China has grip on US higher education despite closure of Confucius Institutes

Earlier this month, the National Association of Scholars showed how a number of Chinese government-funded Confucius Institutes had reorganized and were still largely functional even as the universities claimed they had closed the centers.

Under the Trump administration, the Chinese cultural centers had drawn significant scrutiny due to their ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The national security concerns voiced by government officials ultimately led most colleges to shutter their Confucius Institutes.

But the conservative advocacy group’s new report details how even though universities may have closed their Confucius Institutes on paper, many had simply reorganized their partnerships with Chinese universities and the Chinese government and were still operating nearly identical programs. The report particularly highlights the closures of Confucius Institutes at the University of Washington, Arizona State University, Purdue University, and Western Kentucky University.

“In no cases are we sufficiently confident to classify any university as having fully closed its Confucius Institute,” the NAS report says. “All four of our case study institutions showed evidence of continued collaboration with the Chinese government. Of the additional 100 colleges and universities that have closed a CI, our research could not confirm a single complete closure of the Confucius Institute.”

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The report details how in many cases, the universities began negotiating new agreements with their partners in China even as they formulated plans to close Confucius Institutes.

In many cases, according to the report, the institutes were simply transferred to other entities. For example, the University of Washington transferred its Confucius Institute to Pacific Lutheran University, and Western Kentucky University transferred its institute to Simpson County public schools.

Other institutions, such as the University of Texas at San Antonio, the University of Texas at Dallas, and the University of Massachusetts Boston, told Chinese officials that they wished to keep some programs put on by their Confucius Institutes in place even as they closed the institute itself.

Under federal law, institutions of higher education are required to disclose publicly any foreign donations exceeding $250,000. The law, Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, went largely unenforced for decades before efforts by the Education Department under the Trump administration forced numerous institutions to amend their disclosures.

In her recently released book Hostages No More, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos highlighted the department’s work on Section 117 enforcement under her leadership but noted that the enforcement of the law was met with hostility from higher education lobbyists.

“[The higher education lobby] wrote us saying ‘it is now impossible for institutions to know how to comply’ with their Section 117 requirements,” DeVos wrote. “It was inexplicable that a group of prestigious academics and lawyers, most with advanced degrees, couldn’t understand how to report the foreign funding they received. You would almost think they wanted to keep it a secret.”

Devos and then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a joint warning in October 2020 to chief school officers about the Chinese government’s influence on campuses.

But since the presidential transition in January 2021, the issue has largely fallen out of focus for the Education Department under the Biden administration, a fact that has not been lost on Republican lawmakers.

“If the Biden administration had spent half as much time and money confronting the Chinese Communist Party’s influence in our nation’s education system as they have promoting woke theories on race and gender identity in schools, this would not be a problem,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told the Washington Examiner. “Beijing’s presence in American academia is a major threat to our national security, and we must ensure that it is rooted out for good.”

Rubio has called on nearly two dozen U.S. universities to end their partnerships with Chinese universities assisting the CCP’s military buildup.

In February letters fired off to 22 schools across the United States, Rubio urged officials to terminate academic and research partnerships with Chinese universities that work with the CCP to support Beijing’s military-industrial complex.

Rubio noted that each of the nearly two dozen U.S. schools on his list was partnering with at least one of the civilian schools in China linked to the People’s Liberation Army. Several schools also currently house or previously housed Confucius Institutes.

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies put out a lengthy December report titled “The Middle Kingdom Meets Higher Education: How U.S. Universities Support China’s Military-Industrial Complex.”

“Troublingly, a Confucius Institute closure often does not result in the severance of ties between its American host and the CCP-selected Chinese sister university that supported the CI’s programming,” FDD said. “Following at least 28 of the 79 documented closures, U.S. universities that shuttered their CIs chose to maintain, and in some cases expand, their relationships with their Chinese sister universities, many of which support China’s defense industry. This support includes directly enabling Beijing’s intelligence apparatus as well as underwriting China’s nuclear weapons sector and cyber-espionage platforms.”

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) also criticized the Biden administration for neglecting the threats to national security posed by the CCP’s influence efforts in the U.S. and urged Education Department officials to approach the issue more forthrightly.

“The problem with Confucius Institutes is not that they are called ‘Confucius Institutes,'” Gallagher told the Washington Examiner. “The problem is that they advance CCP interests, create conflicts of interest for American universities, and ultimately endanger our national security. Under the Biden administration, the Department of Education seems to have taken its eye off the ball when it comes to the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party on American campuses. It must urgently reverse course. This starts by simply enforcing existing foreign gift reporting laws under Sec. 117 of the Higher Education Act. Our college campuses are too important to surrender to malign CCP influence.”

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) likewise called on the Department of Education and the Department of Justice to “get a tighter grip on these CCP-rebranded programs.”

“Confucius Institutes, in any form, have no place in the United States,” Blackburn said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “For years, Communist China has been using Confucius Institutes as a Trojan Horse to influence American education, and it is no surprise they are attempting to sneak in other alternatives to spread their propaganda. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has chosen to abet the CCP’s power quest to exploit our students by rescinding the rule that requires schools to disclose their relationship with Confucius Institutes and terminating a DOJ program that targets CCP educational espionage.”

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said in March that the CCP remains the “absolutely unparalleled” long-term priority for the U.S. intelligence community.

In a statement to the Washington Examiner, the Education Department reiterated its commitment to enforcing Section 117 requirements but stopped short of mentioning Confucius Institutes by name.

“The Education Department remains focused on ensuring institutions’ compliance with the transparency and reporting requirements of Section 117,” the department said. “These obligations apply to reportable transactions attributable to all foreign sources, including Chinese sources. Section 117 promotes transparency around foreign funding at higher education institutions, and the department is committed to working with institutions to ensure compliance with this law.”

The department gave a very similar vague response about Confucius Institutes and Chinese influence on U.S. campuses in April 2021, also saying, “The department continues to assess how it can best address foreign influence issues in higher education while realizing the benefits of appropriately managed international partnerships. The department declines to comment on active and potential investigations.”

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The Washington Examiner reached out to the four institutions profiled by the NAS report but only received a response from ASU, which said, “The Confucius Institute here closed in May 2019. Beyond that, we don’t have anything else to add.”

Purdue, UW, and WKU did not respond to comment requests.