The University of Michigan has announced it will terminate its longstanding partnership with Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, ending a two-decade academic collaboration between the two institutions.
President Santa J. Ono confirmed the decision Jan. 10 following discussions with U.S. congressional leadership and internal U-M stakeholders.
The move follows a recent report from the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party concerned with national security, and a letter from committee chair U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Michigan, communicating his concerns that the partnership had been compromised.
“International academic partnerships have deeply enriched our academic offerings and strengthened the global education of our students, and we will continue to pursue partnerships around the world as part of our academic mission,” Ono said. “As we do so, we must also prioritize our commitment to national security.”
U-M’s partnership with SJTU involved a joint institute that has placed American and Chinese students at U-M and in China. Established in 2005, the UM-SJTU Joint Institute stands out among international education institutes for offering engineering degree programs accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, with all courses taught in English and almost all students pursuing an international education experience.
Over the past two decades, the partnership has facilitated numerous academic exchanges, including dual-degree programs, scholarships and study-abroad opportunities. Overall, the SJTU has offered global learning experiences to more than 1,000 undergraduate students from U-M and other institutions.
University administrators working with the joint institute emphasized that current students enrolled in its programs will be able to complete their degrees without disruptions related to this separation.
The decision reflects broader changes in the landscape of international academic cooperation, particularly between U.S. and Chinese institutions. U-M reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining rigorous standards for international collaborations while ensuring compliance with national security considerations.
In light of the partnership’s dissolution, Ono emphasized the importance of international education and the essential role of international students, faculty and staff on U-M’s campus.
“International experiences are vital for our students in this interconnected world,” he said. “We remain committed to supporting U-M’s international students and will continue to foster international partnerships that advance knowledge and cross-cultural understanding and ensure our campus remains a vibrant community where scholars from around the world can thrive.”
Jiaxing Yang
🕯️🕯️🕯️
Hanling Yang
🫡
Charles Song
Ono真不是东西，美国政府的走狗
Yifeng Tang
This is VERY sad.
Unbelievably short-sighted move by the University.
I think the SJTU-UM community across the world will be deeply saddened.
Yifeng Tang
The connection between the University and China goes WAY back.
see https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/maize/mpub9818289
The current university administration should feel ashamed of itself.
Charles Song
特朗普还没有上台呢，校董及其走狗小野就提前举手投降摇尾乞怜，甚至都不假装在乎学生。看他们对工会和支持巴勒斯坦运动的表现就知道了，学生只是他们政治和财富阶梯的垫脚石。
Shaoqing Yu
😢😢😢
Mengyan Wu
跳梁小丑
Mengyan Wu
误伤误伤
Xiang Liu
As a proud SJTU and JI dual degree program alumus, I am deeply sad to see the partnership ends.
However, I totally understand this decision. Under the current CCP regime, the PRC is heading towards a path that is bound to have conflicts with the rest of the world. What XJP is doing is not what the Chinese people hoped for. The rest of the world also had other expectations.
I want yo express my greatest gratitude for the best education that U of M has provided. Those years were the 神仙日子 of my life.
Forever Go Blue!
On the other hand, the US is not
Xiang Liu
the US is not doing its best as a world leader. I hope the tides will eventually turn and the US-China relationship have a better future.
Yicheng Tao
跳梁小丑
Yan Lu
跳梁小丑
Mengyan Wu
跳梁小丑
Yiyang Jiang
As an alumnus of both SJTU and Umich, I deeply saddend to hear this news. It is our collective stands that China stands firmly against the US government’s practice of overstretching the concept of national security, making discriminatory actions in various names and going after Chinese higher-education institutes to contain high-quality academic achievements. The Chinese people’s right to development is not to be deprived of or ignored. We urge American people, as a member of the community with a shared future for mankind, to cease the persecution of specific ethnic groups and not to repeat the mistakes of history. It is our responsibility to work towards common great academic achievements.
Xiang Liu
On the other hand, the US is not doing its best as a world leader. I hope the tides will eventually turn and the US-China relationship have a better future.
Yinghan Long
So sad to see the end of this joint program. UM-SJTU JI students have shown great academic performance. Most of its graduates work at big tech companies in US now. It was a great way to attract top talents to UMich and US.
Xuan Dai
🥲🥲🥲
Jin Yan
As an alumnus of both SJTU and U-M, I am deeply saddened by this decision. The UM-SJTU Joint Institute has been a mutually beneficial program that has fostered academic excellence, cultural exchange, and global understanding. Many of my classmates from this program are now serving as professors at top U.S. universities or as researchers in world-class companies, contributing significantly to innovation and progress in the U.S. and beyond.
The program has provided invaluable opportunities for both American and Chinese students to learn from one another and gain a deeper understanding of each other’s cultures. Such cross-cultural experiences are essential for cultivating future leaders who can make informed, collaborative decisions in an increasingly interconnected world.
As leaders in the U.S. and China, these two universities have enjoyed a long and fruitful 20-year “marriage,” which has built a legacy of trust, shared knowledge, and mutual respect. It is worth rethinking this decision, considering the program’s profound impact and the bridges it has built between the two countries.
While I understand the importance of national security, it is crucial to recognize that the vast majority of students and scholars participating in these programs are here to learn, grow, and contribute positively. Decisions that sever these ties risk undermining the very foundations of mutual understanding and the ability to influence future leaders on both sides.
I urge the university and other stakeholders to consider the broader, long-term benefits of these collaborations and explore ways to address security concerns without losing the opportunities and connections that programs like the UM-SJTU Joint Institute have made possible.
