[9]: 11 Documents and emails obtained by Foreign Policy in 2018 showed that the Georgetown University CSSA accepted funding from the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., which amounted to roughly half its total annual budget.
[3] CSSAs have been criticized for trying to control and monitor the speech of Chinese students and professors, and for involvement in espionage in various countries including Canada, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
[15][16][17][18] Some CSSA branches have also pressured their host universities to cancel talks relating to Tibet, the Chinese democracy movement, Uyghurs, the Hong Kong protests, and the persecution of Falun Gong.
"[22][23] In a 2017 New York Times article, chapters of CSSA were described as having "worked in tandem with Beijing to promote a pro-Chinese agenda and tamp down anti-Chinese speech on Western campuses.
[24] In 2017, the Wayne State University chapter of the CSSA reportedly funneled money from the Chinese consulate to finance a trip to China for the mayor of Ypsilanti, Michigan and three officials.
[28] In 2019, the CSSA chapter at McMaster University accused a local Uyghur-Canadian activist of fomenting "separatism" after her speech drawing attention to human rights violations in Xinjiang.
[5][34] In 2022, the president of George Washington University reversed a decision to remove posters by Chinese political cartoonist Badiucao critical of the 2022 Winter Olympics following initial complaints by the local CSSA chapter.
[39] In May 2024, the CSSA at the University of Florida protested a law signed by Ron DeSantis barring Chinese students from working in certain academic labs without special permission.