Wendy Mao (毛立文), Stanford’s Earth Sciences Chair and Deputy Director of Stanford’s Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences at SLAC, has co-authored over 50 publications, trained 5 employees, and maintained a visiting scholar position at 🇨🇳 HPSTAR, an “alias” for China's nuclear weapons program.

In 2020, the 🇨🇳 Center for High Pressure Science and Technology, or HPSTAR, was added to 🇺🇸 Department of Commerce's Entity List, which identifies organizations that pose a significant risk to national security. Since its 2020 Entity List designation, Mao has co-authoredat least 12 peer-reviewed papers with HPSTAR.

The US Entity List describes HPSTAR as an organization “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.”

According to Canada's 2024 Named Research Organizations List, HPSTAR is an “alias” for the institution behind China’s nuclear weapons program.

HPSTAR studies how materials behave under extreme pressures and temperatures using diamond-anvil cells, synchrotron beams, and X-ray diffraction. Mao is a leading US researcher in this very field.

"It is true that high-pressure experiments are used by scientists working on the domain of nuclear weapons. If anyone is using the diamond anvil cell or shock waves to study materials relevant to nuclear weapons, that's highly sensitive. If those same methods are then applied to sensitive nuclear materials, the combination of these kinds of experiments with these materials starts raising eyebrows."

Both Mao and HPSTAR extensively use diamond anvil cells and shock waves to study materials.

Mao and HPSTAR’s public research papers do not directly involve weapons testing, design, or development. However, these precise high-pressure measurements and theoretical knowledge are the necessary foundations of modern nuclear and advanced weapon design, where accurate modeling of materials under detonation-level conditions is critical.

Over the past two decades, Mao has co-authored at least 50 publications with HPSTAR. Funding acknowledgments show that Wendy Mao and HPSTAR co-authored research financed by US government agencies including DOE (including the National Nuclear Security Administration [NNSA], Argonne National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Brookhaven National Laboratory); DARPA; DOD; NSF; NIH; ARO; NASA.

Mao has trained at least five 🇨🇳 HPSTAR employees as PhD students in her Stanford and SLAC labs. At least one HPSTAR postdoctoral researcher simultaneously worked on DOE, NNSA, and DARPA-funded research at SLAC.

For example, one of Mao’s current PhD students worked at HPSTAR for three years, from 2015 to 2018, receiving an MS in Condensed Matter Physics before joining Stanford as a PhD student in Mao’s lab.

The other four were trained in Mao’s lab and returned to China to work at HPSTAR. These are only the individuals we were able to identify via web and archival searches.

“Mao has trained 5 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.”

Mao served as a visiting scholar at 🇨🇳 HPSTAR’s Shanghai laboratory from at least 2016 to 2019. She also maintains a HPSTAR email address. Her internal Stanford CV and profile list 43 affiliations, but they do not disclose her position at 🇨🇳 HPSTAR.

1/n

stanfordreview.org/investigation-… “For someone with access to SLAC and other national labs, foreign affiliations must be disclosed under DOE Order 486.1A. Dr. Mao’s undisclosed HPSTAR role and active HPSTAR email raise legitimate concerns about whether federal disclosure rules were followed and whether Stanford had the information needed to manage foreign-influence risk.”

As a professor with appointments at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and other sensitive national labs, Mao is subject to this disclosure requirement.

Mao has also co-authored papers in Matter and Radiation at Extremes, a journal owned by CAEP, China’s nuclear development organization. She did so under a 2020 articletitled "Key problems of the four-dimensional Earth system."

The respective organizations responsible for the development of the US and China’s nuclear weapons programs, 🇺🇸 National Nuclear Security Administration and 🇨🇳 CAEP’s National Security Academic Fund, are co-funders for several of Mao’s projects.

China’s nuclear program started the National Security Academic Fund to strengthen “exploratory national security basic scientific research.”  According to leaked documents from China’s nuclear program, translated by Georgetown University, “The NSAF Fund has broken new ground for CAEP in attracting technological forces across China to start basic research with the pulling force of national security requirements.” 