Yuchen Hua
Well said! As a UM and SJTU alumnus who enrolled in this program fifteen years ago and is now a key engineer in a global company in U.S., I admit that while the formality and administration on the Joint Institute (JI)’s side has a long way to go, the partnership between the two universities did boost my career and in turn bring something new in the industry. Some incidents done by some individuals should not be used by some politicians to frame the partnership just for their own political interest. It harms the diversity, innovation and understanding brought to both universities and in a larger sense, both U.S. and China.
I hope students who already enrollled this program will not be affected and can complete their study in both universities without much disruption.
Xiangyu Chen
Well said!
+1
Zhanren Li
美国人在搞文革呢。
恭喜大家的文凭都贬值了，UM马上要成三流学校了
Yongxu Yao
It was inevitable, but still tough to accept. We see them as rivals, while they view us as adversaries.
Michael Lin
If you must know, this is why: https://www.ettoday.net/amp/amp_news.php7?news_id=2828522
James Grotberg
No doubt President Ono had also to consider the 2020 incident in Florida that was similar to the recent one in Michigan. Those students went to prison.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/06/14/3-chinese-nationals-sentenced-taking-naval-base-photos-key-west-florida/3189418001/
We all look forward to better days in our search for mutual understanding and exchange.
Ivo Dinov
Historically, separatism (in any form and in any context) has rarely led to lasting, sustainable, regional growth, or global prosperity. On the contrary, In the academe, it mostly leads to scholarly fragmentation, research stagnation, social division, and economic instability. By prioritizing academic exclusion over unity, academic separatism may deepen existing tensions, weakens collective academic advancement in the arts & science, and disrupt shared resources and infrastructure. Sustainable academic prosperity is better achieved through inclusive trans-national governance, continual scholarly dialogue, and real efforts (not just talk!) to address global challenges, while fostering international unity and mutual respect among diverse communities. President Ono and the BOR should reconsider this UM-SJTU Joint Institute termination, review the institutional, national and international impacts, and review the UM history with top-down political strong overreach (cf. Chandler Davis, Clement Markert, and Mark Nickerson, https://facultysenate.umich.edu/dmn-overview/). Now is hardly the time to segregate – to paraphrase Pres. Obama “The academe is more than a collection of separate nations and universities, its a united scientific front that collectively is much more that the sum of its individual members.”
Myles Zhang
This university decision stinks of xenophobia and anti-Asian discrimination. Okay, so five Chinese students – in what appears nothing more than youthful indiscretion and shortsightedness – take photos of a U.S. military base while on vacation. Students on study abroad make all kinds of mistakes: from drinking too much, to overstaying a tourist visa by a few days, to taking home a poster from North Korea as souvenir.
In most cases, the university is understanding and reasonable enough to see things as they are: as young people struggling along the path to adulthood. In other cases, institutions and politicians use these students’ mistakes as tools to score cheap political points. This is that case. And then Republican (and Democrat) politicians use students’ mistakes as political leverage to advance their own political careers, to somehow imply that the Chinese government is employing Chinese teenagers as military spies. This is a pissing contest between members of U.S. Congress, to see who can take the strongest stance against the Chinese people.
The U.S. government accuses China of corporate espionage, of ocean land theft, of funding conflicts around the world, and of human rights abuses against people who practice Islam. But just last week, the U.S. just approved another transfer of eight billion dollars in weapons to fund the genocide against Muslims and the religious minority of Orthodox Christians in Palestine. The U.S. has more military bases around the world than any other country, and spends more on its military than the next nine global powers combined.
This is all smoke and mirrors from Republicans and the political establishment to blame China (and the Chinese people) for the kind of espionage that the U.S. government is, in fact, engaged in America’s century-long fight against Palestinians, China, and any formerly-colonized nation that dares to question the U.S. military-industrial hegemony.
Politicians will be politicians. But universities must stand for higher values, instead of quivering and shaking in fear before politicians who lie about prioritizing “our commitment to national security.” Universities are places for cultural sharing and the free exchange of scientific information. The pursuit of knowledge is a value worth defending. Unfortunately, our university leadership are cowards.
Margit Burmeister
Yeah, MLive mentioned that event as a trigger. We have no way of knowing whether it was as you say students making a mistake in judgment, or they had been asked by CCP. I totally see the parallel you mentioned to Otto W taking down a North Korean flag. Either way I am sad to see the JI go.
An alternative could have been to better educate incoming students at admissions and when they come as to what would not be tolerated and where to be extra careful. When my then undergrad daughter went to a UofM organized internship in Germany, they had a whole day of introduction to things to watch out for. I haven’t heard that incoming students get this type of training before leaving to the US, and that might have prevented this mistake
Margit Burmeister
As a former UM-SJTU-JI teacher who still has her expired 老师卡， and current collaborator with SJTU, I am deeply saddened by this move, spoiling the 20 year anniversary of this long standing engagement. UofM prides itself to be one of the first US Universities admitting Chinese students, but now already, we see a reduction of interest by Chinese students. I hope engagement with China will continue, as it is our best way to exchange values and culture to mutual benefit. This was not stopped because it was a failed experiment, the Joint Institute was a very successful one, and I hope we will continue engaging in China in a meaningful way in the futere
Yifeng Tang
老师好~ 🙂
Zimu Yang
Dear Chinese fellow,
Use English if you want to discuss or express your concerns. This is not wechat or rednote after all…