In, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Influence in our Universities Must Stop, our column last week on America Out Loud; we discussed how billions of dollars from China are influencing research in American universities to the benefit of the Red Dragon. In particular, we revealed that CCP-funded research in our schools is used to support the unfounded notion that our use of inexpensive, abundant fossil fuels is a threat to the Earth’s climate. This directly benefits Communist China since the alternative to fossil fuels being promoted is wind and solar power, and mainland China is the world’s biggest producer of these technologies. The climate scare also aids the CCP since, while America and other developed nations are held to account for reducing their carbon dioxide emissions, developing countries, in particular China, have no limits whatsoever. As we wrote in our article:

“It makes perfect sense that the Chinese Communists are manipulating fears of a climate catastrophe to its advantage. The CCP wants the U.S. and other nations to pass laws making energy and manufacturing more expensive while they expand their economy, take our industries and our jobs and do so with little regard for the environment or human rights… It is a strategic geopolitical tool used by China and other nations that want to weaken America, and the freedoms we enjoy.” 

Some readers may consider all this merely a paranoid conspiracy theory, unsupported by the facts. Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth. And it is not just in climate change teaching and research at American institutions of higher learning where the influence of the CPP is evident. 

On August 20, 2020, Curtis Ellis, policy director with America First Policies, published the article, China’s Growing Influence on Campus. In it, he noted that professors and administrators have been corrupted with Chinese funding, and stated: “University campuses are a major front in the war.” Here is a sample of components of that war that Ellis lists:

• The FBI arrested Charles Lieber, the chairman of Harvard’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology department, for accepting millions of dollars from the Wuhan virology lab and then lying about it.
• A UCLA professor was convicted of taking CCP money to illegally send semiconductors with military applications to China.
• A University of Kansas professor hid the fact he was working full-time for a Chinese university while he was conducting federally-funded research here.
• One of the top researchers at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas didn’t reveal he was also being paid $14 million by a cancer institute in China.
• The University of Pennsylvania received $61 million in gifts and contracts from China between March 2017 and the end of 2019; over the previous four-year period, it took in just $19 million from Chinese donors, The Washington Free Beacon reported. 
• Between 2011 and 2017, the Chinese government, companies, and individuals gave more than $426 million to U.S. universities and colleges. According to government data, Harvard University was the top recipient, reporting over $57 million from Chinese entities – not counting the money the chair of the chemistry department took from the CCP.

Has all this money had an impact on what these universities teach and promote? You bet it has!  All their activities and curriculum are geared to not upsetting China, and the hand that’s feeding them. No one can safely come on most campuses these days and expose China’s human rights abuses in Hong Kong, Tibet, organ harvesting, slave labor, and the total elimination of religious freedom via violent reprisals for daring to believe in something other than the secular divinity of the Chinese Communist Party.

And, how about the Confucius Institutes, CCP front groups funded by Beijing, that have appeared at universities across the nation in recent years? In Newly obtained documents reveal disturbing details of Chinese influence on campus, reporter Jezzamine Wolk writes:

“Gordon Chang, author of The Great U.S.-China Tech War and frequent Chinese Communist Party critic, told Campus Reform that the contract appears to favor China.”

“I think these Confucius Institute contracts give substantial power to the Chinese side because educational institutions want Beijing’s money for language instruction, but more importantly, they want a continual flow of Chinese students, who generally pay full tuition,” he said.

“Chinese tuition money has become a substantial source of revenue for many colleges and universities,” he added.

“For years, Campus Reform has reported on these Chinese-funded centers operating across the U.S. The institutes are marketed as Chinese cultural centers, but many experts and officials have warned that they are ‘propaganda’ centers of the communist regime.”

“Confucius institutes are not cultural centers. The Heritage Foundation’s Senior Fellow at Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy and author of The Plot to Change America Mike Gonzalez told Campus Reform.”

“The Confucius Institutes are meant to curb and limit what Americans learn about the realities of China, he said.”

President Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was justified to say (as reported on May 20, 2020) that they had plans to expel Chinese students who come here to spy on behalf of China’s Communist Party.

Pompeo stated:

“We’re taking seriously the threat that students that come here who have connections deeply to the Chinese State shouldn’t be here at our schools, spying.” 

In an interview with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, Pompeo said that:

“[President Trump] is the first president…to recognize the threat that the Chinese Communist Party presented to the United States of America. They were stealing intellectual property from us; they were moving in the South China sea, and all the things that you know. And presidents before [he mentioned Bush and Obama] just turned their head and wouldn’t do it.”  

Unsurprisingly, President Biden has now revoked the Trump administration’s policy to stop China from influencing American students on campus. In addition, the Biden Department of Justice has dropped charges against 5 researchers accused of hiding Chinese military affiliations.

Also, as noted in The Epoch Times article, Chinese Regime Infiltrated US K–12 Education Through Deep Collaboration With College Board, Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms funded by China isn’t just involved with higher education; its influence is far, deep, and wide throughout all of America’s systems of education, as noted in this piece.   

In Communist China Threatens American Universities, U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-Fl), former governor of Florida, explained:

“The radical left has made its way into our universities and focused on combating perceived injustices – renaming buildings, liberalizing curriculum, and promoting safe spaces over open, honest debate – while staying silent on their connections to Communist China, a country committing genocide against its Muslim population and actively oppressing the people of Hong Kong…

“Under Article 38 of the Hong Kong National Security Law, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) claims that it has global policing authority to prosecute anyone, anywhere, who might offend the delicate sensibilities of General Secretary Xi or even mention Beijing’s long list of human rights abuses.

“In other words, if a Chinese student studying at an American university makes a comment in an online discussion that upsets General Secretary Xi, that student could be punished when they return home. In classrooms where Chinese politics are discussed, there is a fear that Xi’s surveillance state will also be present.”

Senator Scott summed up the situation well when he wrote:

“After years of turning a blind eye to Chinese spying for the sake of grant money from the CCP and full tuition from Chinese students, universities must face the fact that the CCP’s actions require a strong response from the United States – namely a decoupling between the U.S. and China in many areas of our national life: economics, finance, trade, and now education.

“It’s time for universities, many of which pride themselves on their intellectual independence and autonomy, to do the right thing and reject the CCP’s tyranny.

“Universities need to make clear that Xi must stop extending his reach into the U.S. or face admission bans and bans on student visas for Chinese students. And it’s not just universities that play a role. All of us must stand together and say that Communist China’s human rights abuses will not be tolerated.

“Together, we can stand up and fight. No American institution should cower to the Chinese Communist Party and put our nation – and their students – at risk.”

We could not say it any better!

The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Rich Kozlovich in the writing of this article. Mr. Kozlovich, the author of the blog Paradigms and Demographics, was our guest on the July 31/Aug 1 edition of “The Other Side of the Story.” He will also be our guest at 11 am and 8 pm on the Aug 7/8 edition of this show.