Inside China’s bioweapons plot that transformed Michigan’s ‘Big House’ into ground zero of covert warfare

The University of Michigan is supposed to be the pride of the Midwest.

A 200-year-old college that has been dubbed a ‘Public Ivy,’ the school is steeped in tradition, pride and academic excellence. It is also the home of the Wolverines and the Big House, the largest stadium in America.

Now, the beloved school is increasingly seen as a back door for Beijing – a soft target for Chinese operatives, covert networks and alleged plots involving genetically modified parasites and crop-killing fungi.

And recent arrests show just how deep the rot may run.

On November 5, federal agents charged three Chinese nationals – Xu Bai, 28, Fengfan Zhang, 27, and Zhiyong Zhang, 30 – with conspiring to smuggle biological materials into the US while working at a University of Michigan (U-M) research lab.

They were the newest names in a disturbing string of cases involving Chinese nationals allegedly moving dangerous biological samples through campus labs under the guise of academic research.

According to the DOJ, Bai and Fengfan Zhang allegedly received multiple shipments from China between 2024 and 2025 containing ‘concealed biological materials related to round worms.’ The parasites are known to infect both humans and livestock.

The samples allegedly had ‘genetic modifications,’ according to notes in the suspect packages, and were shipped to them while they worked at U-M’s Shawn Xu laboratory, prosecutors say.

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