Elsa

The CCP is infiltrating our universities to steal research, undermine American values, and silence free speech. At our hearing this week, student-journalist @elsajohnson told her story: she was tailed, monitored, and harassed by the CCP. Her story is horrifying, but it isn't unique—this is happening at schools across the nation.

@marlo_safi Thank you so much, Marlo!! I couldn’t do it without ISI’s support :)

Elsa is an incredibly talented Collegiate Network student journalist and her work investigating CCP espionage on Stanford’s campus is a great example of how student journalism can have national (and even geopolitical) implications

One of the reasons that Chinese agents are stalking and harassing Elsa Johnson is that, in May 2024, she published in the Stanford Review how China bullied Stanford into terminating me. "Announcing 'Stanford's Censorship'" (May 3, 2024) and the follow-up "Stanford's Censorship: A History of Academic Freedom" (May 6, 2024) describe how, in the early 1980s, Stanford expelled PhD student Steven Mosher from its anthropology doctoral program after he conducted field research in rural Guangdong province, China. Mosher documented forced abortions, sterilizations, and poverty under China's one-child policy. His reporting angered the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which pressured Stanford and other U.S. institutions. Those who are harassing her should be immediately deported.

A Stanford student testified that she was targeted by a Chinese spy — and the FBI confirmed to her that she and her family were being surveilled by China. Elsa Johnson said a man who called himself Charles Chen reached out to her on Instagram during her Freshman year. The FBI later told her he had no affiliation with Stanford and was likely working on behalf of China’s ministry of state security. And she was not the only student targeted.

The Chinese government believes it can terrorize people in the US. Agents working for the CCP stalked and threatened a student at Stanford who was doing research on China's military. This is happening in other democracies as well and we must put a stop to it.

The Stanford Review's Editor-in-Chief @Elsajohnson testified in front of the House Committee on Education & Workforce this morning, discussing the Review’s investigation into Chinese academic espionage. Watch her testimony below:

