The Senate passed a bill by unanimous consent last Thursday (March 4). The bill would strengthen oversight of the Confucius Institute.
The bill was introduced by Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) of Louisiana. Sen. Kennedy said, “The Confucius Institute is under the control of the Chinese Communist Party for everything but its name.”
Kennedy said, “This bill would give colleges and universities full control over the Confucius Institutes that reside on their campuses, being that restoration of free thought on campus.”
A similar bill was co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. Martha Blackburn (R-TN) of Tennessee and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) of Florida in 2020. Rubio said, “For a long Time, the Chinese Communist government has hoped to infiltrate American universities through government-run Confucius Institutes in disguise.”
The bill, S-590, which passed the Senate on Thursday, would cut federal funding for universities that have Confucius Institutes on campus but do not comply with new oversight rules and regulations. The bill will be sent to the House of Representatives for consideration.
Cases against Confucius Institutes have been increasing in recent years, and Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), R-Ohio, said in a 2019 report that U.S. universities provide some access to the Chinese government but are able to “curb academic freedom” and provide “an incomplete picture of the Chinese government’s actions and policies that run counter to U.S. interests at Home and abroad.”
Portman chaired a standing subcommittee of inquiry at the time. The subcommittee made the report after conducting an investigation into how U.S. universities and colleges manage on-campus Confucius Institutes.
Sen. Tom Carper (R-Del.) of Delaware, then the panel’s ranking Democrat, said in that report that while the Senate found “no evidence that these institutions are centers of Chinese espionage or other illegal activities,” be vigilant in countering foreign efforts to influence American public opinion.”
Human Rights Watch reports that Congress’ annual defense spending package for 2019 threatens to deduct funding for language instruction from its universities, severely limiting the autonomy of these Chinese-funded cultural centers. 22 Confucius Institutes have closed as a result of the bill.
Back in 2014, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), in a report released in 2014, recommended that universities take a deeper look at what kinds of courses and topics they bring into the classroom.
That report called the Confucius Institutes affiliates of the Chinese state, allowed to disregard academic freedom and lacking in transparency, as most agreements to establish Confucius Institutes were characterized by their confidentiality clauses and unacceptable concessions to the Chinese government’s political aims and practices.
Recent Comments