Mao is listed as a co-author, contributing the aforementioned “national security basic research,” to at least 6 NSAF-funded research projects with HPSTAR collaborators. In funding acknowledgments, HPSTAR is described as an institution “supported by [CAEP’s] NSAF (grant no: U1530402).”

On Nov 23, 2024, Mao was published as a co-author on a paper titled “Iron Bonding with Light Elements: Implications for Planetary Cores Beyond the Binary System.” Wenzhong Wang, from the University of Science and Technology of China, is listed as a collaborator. This paper also acknowledges funding from NASA’s Exoplanet Program. 

The Wolf Amendment prohibits the use of NASA grants from collaboration “with institutions of the People’s Republic of China.” According to NASA’s document on the matter, “that means that it's not enough that a NASA grantee simply avoids sending funds to PRC; rather, the grantee may not spend any NASA grant money on any part of a bilateral project with PRC.”

“The Wolf Amendment bars NASA-funded researchers from participating in bilateral projects with Chinese institutions unless a waiver is granted. When a NASA-supported Stanford professor co-authors research with a scientist from a PRC university, the burden is on the institution to show an exemption. Stanford-Mao doesn't have an exemption. Without one, this places the work squarely in a serious Wolf Amendment risk area.”

The Review was unable to verify whether authorization for an exception was granted.

As recently as Sep 12, 2025, Mao published a paper with three HPSTAR co-authors. The research paper featured HPSTAR researchers using cutting-edge equipment at US 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.

“Fundamental research is generally legal, but export controls still apply 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 US technology and know-how to a PRC-aligned institution.”

2/n

Another woman in the video is Adelina Zhang (张宁), who has been serving as hosts in various 🇨🇳 state events in the UK for years. She’s also worked with Newton Leng, the man who yelled at Brendan in the video.

h/t @samdunningo @ftiauto_ptdauto



1/n sohu.com/a/726632135_23…

https://twitter.com/byron_wan/status/1749349576648380802

Adelina Zhang has clearly undergone plastic surgery (left pic: Zhang in 2017)

2/n

Serbia, Mar 19: 🇨🇳 state-owned China Communications Construction Company demolished the monument to fallen soldiers of the First and Second World Wars in the village of Negrishori during the construction of the Pakovraće - Požega highway.

1/n
The demolition sparked an outrage among veterans’ groups and local residents.

2/n

👇🏻 the monument

🚨 Hong Kong department store Sogo removed LA-based artist Patrick Amadon’s digital artwork No Rioters, an Art Basel exhibit, that contained references to jailed dissidents such as Benny Tai, Joshua Wong and Gwyneth Ho, at the “request” of HK Police.

1/n
Patrick Amadon: “It was too much watching Art Week in Hong Kong pretend the Chinese government didn’t crush a democracy and turn Hong Kong into a vassal surveillance state... because it’s a convenient location for a good market.”

2/n
news.artnet.com/art-world/prot…

Tina Zhang (张), a 34-year-old 🇨🇳 woman from Qingdao, Shandong province, posted videos on Douyin of her hanging out on Yanaha Island (屋那霸岛) — the biggest uninhabited island in Okinawa — which she claimed she bought in 2020.

Yanaha is just ~60km from 🇺🇸 Kadena Air Base.

1/n twitter.com/i/web/status/1… The videos went viral on social media and 🇨🇳 news media 红星新闻 ran a story on it on Feb 3…

2/n

Shanghai, Nov 26: people gather on Urumqi Middle Road (乌鲁木齐中路) to commemorate those who died in the blaze in Urumqi on Nov 24 while repeatedly yelling “不要核酸要自由” ([we] don’t want PCR tests; [we] want freedom!)…

1/n twitter.com/i/web/status/1… People face up to the cops arriving at the scene…

2/n

Xinjiang capital Urumqi tonight (Nov 25): residents are roaming the streets demanding 解封 (lift the lockdown restrictions)… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… White guards are reportedly blocking residents from going out in Urumqi’s Xishan residential district…