For fellow America First higher education reform warriors & China hawks, this is a very long tweet (almost as long as @BillAckman) but it is BOMBSHELL must read. I just participated in the House Education hearing "U.S. Universities Under Siege: Foreign Espionage, Stolen Innovation, and the National Security Threat." I was absolutely STUNNED by the testimony of American @Stanford undergraduate @elsajohnson about facing criminal transnational repression from the Chinese Communist Party. She is an American! Our universities seriously need to get their act together on these significant foreign threats. Thank goodness for @HooverInst 's leadership where the greater university failed to step up. cc @CondoleezzaRice READ THIS 👇👇👇🚨🚨🚨 "My name is Elsa Johnson. I am a junior at Stanford University studying East Asian Studies with a focus on China, and I serve as Editor-in-Chief of The Stanford Review. I am here because I was personally targeted by a suspected agent of the Chinese Communist Party while conducting research at Stanford. The consequences of that targeting have followed me ever since. I grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. There, I attended a Chinese language immersion school from Kindergarten through eighth grade. By the time I arrived on Stanford’s campus, I had already been studying China, its language, and culture for over a decade. I chose Stanford specifically to deepen my understanding of the country whose culture and language have fundamentally influenced my upbringing and my aspirations for the future. When I arrived at Stanford, I began working as a research assistant at the Hoover Institution, where I focused on Chinese industry and military tactics. I was surrounded by some of the country’s foremost China scholars. I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. However, that sense of belonging was upended during the summer following my freshman year. In June 2024, a few days after I spoke with one of my supervisors at Hoover about Chinese recruitment tactics targeting American academics, a man calling himself “Charles Chen” reached out to me on Instagram. He had over 100 mutual followers with me and had photos of Stanford on his profile. I had no reason to believe he was anything other than a fellow student. Over the following weeks, Chen’s messages grew more concerning. He told me he was from China and asked detailed questions about my research and background in Chinese. He offered to pay for a trip to China, sent me a flight itinerary from Los Angeles to Shanghai, and sent screenshots of a bank wire to prove he could afford my accommodations once I got there. He also sent me a document outlining a policy that would allow me to travel to China without a visa. He sent me videos of Americans who had gotten rich and famous in China and insisted that I, too, could find wealth and fame in the PRC. Later on, he began incessantly pressuring me to move our conversation to WeChat, a Chinese government-monitored messaging app. When I didn’t respond to Charles Chen fast enough, he would delete and resend his messages. He even referenced the whereabouts of Stanford students who were in China at the time of our correspondence. Then, in July, he publicly commented on one of my Instagram posts in Mandarin, asking me to delete the screenshots I had taken of our private conversation. I had not told anyone I had taken screenshots, and I do not know how he knew. The only explanation I could come up with was that my phone or my account had been compromised somehow. I contacted two China experts at Stanford whom I trusted, and they connected me with an FBI contact who handled CCP-related espionage cases at the university. I met with the FBI in September and handed over everything I had. The FBI confirmed that Charles Chen had no real affiliation with Stanford. He had likely posed as a student for years and used multiple fabricated social media profiles to target students researching China-related topics. I was told he was likely operating on behalf of China’s Ministry of State Security. I later found out that I was one of at least ten other female students targeted by “Charles Chen” since 2020. My experience with Charles Chen was only the beginning of what I have gone on to experience from the CCP. After my co-author, Garret Molloy, and I published our investigation in The Stanford Review in May 2025. After I wrote a first-person account of my experience in The Times of London, the repression only worsened. Last summer, while conducting research on China in Washington, D.C., I began receiving regular phone calls from unknown U.S. numbers. When I answered the calls in English, the callers would switch to Mandarin. In one case, the caller referenced my mother. These bizarre calls were intimidation attempts, designed to remind me that neither my family nor I is safe from transnational repression by the CCP. Then, this past fall, the FBI informed me that I am being physically monitored on Stanford’s campus by agents of the Chinese Communist Party. They told me that my family is also at risk and is being monitored. As a 21-year-old who grew up loving the Chinese language and culture, I never imagined that studying it would put me in a position where a foreign intelligence service is tracking my movements on my own campus and monitoring my family. I fear for my safety and for my family’s safety. The intimidation calls have not stopped. Just this week, I received another call from a U.S. number. After exchanging hellos, the caller switched to Mandarin and asked whether I had finished dinner. That cannot be a coincidence. It is happening to me on American soil because I reported on the activities of a foreign government at an American university. My experience is disturbing, but it reflects a much larger pattern playing out on campuses across the country. According to Freedom House, the Chinese government is the greatest perpetrator of transnational repression targeting students and scholars in the United States. Their 2024 report found that international students and faculty face surveillance and coercion by foreign governments. More than 1.3 million international students study at American colleges and universities, yet many are unable to exercise the freedoms that are supposed to define an American education. Our investigation at The Stanford Review confirmed this. Under China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, all Chinese citizens are legally required to cooperate with state intelligence work regardless of their location. The Chinese Scholarship Council, which funds approximately 15 percent of Chinese students studying in the United States, allegedly requires recipients to submit regular reports about their research to Chinese diplomatic missions. Students who refuse to cooperate face consequences. In some cases, their families are brought into police stations in China. There is also infrastructure already embedded on American campuses that facilitates this system. Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSAs) exist at roughly 150 American colleges and universities, including Stanford. The U.S. State Department has stated plainly that the CCP created the CSSA to monitor Chinese students and mobilize them against views that dissent from the Party’s stance. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission found in 2018 that CSSAs receive guidance from the CCP through Chinese embassies and consulates, and that they are active in carrying out work consistent with Beijing’s United Front strategy. In some cases, the local Chinese consulate must approve CSSA presidential candidates. Documents obtained by Foreign Policy showed that at Georgetown, the CSSA accepted embassy funding amounting to roughly half its total annual budget. At Stanford, the Association of Chinese Students and Scholars at Stanford, or ACSSS, is a recognized student organization that receives university support and funding. It operates as a social and cultural group, and I want to be clear that many of its members almost certainly have no knowledge of the broader structure I am describing. That is what makes it so effective. The CCP’s United Front uses these organizations as vehicles for surveillance and influence without the consent or awareness of most participants. I thank Chairman Walberg for co-signing the March letter to Secretary Rubio, requesting that CSSAs be evaluated for designation as foreign missions under the Foreign Missions Act. This is a very important step in the right direction. Universities should not fund or officially recognize organizations that function as extensions of a foreign intelligence apparatus, and students within those organizations deserve to know the truth about the institutional ties that govern them. At Stanford alone, there are over 1,100 Chinese international students. Despite coming to the United States to pursue their education in an environment of liberty, many of these students find that such freedom is out of reach. Even within a free society, they remain under the persistent influence of a foreign power, which prevents them from exercising their right to speak and study without constraint. After Garret Molloy and my investigations were published, Stanford issued a statement saying it was looking into the reports and had reached out to federal law enforcement. That was over a year ago. Nothing meaningful has changed. The university has not established a reporting mechanism for transnational repression. It has not provided resources for students targeted by foreign governments. Stanford sits in Silicon Valley, at the frontier of artificial intelligence and emerging technology. By any measure, it is one of the most strategically significant universities in the world for a foreign adversary seeking to acquire sensitive research and technology. And the university has decided to treat this as not requiring a response. That silence creates an environment that stifles innovation and academic freedom. When students and researchers know they are being watched but have nowhere to turn, they self-censor and stop collaborating openly. The very qualities that make American universities engines of innovation are being undermined by a threat that the universities themselves refuse to acknowledge. I was fortunate enough to be working at the Hoover Institution when I was targeted, and the scholars there knew exactly what was happening and connected me with the FBI. If I had not been at Hoover, I do not know how I would have gotten help. There was no university resource to call and no tip line to contact. I was a freshman and had to navigate a foreign intelligence operation targeting me with no institutional support from the university I attend. Stanford should establish an anonymous tip line for students facing transnational repression. Right now, no such infrastructure exists. A student who is being surveilled or coerced by a foreign government has nowhere to go within the university. The institution that collects their tuition has no system in place to protect them. The University of Wisconsin-Madison has already created an information guide and reporting structure that directs targeted students to relevant offices and connects them with law enforcement. Stanford should adopt this model immediately. It does not require an act of Congress. Stanford should build a dedicated office to handle cases of transnational repression, rather than treating each incident as an isolated event to be quietly managed. The response to our investigation was a single public statement, followed by silence. There is no designated office and no institutional memory for these cases. Students who come forward should be met with a clear and secure process. This is an administrative decision that the university can make tomorrow. Stanford should stop treating transnational repression as a secret. Information about transnational repression should be incorporated into the onboarding process for incoming students and faculty. Students arrive on campus with no understanding of the threat they face and no knowledge of where to turn if they are targeted.  I was fortunate enough to be working at the Hoover Institution when I was targeted, and the scholars there connected me with the FBI. Most students do not have that access. Stanford has the resources to build these systems. The question is whether the university has the will. I came to Stanford wanting to study China after growing up learning Mandarin, and I expected to feel safe pursuing that interest at one of the world’s best universities. Instead, I have spent the past two years being targeted by a foreign intelligence service and getting physically surveilled on my own campus. No student should be in such a position, especially at an American institution. I am testifying before you today because if this can happen to me, it is happening to students across this country who do not have a platform and who do not have a path to the FBI. American universities are supposed to be places where people can think and speak freely. Right now, for too many students, they are not."

