China used Confucius Institutes to push propaganda all over the world
The US finally woke up to the threat and forced many Confucius
Institutes to close down. But they didn’t actually go away
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell. You know, sometimes I hate being right.
Like that time I said it was literally raining cats and dogs outside.
What a confusing, sad mess.
Or when I said Confucius Institutes would close down but then come back under a new name.
“What’s to stop them from changing the Confucius Institutes so we have no choice but to put them
back in our universities? And now that the Party has extended its control over Hong Kong,
I know what they’re going to do: goodbye Confucius Institutes, hello Bruce Lee Institute.”
Well, Confucius Institutes are coming back—under a new name. With the same terrible product.
Kind of like when IHOP tried rebranding itself the International House of Burgers.
You’re not fooling anyone, IHOP.
Confucius Institutes are Chinese-government funded programs that partner with a foreign university
to promote Chinese culture and language—and of course, Chinese Communist propaganda.
A report by the National Association of Scholars found that of the 118 Confucius
Institutes that were in the US, 104 have closed or are in the process of closing.
But of those 104, 64 schools have opened a new Confucius Institute-like program.
Here’s one of the authors of that report. “At least 58 maintained a very close
relationship with a Chinese university that had been their partner.
And a handful at least five were so loath to close their Confucius Institute that they went out and
recruited a new host for it so that the Confucius Institute didn't close, it just changed locations.
In fact, the single most popular reason that colleges and universities give when they close
a Confucius Institute is that they're going to replace it with another Chinese partnership.”
Do we never learn?
This would be like if a Jack in the Box was closed by the health department,
and a month later a new restaurant called Back in the Jox was opened. Not suspicious at all.
According to the report’s authors, *the public* has learned. It’s the school
administrators who haven’t. And they should have known,
because there were some pretty big red flags right from the beginning.
You know, besides this one. Like Confucius Institutes putting
confidentiality clauses in their contracts.
If they’re so benign, why can’t they be made public?
The answer, of course, is that they’re not benign.
“In 2009, Li Changchun, then the head of propaganda for the CCP … called
Confucius Institutes ‘an important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up.’”
That’s why a lot of people see Confucius Institutes as a Trojan
horse. In exchange for teaching Chinese language and culture,
the Communist Party gets to promote its propaganda to a captive audience.
Probably should have been obvious when the first expressions they
taught in Chinese were “hello,” “What’s your name?” and “Down with Western Imperialists.”
The deal with Confucius Institutes was that colleges and universities
provided the space. The Chinese government paid for the teachers and the materials.
Oh, and did I mention free trips to China? “You see administrators going to China,
getting gifts, building relationships, you know, signing deals.”
I’m sure those trips were just to foster a better cultural understanding, and not in
any way to influence administrators. It’s kind of like when a student gives their teacher an Apple…
iPhone. Not a bribe at all. As Confucius Institutes spread throughout
the early 2000s, people became more concerned about their influence in higher education.
In 2018, Christopher Wray
said the FBI was investigating Marco Rubio: “Do you share concerns
about Confucius Institutes as a tool of that whole of society effort and as a
way to exploit the sort of naive view among some in the academic circles about what the
purpose of these institutes could be?” Christopher Wray: “We do share concerns
about the Confucius Institutes.” “… it is something that we are
watching warily and in certain instances have developed appropriate investigative steps.”
Also in 2018, an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act forced schools to choose between
Pentagon funding and Confucius Institutes. I don’t know… does Pentagon funding get
you free trips to China? Only for building relationships, of course.
In 2020, the State Department designated Confucius Institutes
as foreign missions of the Chinese government. And then there were some high-profile cases that
showed just how much the Confucius Institutes were tied to the Chinese government.
A woman who practices Falun Gong—which is banned in China—said she had to declare that
she wouldn’t practice Falun Gong. That was on a hiring form for a Confucius Institute in Canada.
The Confucius Institute even “published a stipulation in English on its main website
stating that teachers at the institutes must have ‘no record of participation in Falun Gong’”
In another case, China tried to get Stanford University to sign a $4 million contract,
with the agreement that one of the professors it was funding wouldn’t talk about Tibet.
Stanford said no, and walked away from the deal. And there have been reports that Confucius
Institutes have worked behind the scenes to quash visits by the Dalai Lama.
So with all that public scrutiny, schools wanted to distance themselves from Confucius Institutes
and many ended their contracts. That was a good thing, but it was only a first step.
