A view of the Confucius Institute building on the campus of Troy University in Troy, Alabama, March 16, 2018. (Kreeder13 via Wikimedia Commons)
The U.S. Senate on Thursday (March 4) passed a bill aimed at removing Chinese Communist Party influence from Confucius Institutes to protect academic freedom on U.S. campuses and avoid further Chinese Communist Party infiltration on campus.
The bill, which passed unanimously, would require universities hosting Confucius Institutes to have full control over these centers, including their content, activities, research funding and staffing. Failure to do so would result in the loss of U.S. federal funding.
The bill would also require Confucius Institutes to protect academic freedom and prohibit the application of any foreign law on campus.
The full name of the bill is the Concerns Over Nations Funding University Campus Institutes in the United States Act (CONFUCIUS Act). It was passed by unanimous consent in last year’s Senate session.
The bill was introduced by Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana.
Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) is pictured here. (Graeme Jennings-Pool/Getty Images)
“These research institutions, run by China’s authoritarian government, do not allow the free exchange of ideas,” John Kennedy said on the Senate floor March 4, “and they don’t allow anybody to talk about the Uighurs or the Tibetans or the people of Hong Kong or what’s going on in Tiananmen Square. “
In a separate statement, Kennedy said, “The Confucius Institute is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party in all but name, and is a propaganda center that threatens academic freedom and free speech without shame.”
“Too many American schools, every day, fall victim to this political scam,” he said, “and this bill would give university institutions full control over the Confucius Institutes and restore freedom of thought on campus.”
“I hope the House joins us in sending the CONFUCIUS Act to the president’s desk.” He said.
In recent years, a number of Confucius Institutes have been closed across the United States under the watchful eye of members of Congress and advocates. As of February, there were 55 Confucius Institutes at U.S. universities, and another 64 had closed or were in the process of closing, according to the National Association of Scholars.
Last year, the Trump administration designated the Confucius Institute USA Center in Washington as a foreign mission. Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the measure meant that the U.S. government determined that the center did play a role in “advancing Beijing‘s global propaganda and malign influence activities on U.S. campuses.
According to a 2019 U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Investigations report, the Communist Party invested more than $158 million in about 100 U.S. universities through Confucius Institutes from 2006 to 2019.
Last month, a U.S. official publicly called on American students to learn Chinese language and history from Taiwan, rather than at Confucius Institutes.
“Learning Chinese from a Taiwanese teacher means learning Chinese in an environment free of censorship or coercion.” William Brent Christensen, director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), said in an interview with Japanese media outlet Nikkei Asia in early February. The agency, in fact, is the U.S. Embassy in Taiwan.
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