSTAR is “owned by, operated by, or directly affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP), which is the technology complex responsible for the research, development, and testing of China's nuclear weapons and has been on the Entity List under the destination of China since June 30, 1997.”

Further, HPSTAR studies how materials behave under extreme pressures and temperatures using diamond-anvil cells; it is also Mao's area of research. It is a matter of public record that the institute’s and Mao’s research overlap and could be applied to “sensitive nuclear materials,” though her research papers do not directly relate to weapons testing, design, or development. However, experts emphasise that this theoretical knowledge is the very basis of modern nuclear and advanced weapon design.

It is not just the areas of research that are raising eyebrows. Mao and HPSTAR co-authored research funded by U.S. government agencies, including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Department of Defense (DOD), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

That all is not above board is evident from the fact that Mao chose to hide her involvement with the Chinese research institution. Despite being a visiting scholar at HPSTAR’s Shanghai laboratory from at least 2016 to 2019, her Stanford bio and profile do not list her association.

As a scientist in her position, with access to SLAC and other national labs, Mao is duty-bound inform the concerned authorities of her foreign affiliations and disclose them under DOE Order 486.1A.

Furthermore, the Review interviewed a high-ranking Trump 45 official who stated, “Mao has trained five PhD students affiliated with China’s nuclear weapons program. Stanford should not permit its federally funded research labs to become training grounds for entities affiliated with China’s nuclear program. Mao’s continued and extensive academic collaboration with HPSTAR is adequate grounds for termination.”

Four of her PhD students returned to work at HPSTAR after training in Mao’s lab. In addition, her lab enabled an HPSTAR postdoctoral researcher to work simultaneously on DOE-, NNSA-, and DARPA-funded research at SLAC. As the Review report states, “These are only the individuals we were able to identify via web and archival searches,” indicating that there could be many more such instances.

Mao is listed as a co-author on at least six NSAF-funded research projects with HPSTAR collaborators. NSAF (National Security Academic Fund) supports the China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP), the country’s nuclear weapons research, development, and testing laboratory.

Interestingly, Mao was listed as a co-author on a paper, “Iron Bonding with Light Elements: Implications for Planetary Cores Beyond the Binary System,” published in November 2024, and acknowledges receiving funding from NASA’s Exoplanet Program.

Her paper, published in September with three HPSTAR co-authors, featured work carried out in U.S. government laboratories, including X-ray diffraction conducted by the High Pressure Collaborative Access Team at Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source, the Beamline 12.2.2 at Lawrence Berkeley’s Advanced Light Source, and XRD measurements supported by the National Nuclear Security Administration.  

Not all research and collaborations are illegal or banned. However, control applies to “hands-on access to sensitive equipment. When export-controlled lasers at SLAC or national laboratories intersect with Stanford HPSTAR-linked students [Mao’s SLAC-trained PhD students] and collaborators, it creates a real risk of transferring controlled U.S. technology and know-how to a PRC-aligned institution,” cautions Eads, the developer of Data Abyss.

Mao’s links to China are not restricted to HPSTAR and CAEP. She has conducted research with the Beijing Institute of Technology and Northwestern Polytechnical University (NWPU) - two of China’s Seven Sons of National Defense (key research institutions for the Chinese military) and with Shanghai Jiao Tong University's National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology. Her research with some of these organisations acknowledges co-funding from the Department of Energy and DARPA.

Mao’s long association with multiple Chinese institutions and collaborations in sensitive research expose that her efforts have benefited Beijing’s nuclear program. The Review report reveals that Mao’s actions have broken U.S. laws like the Wolf Amendment, which prohibits the use of NASA grants from collaboration “with institutions of the People’s Republic of China.”

It is interesting that a respected scientist at a premier American university has continued to enjoy long collaborations with a Chinese institution on the U.S. Entity List without censure or consequences. Mao has managed to do so as much of her work comes under “fundamental research,” meaning the results are “published and shared broadly, with no restrictions for proprietary or national-security reasons.”

While researchers will choose to work with cross-border institutions in their pursuit of scientific excellence, one cannot ignore Beijing’s agenda nor discount President Xi Jinping’s ambitious blueprint for China’s global dominance.

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📊 Market Mood — Tuesday, December 9, 2025 (Pre-Market)

🟩 Futures Inch Up Ahead of Contentious Fed Decision
U.S. stock futures were slightly higher early Tuesday as traders positioned for Wednesday’s potentially divisive Fed rate call. Treasury yields climbed on Monday—partly after a strong offshore earthquake near Japan—adding caution to markets. Earnings from Oracle and Adobe later this week will further test sentiment amid concerns over heavy AI-driven capital spending.

🟧 Paramount Launches Hostile $108B Bid for Warner Bros Discovery
Hollywood’s takeover fight escalated as Paramount Skydance unveiled a $108.4B hostile bid for all of Warner Bros Discovery, topping Netflix’s earlier $72B offer. The bid represents a 139% premium to pre-negotiation valuations and would include Warner’s cable networks, expanding far beyond Netflix’s targeted asset purchase. Warner’s board said it would review the proposal but reaffirmed support for the Netflix agreement.

🟦 Trump Allows Nvidia to Ship H200 AI Chips to China
The White House will permit Nvidia to export its powerful H200 processors to China, subject to a 25% fee on each sale. The move softens prior export restrictions, though China’s recent crackdown on firms using U.S. tech casts uncertainty on eventual demand. The H200 is estimated to be six times more capable than the earlier H20 model. Nvidia shares rose in extended trading after a 1.7% gain Monday.

🟪 Fed Begins Two-Day Meeting With Odds of Cut Near 89%
Markets widely expect a 25 bps Fed cut on Wednesday, driven by soft labor data, modest consumer spending, and steady—but still elevated—inflation. CME FedWatch now places the probability at 89%. Some policymakers, however, have warned about cutting again during a data-scarce period caused by the prolonged government shutdown, raising the risk of a surprise hold.

🟫 Bitcoin Slips Slightly as Traders Await Fed Move
Bitcoin edged lower in early trading, with investors avoiding new positions ahead of the Fed announcement. Expectations of a longer easing cycle have strengthened Bitcoin’s correlation with risk assets, after a volatile 2025 marked by record highs and sharp pullbacks tied to shifting views on rates, tariffs, and AI-driven market dynamics.

🗓️ Key Economic Events — Tuesday, December 9, 2025

🟦 10:00 AM ET — JOLTS Job Openings (Oct)
A closely watched read on labor market tightness. Markets will parse whether openings continue to ease, which would reinforce expectations for a Fed rate cut on Wednesday.

🟦 1:00 PM ET — 10-Year Treasury Note Auction
A key test of demand for U.S. government debt. Strong bidding would help anchor yields; weak demand could push long-term rates higher and influence equity sentiment ahead of the Fed decision.