Republicans push to cut ties with Chinese scholarship program

WASHINGTON — House Republicans are urging seven U.S. universities to cut ties with a Chinese scholarship program that lawmakers call a "nefarious mechanism" to steal technology for the Chinese government. In letters to Dartmouth College, the University of Notre Dame and five other universities, leaders of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party raise concerns about the schools' partnerships with the China Scholarship Council, a study abroad program funded by China. The program sponsors hundreds of Chinese graduate students every year at U.S. universities. After graduating, they're required to return to China for two years. In the letters…