After the break, I’ll tell you what the Confucius Institutes did instead.
Welcome back. Confucius Institutes have developed something
of a reputation in the US. A reputation for being a trojan horse of the Chinese Communist Party.
To avoid scrutiny, Confucius Institutes are changing their names,
shape shifting, and going underground.
It’s like when a canceled comedian tries making a comeback by playing at smaller clubs.
I see you, Cill Bosby. According to the National Association of Scholars,
“Institutions [with shuttered Confucius Institutes] have entered new sister
university agreements with Chinese universities, established ‘new’ centers closely modeled on
defunct Confucius Institutes, and even continued to receive funding
from the same Chinese government agencies that funded the Confucius Institutes.”
Of all the 104 Confucius Institutes that have shut down, the report said they couldn’t find
a single case where it was clear that the school had cut ties with China completely.
In some ways, this shape-shifting has made China’s influence harder to track. Instead
of just one organization under a single name, the new programs are all different.
You cut off one head, and two more grow in its place. If you’re wondering why
I think the Chinese Communist Party are the bad guys, it’s because they
literally act like Hydra.
Even the Chinese government agency that used to run Confucius Institutes has changed its name.
And not to the Bruce Lee Institute.
It’s so much worse. They’re using a bunch of boring names and acronyms,
so that keeping track of them all just feels exhausting.
The Chinese Language Council International used to be in charge of the Confucius
Institutes. It’s now called the Center for Language Exchange and Cooperation or CLEC.
What a boring, useless name change. This would be like if a Jim Johnson
changed his name to John Jimson. Haha, they’ll never find me now.
CLEC now runs the programs that replaced Confucius Institutes.
CLEC spun off a nonprofit called the Chinese International Education Foundation or CIEF,
which now handles the Confucius Institutes. Even the Asia Society, a US-based nonprofit
that has been promoting Confucius Classrooms, changed its program name. It used to be called
the “Confucius Classrooms Network”, but has since changed it to “Chinese Language Partner Network.”
Speaking of Confucius Classrooms, that’s another way Confucius Institutes live on.
Confucius Classrooms work with elementary through high school students, and there’s
about 500 of them still operating in the US. Confucius Classrooms are essentially the
same as Confucius Institutes, but for younger kids instead of college students.
Because you’re never too young to learn how to say “Down with Western Imperialists.”
Yet for whatever reason, Confucius Classrooms haven’t received the same level of scrutiny.
The National Association of Scholars have urged the federal
government to investigate them, though. In 2020, the Secretaries of State and
Education wrote a letter to school administrators alerting them to the risks of hosting a Chinese
state-run program. But it stopped short of taking any action to stop their spread.
There has been action taken on the state level. Last year for example,
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation that would ban any Florida
School from entering into contracts with a foreign adversary, including China.
The legislation also increased reporting requirements for any foreign funding in schools.
Last year, the US Senate also passed a bill called The Confucius Act that would have given American
schools more control over Confucius Institutes. It also tried to increase transparency from foreign
sources in higher education. That bill never passed the
House so it never became law. And maybe that’s a good thing,
because like I said, Confucius Institutes aren't the real problem anymore.
It’s the boring Hydra replacing them that’s the real threat.
And now it’s time for me to answer a question from a China Uncensored viewer who’s part of
the 50-Cent Army. That’s the group of fans who directly support us through Patreon or Locals.
Richard Wallberg asks: “Dear CU, I've heard there's a Confucianist revival
going on in China, do you think the CCP will try to crush it or co-opt
it as a rallying point against western globalism?”
Well Richard, a true Confucianist revival will
never succeed under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party.
On one hand, the Party wants to use certain elements of Confucianism—like loyalty,
hierarchy, and the view that the ruler has the mandate of heaven.
But Confucianism has other elements which can be a serious threat. Like that the emperor is
supposed to rule based on benevolence, and not coercion. Or that people must speak the truth.
You won’t hear any talk of that at the Confucius Institute.
So no, there will never be a true Confucianist revival while the Communist Party rules China.
Anything under the label of Confucius is just co-opting the name—not true Confucian principles.
And sadly, that means there will never be a true Bruce Lee revival, either.
Thanks for your question, Richard.
And thank you to everyone who supports the show.
Be like Richard and support China Uncensored by going to Patreon.com/ChinaUncensored
and contributing a dollar or more per episode. As one of the perks,
you can ask me questions that I’ll answer on the show.
Once again I’m Chris Chappell, thanks for watching China Uncensored.