U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he hopes to close dozens of Confucius Institutes around the United States by the end of the year.
Pompeo was asked by the host of the Fox Business Channel’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight” on Tuesday (September 1, 2020) how many more Confucius Institutes there will be in the United States by the end of the year. He replied, “I hope the answer is zero.”
On August 13, the U.S. State Department announced that the Confucius Institute USA is considered a foreign mission of the Chinese government and requires Confucius Institute personnel to be subject to the same administrative controls as foreign embassy and consulate personnel in the United States, including registration with the State Department.
On “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” Pompeo spoke about the threat that the Confucius Institutes pose to universities and other institutions in the United States and to U.S. national security. I think everybody sees the risk that they [Confucius Institutes] pose, the risk that they pose in terms of recruiting spies and collaborators in these academic institutions,” he said. I think these institutions see that, and I hope we can shut them all down by the end of the year.”
David R. Stilwell, the State Department’s assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs, said last month that by characterizing the Confucius Institutes as foreign missions, the U.S. government hoped that U.S. universities would be aware that Confucius Institutes were doing more than teaching Chinese, but that it was up to each institution to decide whether to close them on its campus.
According to the National Association of Scholars, 45 universities in the U.S. have closed their Confucius Institutes on campus since 2014; as of June 30, there were still 75 Confucius Institutes in the U.S., including four that four universities plan to close in 2020.
Beijing insists that the purpose of setting up Confucius Institutes is to spread knowledge of Chinese culture. However, in the face of the trend in Europe and the United States to close down Confucius Institutes, China’s Ministry of Education decided in early July to set up the Sino-foreign Language Exchange Center and the China International Foundation for Chinese Language Education, which will continue to operate Confucius Institutes under a different facade.
Recent Comments