Stanford student reveals sick way CCP stalked her on campus

WASHINGTON — A student at Stanford University opened up the disturbing ways in which Chinese Communist Party agents allegedly stalked her, mentioning her mother, demanding she delete material on her phone, and harassing her with a blitz of calls.

Elsa Johnson, a junior majoring in East Asia studies, testified to the House Committee on Education & the Workforce on Thursday about how the chilling alleged “transnational repression” against her began and ripped Stanford for being “very reluctant to engage with me” on it.

“I’m here because I was personally targeted by a suspected agent of the Chinese Communist Party while conducting research at Stanford,” Johnson, the editor-in-chief of the Stanford Review, recalled.

The alleged spying began while she was doing research at the Hoover Institution during the spring of her freshman year, “focused on Chinese industry and military tactics.”

Soon thereafter, a man who called himself Charles Chen connected with her via social media, offering to give her a paid trip to China and pressing her for details on her personal background.

“Then he publicly commented on one of my Instagram posts in Mandarin, asking me to delete screenshots I had taken of our conversation,” she recalled. “I do not know how he knew I had these screenshots.”

Chen had photos of Stanford on his profile, giving her the initial impression that he may be tied to the elite school, but the FBI confirmed that he wasn’t actually affiliated with it.

Johnson believes Chen was acting on behalf of China’s Ministry of State Security and had targeted at least 10 female students since 2020. She began doing investigative reporting on the apparent Chinese espionage, but then it worsened.

“I began receiving intimidation calls where callers would switch to Mandarin and in one case, the caller referenced my mother,” Johnson recalled. “I have also received threatening scam emails attempting to convince me to take down my reporting on this issue.”

“This fall, the FBI informed me that I am being physically monitored on Stanford’s campus by agents of the CCP and that my family is also being watched.”

She received a call from a suspected CCP operative as recently as last week.

Johnson also bashed Stanford for failing to help her deal with the alleged foreign espionage, chiding that she was “a freshman navigating a foreign intelligence operation with no institutional support.”

Ultimately, the Hoover Institution, an independently run, conservative-leaning think tank that operates on campus, helped connect her with the FBI.

A spokesperson for Stanford told The Post that the university “takes any allegations of undue foreign influence seriously and has robust policies and procedures” to protect students.

“Stanford immediately contacted the FBI when it first learned of the concerns, and the university’s Research Security office reached out to the student directly,” the spokesperson added.

“We have established reporting mechanisms, including a tipline, through which individuals can raise concerns related to foreign influence or targeting, and those channels are being used.”

Johnson’s testimony came during a committee hearing intended to explore concerns about foreign espionage in colleges and universities across the country.