“Ideas have consequences.” At least that is what American philosopher Richard Weaver wrote in 1948. Little did the West know, that in following coming years, Communist China’s political ideas would have an immense impact on the real-world issues we face today.
The National Association of Scholars recently released a report entitled, “China and Our Children.” Its author, Ian Oxnevad, says that over the last two decades China has exerted a strong and vigorous influence over America’s school children under a program designed to shift the American public’s perception of the communist state.
It began with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) developing language study programs. It then turned them into a tool of political warfare and deployed the programs to the United States as part of its overseas active measures operations.
China’s influence operations today are endemic in its so-called academic exchange and language programs. In reality, they are directed by the CCP with the goal of employing groups such as its Confucius Institutes (CI) in an effort to undermine US democracy. An American advocacy group, Parents Defending Education (PDE), found that the CI’s and
its rebranded programs are used to co-opt American universities, and at an even deeper level infiltrate the fabric of our K-12 school systems.
In an earlier report released in July 2023, PDE found over 143 active or defunct CI’s, now called Confucius classrooms (CCs) across 34 US states, including 20 located on US military bases!
Some of the CCs had direct links to the China People’s Liberation Army (PLA). PDE identified $17,967,565 in Chinese government funds that flowed into the CCs between 2009 and 2023. Although the US forced the closure of many of the CI K-12 programs, today Chinese influence operations are rebranded, alive, and prospering on American
university campuses.
The CCs are less well known than the original Confucius Institute programs but just as dangerous. There are over 164 documented CC programs operating in the United States. “We discovered CCs in the public schools of major metropolitan areas, in rural school districts, elite private schools, and across entire states. When host schools were
categorized by public or private education, 79 percent of these Confucius Classrooms were discovered in public school districts” says Oxnevad. Today Beijing hides its active measures programs behind nonprofit intermediaries to improve its ability to infiltrate the
United States. It coincides with CCP efforts to build strategic economic and diplomatic partnerships with state officials in places such as North Carolina and Minnesota (in the Minnetonka Public Schools, Sisters School District, and St. Cloud Area Schools ) where they were welcomed. In particular, the report cites efforts to establish bilateral programs
by the governor of Minnesota and city officials in Chicago, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon.
China’s CC strategy in American K-12 schools is a gradual, long-term effort to influence policymakers and society at the state and local levels. It typically begins with a bilateral initiative at the local and state level and evolves into agreements, partnerships, and memos of understanding between state level departments of education, governors and
local mayors.
The strategic planning for CCs parallels CCP efforts to engage local businesses in the US. Geographically the CCs are often located “in close proximity to significant Chinese investments,” says Oxnevad. Local nonprofit organizations in many states act at facilitators and sustainers of the programs while schools develop “sister school” relationships. They represent, according to Oxnevad, a point of interest among high-
profile Chinese officials involved with China’s United Front Work Department (UFWD). They help provide books with a Chinese political slant and other funding.
Yet more disturbing is the report’s finding that “nonprofits such as the 100,000 Strong Foundation, Go Global NC, BG Education Management Solutions, IL Texas Global, the Alliance for Education, and the Asia Society played roles in opening American K-12
schools to the Chinese Communist Party. Many of the founders and board members of these nonprofits are high-profile figures from American politics and business.”
Congress needs to revitalize the Foreign Agents Registration Act to eliminate exemption in business, science and educational pursuits. Oxnevad suggests that the US also
establish Ratio Funding Restrictions on universities to curtail them from taking foreign funding that competes with the interest of American taxpayers. It will act like a tax on the school if they accept Chinese funding.
US policy makers need to be aware that through the CCP’s infiltration of the American educational system, China is using its soft
power to successfully influence the United States to accept Beijing’s world view.
Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.