by WorldTribune Staff, June 5, 2025 Real World News
“Luanna” Yurong Jiang, Harvard's 2025 commencement speaker, spoke of the importance of "a connected world." Jiang herself is connected to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a report said.
Prior to attending Harvard, Jiang worked for the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF), which has extensive ties to the CCP, The Daily Caller News Foundation reported on June 2.
Although the website for CBCGDF claims the organization is a “nationwide nonprofit public foundation and a social legal entity dedicated to biodiversity conservation and green development,” a Daily Caller review of its website and announcements found that CBCGDF is actually controlled by the CCP and Chinese government agencies, and has deep ties to China’s military and intelligence networks.
The CBCGDF’s secretary-general, Zhou Jinfeng, had written a recommendation letter for Jiang to attend Harvard, and has extensive ties to the Chinese government, according to Chinese government and state media reports.
Jiang volunteered with CBCGDF for at least four years, Chinese state media reported, and went with the group to participate in the London High-Level Meeting on Combating Illicit Wildlife Trade in October 2018. During the event, CBCGDF stated it wished to protect pangolins, according to the British government. The nonprofit’s researchers were later sent to study pangolins in Taiwan with the stated goal of promoting the nation’s “reunification with the motherland,” according to a CBCGDF staff member’s report given at a UFWD theoretical research class in 2023.
Jiang, who graduated from the Kennedy School on May 29, "appeared to take a swipe at the Trump Administration during her speech," the Daily Caller report noted.
The Harvard Crimson characterized Jiang’s speech as a “full-throated defense of the importance of international diversity as the Trump Administration threatens the fate of students from abroad at Harvard.”
“Humanity rises and falls as one,” said Jiang, the first Chinese woman to deliver Harvard’s commencement speech. “But today, that promise of a connected world is giving way to division, fear and conflict.”
“If we still believe in a shared future let us not forget those who we label as enemies, they too are human,” Jiang continued. “In the end, we do not rise by proving each other wrong, we rise by refusing to let one another go.”
Harvard’s suspected ties to the communist government in Beijing have come under intense scrutiny in recent years.
In December 2021, Charles Lieber, a former Harvard University chemistry professor, was convicted of crimes related to concealing his participation in a Chinese government technology transfer program from U.S. government agencies funding his research.
Related: Disgraced Harvard nanoscientist gets 3-year contract in China, May 14, 2025
The House Select Committee sent a letter to Harvard on May 19 alleging it had “repeatedly hosted and trained members of a CCP paramilitary organization” implementing “the CCP’s genocide against the Uyghurs.” Citing this and other examples, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revoked Harvard’s right to host foreign students on May 22, claiming the university has been facilitating and engaging “in coordinated activity with the CCP.”
A federal judge has blocked the ban prohibiting Harvard from enrolling international students.
