Gatestone Insitute’s Gordon Chang criticized China of attempting to intervene in American higher education on the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour podcast.
“China, through the Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, which is meant to work with other countries, established Confucius Institutes on college and university campuses, and at their height there were about 115 or so of them,” Chang told the Federal Newswire. “But they’ve also inserted Confucius classrooms, about 500 of them into our secondary schools. This has been controversial, [and] they've been rolled back. China’s rebranding them. But obviously what they’re trying to do is influence our college students, but also discourse at the heart of higher education.”
Chang, a senior fellow at Gatestone, said Confucius Institutes became controversial because they were seen as a ploy by the China Communist Party (CCP) to infiltrate American education, State Newswire reported. He said China is also trying to change the discourse of higher education. Xi Jinping, president of the People’s Republic of China, pushes the theory that the only legitimate state in the world is China, he said. This theory pushes all other nations under China as the ultimate ruler.
Confucius Institutes are a public education and cultural program funded by the Chinese government and administered by the Chinese International Education Foundation, formerly known as Hanban, according to the Austin Journal. Their mission is, in theory, to promote Chinese language and culture, support local Chinese teaching internationally, and facilitate cultural exchanges. However, they have been criticized for enabling the Chinese government to infiltrate the U.S. higher education system through indoctrination and by offering courses that paint China and the Chinese government in a positive light.
A National Association of Scholars (NAS) report found that 106 Confucius Institutes are closed or in the process of being closed. But they continue to maintain a relationship with the former Confucius Institute and although under another name, act very similarly, the report states.
Updated in September of 2022, the NAS report confirmed 15 Confucius Institutes remain in the US, with one at Stanford University in California. The rebranding of the Confucius Institutes became the Chinese International Education Fund, formerly known as Hanban, which NAS says continues to allow the Chinese government and CCP to influence American higher education.
People's Republic of China officials claimed the remaining Confucius Institutes act as educational culture centers to teach the Chinese language and dismiss US Congressional concerns, according to a May 2022 Congressional Research Service report.
Li Changchun, a standing member of the Politburo in Beijing, said in 2011, “the Confucius Institute is an appealing brand for expanding our culture abroad; it has made an important contribution toward improving our soft power,” according to a 2018 Politico report investigating Confucius Institutes.
He said the brand has a natural attractiveness and through the excuse of teaching Chinese language, “everything looks reasonable and logical.” The Chinese Government was spending more than $10 billion per year on propaganda initiatives including Confucius Institutes, Politico reported.