Meet @ElsaJohnson, an American undergraduate junior at Stanford University who faced transnational repression (as well as her family!) from the Chinese Communist Party including online and physical surveillance on campus. Our universities have become soft targets for foreign espionage and gateways for our adversaries, and they need a serious wake-up call to address these significant national security threats.

@HellenicVibes unfortunately true. there’s almost no social life on campus anymore. this is partly due to administrative overreach, but energy on campus is low. hopefully spring q is better

Hearing a lot of reports that Stanford undergrads are now antisocial and kinda depressive… is this true?? Back when I used to visit Stanford seemed like paradise, frat parties were awesome, everyone was tan & happy.

great chat with @NatHalberstadt listen below!

@NatHalberstadt @StanfordReview such a great time. thanks for having me on the pod!!

Fun & wide-ranging conversation with @elsajohnson, editor-in-chief at @StanfordReview Especially on campus life: - Today's Post-grad paths (YC, FAANG, etc.) - Religious, cultural, and political dynamics - National security concerns re AI Labs & CCP students And more, including latest investigative work from The Stanford Review.

NEW EPISODE: What's happening at Stanford? with Elsa Johnson, Editor-in-Chief, Stanford Review | #80 Today, @NatHalberstadt sits down with @elsajohnson to talk about the situation across tech, politics, culture, and more - especially on Stanford campus and at the Stanford Review. Elsa Johnson is the current editor-in-chief at the @StanfordReview, the leading (and quite storied) conservative magazine on campus. Timestamps: 0:00 – Intro 3:20 – Is AI Destroying Entry-Level Tech Jobs? 5:20 – Gender Dynamics and Dating at Stanford 8:10 – Post-Grad Paths: YC, FAANG, etc. 13:10 – National Security & Stanford’s AI Labs 25:40 – Campus Religious Life 29:00 – Latest work from The Stanford Review 36:23 – Foreign Students and Cultural Erosion 43:06 – Minneapolis 49:50 – Apathy and the Future for Stanford Student

FRIDAY (3/20): next episode of The New Founding Podcast. Conversation with Elsa Johnson (@elsajohnson), current editor-in-chief of The Stanford Review.

@annarmitchell amen

Thrilled to see real-world impact from @StanfordReview reporting. Our investigation into Prof. Wendy Mao’s HPSTAR collaborations is now driving congressional oversight of NASA funding

After my revelation that elite students are claiming to be disabled to get cushy perks, I expected blowback — but what happened next surprised me #Echobox=1770590467" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">thetimes.com/us/news-today/…

After my revelation that elite students are claiming to be disabled to get cushy perks, I expected blowback — but what happened next surprised me | ✍️ Elsa Johnson #Echobox=1770407163" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">thetimes.com/us/news-today/…

I wrote about how Stanford’s disability accommodations are being gamed and admitted I have benefited myself. I expected backlash. Instead, I heard from students and alumni who feel stuck in a system that rewards shortcuts. Broken incentives create bad outcomes. It’s time to fix the system. My latest in @thetimes