In a speech at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta on Wednesday (December 9) at 10:00 a.m., Secretary of State Mike Pompeo highlighted the Chinese Communist Party’s infiltration of American universities and research institutions. In his speech, he cited numerous examples and said that it is a tragedy that Chinese students are the biggest victims of the Chinese Communist Party’s long arm on campus.
Pompeo: What the U.S. Has, the CCP Will Do Anything to Get
Pompeo said there are many American scholars who are doing research funded by U.S. taxpayers while joining the Chinese Communist Party’s talent recruitment program and receiving Chinese funding. They are making their research available to the Chinese Communist Party to build its military power. He added that a researcher in his own home state of Kansas fell into this trap, as did the chemistry department at Harvard University.
Pompeo said that the CCP wants what the U.S. has and they will do whatever it takes to get it.
Pompeo: Freedom of Speech Needed to be Defended, Especially for Chinese Students
In his speech, Pompeo referred to a speech given by Shuping Yang of the University of Maryland in May 2017 on behalf of the Class of 2017. Pompeo said that Shuping Yang was simply praising fresh air and free speech in the United States. But he was demonized and harassed by the Communist Party’s propaganda apparatus.
Pompeo quoted a University of Georgia student speaking about the CCP secret police in 2018, “They once had a man who asked me to give them information about the activities of overseas pro-democracy activists and dissidents who were particularly interested in human rights defenders and Tibetans.”
Pompeo said, “Of course, the biggest victims of the Chinese Communist Party on campus are those innocent Chinese people. This is a tragedy, and we have a responsibility to respond to this situation.”
Another example, Pompeo said, was when students in a Chinese political science class had to use code names (to express their opinions) in order to avoid the CCP finding out who they were and then being persecuted by the CCP for expressing their views on Hong Kong and the CCP’s implementation of the Hong Kong version of the National Security Law.
Pompeo said that international students from China in American universities also live in fear of being arrested, questioned and tortured, or worse, if they return to their home countries because of what they say in American classrooms.”
“We need students to really stand up for free speech, for their freedom of speech (to fight for their rights), and especially for the freedom of speech of those Chinese students on our campuses who are coming here to study, to improve their rights, their lives, to enjoy the freedom that they have here in the United States.”
Pompeo: Chinese Communist Party must not be allowed to crush academic freedom in America
Pompeo said, “The CCP is not just targeting Chinese citizens, they [the CCP] also want to influence American students, professors and administrators.”
Why, Pompeo said, would the CCP want to place Confucius Institute offices in American universities? Under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. State Department has made it clear that these Confucius Institutes are actually harmful. Many universities have already chosen to close their Confucius Institutes.
“Americans must know how the Chinese Communist Party is poisoning our higher education for its own purposes, and how these actions are harming our freedom and national security. If we do not educate ourselves, if we are not honest about what is happening, we will be educated by Beijing,” Pompeo said.
Pompeo also mentioned the Communist Party’s infiltration of U.S. campuses through the Chinese Students and Scholars Association. He said the group receives instructions and funding from the Chinese embassy and local consulates to monitor Chinese students and promote pro-Beijing activities.
Pompeo also said that many institutions of higher education, such as Columbia University, do not report the funding they receive from the CCP. “We can’t let the CCP crush our academic freedom.”
“We can’t allow the CCP to use political correctness as a weapon against American freedom. We must protect (ourselves) from the fraudulent cries of racist xenophobia and should never cover up, and be forthright about, the activities of the CCP.”
“But what we often see on American campuses is silence and censorship …… so many of our universities have been bought off by Beijing.”
“We cannot allow tyrannical regimes to steal from us, build their military ideology, brainwash our people, or buy our institutions to help them cover up these activities,” Pompeo said.
Pompeo said Americans have long believed that through trade and engagement with China (CCP), the CCP would reform itself and would advance political freedom and would pose less risk to freedom around the world. “But instead, that’s not what we got. The CCP has used the wealth created by the United States to increase its control over the Chinese people and to create a high-tech repressive state like the world has never seen before.”
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