U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar | https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=413158773496807&set=a.413158746830143
Comments made by a U.S. representative from Arizona who introduced legislation requiring transparency to expose foreign influence programs at colleges are dovetailing with a new report that the Chinese Communist Party is trying to control campus culture in America.
U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) said in a statement after introducing the Higher Education Transparency Act on April 1, 2021, that colleges and universities should be places of “robust debate of ideas and absent of foreign influences, including those with ties to communist regimes.”
In turn, a Nov. 22 report by the America First Policy Institute said, “Legislation should ensure that ‘no designated foreign mission of China’ is established or funded at state colleges and universities.”
“Unfortunately, foreign entities disguising themselves as cultural education institutions raise many concerns about academic freedom and autonomy on our public universities,” Gosar said in his statement. “In particular, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) funded Confucius Institutes operate on dozens of campuses across the United States and serve as a platform to advance China’s political agenda by allowing it to export its state censorship, control academic staff, choose curriculum and restrict free speech and debate in college classrooms.”
Gosar said he was pleased to introduce the Higher Education Transparency Act requiring that American universities report agreements they have with foreign entities, including Confucius Institutes.
The Chinese Communist Party is trying to control campus culture in America and to “enforce political alignment among foreign Chinese students,” a Nov. 22 report from the America First Policy Institute said.
China utilizes student organizations like Confucius Institutes to implement propaganda, the report said.
“China uses student organizations to take advantage of ‘woke’ trends and uses accusations of ‘racism’ and ‘intolerance’ to de-platform anti-CCP speakers on university campuses while spying on Chinese dissidents within the student population,” the report said.
The CCP’s partnerships with universities are designed to gain specialized education and knowledge, which are used in formal state programs in the People’s Republic of China.
“CCP partnerships with universities, and their recruitment of individual researchers through their talent programs, create an environment of ‘nontraditional collectors’ of intelligence and intellectual property in the academic space,” the report said. “China has explicitly called for educational initiatives, direct funding of programs and faculty on U.S. campuses, and the placement of students in advanced graduate programs to advance its espionage and theft of intellectual property efforts.”
An America First Policy Institute report of Oct. 17 quoted former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director for Counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi as saying that the People’s Republic of China has a “shopping list” of technologies they’re wanting to obtain, mostly from university research labs.
“The total proportion of U.S. graduate students that are admitted from overseas is estimated to be approximately 50%, with 37% of STEM graduate students from overseas estimated to be from the People’s Republic of China,” the report said.
A letter from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of the General Counsel stated how Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires colleges and universities to disclose their acceptance of any foreign money or entrance into any contracts with foreign governments, companies, persons or their agents.
In support of enforcement for Section 117, the Department of Education opened compliance investigations into six universities. The investigation showed the six universities collectively failed to report over “$1.3 billion from foreign sources (including China, Qatar and Russia) over the past seven years despite their clear legal duty to do so under Section 117.”
Furthermore, the investigation uncovered that “five of six universities reviewed have or had multiple contracts with the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei,” the letter said. Huawei has been banned from accessing federal broadband subsidies because of the national security risk it poses.
“The National Association of Scholars maintains a list of graduate students, researchers, visiting scholars and professors who have been charged by U.S. authorities over espionage and selling secrets to China, among other accusations,” the America First Policy Institute reported on Oct. 17. “The breadth of the attempted espionage and activities against the United States shows that this is not a half-hearted campaign, nor are these isolated incidents. The Chinese plan to extract research and intelligence from the U.S. higher education system is premeditated and deliberate.”
Gosar, D.D.S., was first elected in 2010 to represent Arizona's Fourth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is a sitting member of the House Committee on Natural Resources and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Before entering public office, he owned his own dental practice and was a small businessman for 25 years, according to Gosar's biography.
