A Confucius Institute is a program found in numerous universities in the U.S. and other countries. It is supported and funded by China's Communist Party. While ostensibly existing to promote learning Mandarin and cultural exchange, Confucius Institutes are effectively the foreign propaganda arm of China's Communist Party and can threaten academic freedom and national security.[2]
CIA reports obtained by The Washington Free Beacon in 2012 revealed,
"The [Chinese Communist Party] provides ‘strings-attached' funding to academic institutions and think tanks to deter research that casts it [the CCP] in a negative light. It has used this tactic to reward pro-China viewpoints and coerce Western academic publications and conferences to self-censor. The CCP often denies visas to academics who criticize the regime, encouraging many China scholars to preemptively self-censor so they can maintain access to the country on which their research depends."[3] |
Elite U.S. colleges, a key junta constituent, spent thousands of dollars lobbying Democrats to halt federal probes into their multimillion-dollar partnership with China and other human rights abusers.[4] House Democrats blocked passage of sweeping legislation against the Confucius Institute. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) refused to hold a vote on an anti-Confucius Institute bill that unanimously passed in the Senate in 2020.[5] Under the junta, the institutes rebranded themselves as the Asia Society Chinese Language Partner Network with more than 100 “Confucius classrooms” catering to the K-12 educational system in the United States.[6] Sec. Mike Pompeo referred to the CCP threat as "within the gates."[7]
Biden junta operative Linda Thomas-Greenfield delivered a lecture at a Confucius Institute in 2019 where she voiced favorable opinions on the CCP involvement in Africa.[8]
South Korea is seriously considering closing all Confucius Institutes since too many parents have complained that the Chinese language institute wanted to teach their children a history of their own country dominated by China.[9]