🚨 Zhengzhou, Nov 23 evening: clashes broke out between Foxconn workers and white guards…

1/n twitter.com/i/web/status/1… What started out as a protest has turned into an uprising…

2/n twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

🔻 transformer explosion at Nanchang West Station (南昌西站) in Jiangxi’s provincial capital in the evening of Nov 12

1/n 🔻 the explosion at Nanchang West Station as seen from the platform

2/n

Flashes of sparks and smoke were seen bursting from a Shanghai Metro Line 11 subway car near Jiading New Town (嘉定新城) at 7:40am today Nov 11, and subway service has been suspended.

Line 11 on 11.11… Eerie…

1/n Shanghai Metro Line 11 on 11.11

2/n

Concurrent probes by FBI, SEC and CFIUS are examining 🇺🇸 self-driving truck company TuSimple’s relationship with 🇨🇳-backed autonomous hydrogen-powered trucks startup Hydron, which is led by TuSimple co-founder Chen Mo (陈默).

1/n
wsj.com/articles/tusim… Investigators are looking at whether TuSimple and its executives — principally Chief Executive Hou Xiaodi (侯晓迪) — breached fiduciary duties and securities laws by failing to properly disclose the relationship. They are also probing whether TuSimple shared with

2/n

At least 59 people died and at least 150 more were injured after a stampede during Halloween celebrations in the Itaewon area of Seoul Saturday night…

1/n 2/n

@gdemaneuf @Muller_Lab @Engineer2The @Ayjchan @MichaelWorobey @jeffykao @KatherineEban @SenatorBurr @evadou I’ll say this again, this particular piece is purely generic party branch propaganda. It’s not about any lab incident. The author was merely saying every time researchers have to do dangerous research, party branch members will be there at the front line.

archive.ph/2020.04.19-061… @gdemaneuf @Muller_Lab @Engineer2The @Ayjchan @MichaelWorobey @jeffykao @KatherineEban @SenatorBurr @evadou Reid and others apparently misunderstood it as “there’s an incident and people had to handle it.” Trust me, that’s vey straightforward Chinese language in the article. Nothing mysterious, nothing obscure.

A patch of road surface in Qijiang (綦江), Chongqing, suddenly collapsed and 10+ people waiting for public transportation there fell into the septic tank below! 🤢

1/n The road surface is just a thin layer of concrete apparently without embedded steel reinforcement!

How are these sewage-soaked folks supposed to go home? They’re literally in deep shit!

2/n

Sep 16: the China Telecom tower in Hunan’s provincial capital Changsha is engulfed in fire and smoke Friday afternoon…

1/n 2/n

🔻 random stabbing attack at Shanghai Ruijin Hospital (瑞金医院) — a hospital affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s School of Medicine — reported at around 11:30am July 9

Several people have been injured so far.

1/n 2/n

🚨 Former 🇯🇵 Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot in the chest while he was making a stump speech on a street in the city of Nara on July 8. He was unconscious when he was rushed to a hospital and was bleeding from the chest.

1/n

The police seized the man suspected of attacking Abe at around 11:30 am.

2/n

japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/07/0…

July 1: 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China

Lots of cops in stab vest right outside the Apple shop in Causeway Bay

1/n Cops outside Sogo

2/n

Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan just arrive at the High-speed Rail Station in West Kowloon, Hong Kong.

1/n Xi Jinping meets next HK mayor John Lee and current mayor Carrie Lam.

2/n

8:30am June 12: Hong Kong Police is patrolling in Causeway Bay on the third anniversary of the massive 6.12 anti-extradition bill protest / demonstration in 2019.

More cops will be mobilized as the day wears on. 🔻 Hong Kong the police state - June 12 afternoon

5 men in Tangshan (唐山), Hebei province, brutally assaulted a woman in a restaurant after she turned down unwanted attention from one of them. The woman suffered serious injuries, and the attack has sparked furious demands to address misogyny in China.

🔻 video - part #1

1/n 🔻 video - part #2

2/n