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CI partnerships also became embroiled in a Department of Education (DOE) initiative to enforce a foreign gift reporting requirement. After the 2019 Senate study found nearly 70 percent of universities that received more than $250,000 from Hanban failed to properly file, the drive focused on China, even though other countries were larger donors to U.S. higher education.The DOE report on the initiative’s results referenced CIs in connection with concerns that “foreign money buys influence or control over teaching and research.” Widespread non-compliance with the reporting requirement, more a matter of confusion, rather than secrecy, prompted a new DOE reporting portal in June 2020.
As tensions between the U.S. and China grew, federal policymakers frequently conflated CI-related academic freedom concerns with a broader set of issues including: Chinese efforts to steal technology, intellectual property and research data; disruptive activities by some campus-based Chinese student associations and China’s consulates; Chinese talent recruitment plans; and other suspect influence efforts. Passed in August 2018, the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) prohibited the Pentagon from financing Chinese language programs at universities that host a CI, absent Department of Defense waivers, which have not been granted. Despite a bipartisan congressional finding announced in February 2019 of “no evidence that these institutes are a center for Chinese espionage efforts or any other illegal activity,” the 2021 NDAA broadens the restriction to funding for any program at universities that host CIs.
CI Reorganization
China’s MOE reorganized the CI project in June 2020, implementing a CCP-approved reform plan to develop CIs as a “significant force” for cultural and educational exchange with other countries. MOE replaced Hanban with a new agency to manage overseas language and culture exchanges, the Center for Language Education and Cooperation (CLEC). CLEC will continue to help provide Mandarin teachers and requested teaching materials. However, the Chinese International Education Foundation (CIEF), a nominally independent organization registered with the Civil Affairs Ministry, supervised by MOE, and initiated by 27 Chinese universities, companies and social organizations, will manage the CI brand and program. CIEF is now responsible, working together with Chinese partner universities, for contractual and funding arrangements, not Hanban or MOE.
This rebranding is unlikely to relieve suspicions about the role of CIs in China’s “soft power” projection. Chinese universities that participate in CIEF and serve as CI partners are mostly state-funded and, like everything in China, under CCP leadership. Moreover, as a recent study commissioned by China’s MOE observed, in a charged U.S. political atmosphere, the “Confucius Institute” brand is now associated with Chinese political interference. Nonetheless, at least one U.S. university, Georgia’s Wesleyan College, signed on with CIEF for the duration of its current CI agreement, although others in the U.S. and Europe are proceeding with announced closures. Elsewhere, CIs continued to open in Chile, South Africa, Kenya and Greece, with plans to establish them in Dominica, Maldives, Chad and Central Africa.
Confusion over CIUS
In August 2020, the Department of State designated the Confucius Institute U.S. Center (CIUS) as a “foreign mission,” effectively controlled by the Chinese government that funds it. Established in Washington, D.C. in 2012 to promote Chinese language teaching and learning in the U.S., CIUS connects school districts interested in developing a Chinese language curriculum to appropriate CI and other resources, and provides professional development opportunities to Confucius Classroom teachers. While acknowledging that CIUS does not undertake diplomatic activities and none of its employees are government officials, the department characterized it as the “de facto headquarters of the Confucius Institute network” and “an entity advancing Beijing’s global propaganda and malign influence campaign on U.S. campuses and K through 12 classrooms.” Citing its opacity and state-directed nature as the “driving reasons behind this designation,” the State Department also directed CIUS to provide details on funding and curriculum materials it supplied to CIs and K-12 Confucius Classrooms and the names of all PRC citizens CIUS had referred or assigned to them.
In its response to the department, CIUS explained that, although it seeks to foster awareness of CI programs, it does not fund, supply, staff, supervise or serve as a headquarters for CIs in the U.S. As a registered nonprofit corporation, its financials and related organizational details are publicly available through annual IRS Form 990s. Moreover, after the Hanban reorganization in June 2020, CIUS is no longer directly supported by China’s MOE, nor has it received any funding from CLEC or CIEF and must look to fundraising from Chinese and U.S. universities and other sources.
Given this reorganization and CIUS’s role, the State Department might revisit its foreign mission designation. Regardless, CIUS could usefully serve as a visa sponsor, as do some states and nonprofits like the Cordell Hull Foundation, for U.S.-based CIs. Visa issues for visiting teachers have prompted suspensions and contributed to cancellation of some CI programs. As a centralized visa sponsor, CIUS could help ensure compliance with U.S. law and serve as an information clearinghouse on Chinese CI personnel in the U.S., one of the benefits the department had hoped to obtain from the CIUS foreign mission designation.
Filling the Chinese language deficit
A State Department report on the China challenge calls for the U.S. to train a new generation of public servants and policy thinkers to attain fluency in Chinese and acquire extensive knowledge of China’s culture and history. Yet, interest among U.S. students has been declining since peaking around 2011, as American views of China more generally have plunged to the lowest level since polling began. Multiple factors, including dimmer China-related job prospects, as well as pollution and academic and lifestyle concerns relating to study within the PRC, explain this trend. Nonetheless, official U.S. pressure to close CIs and their K-12 programs, including by withholding federal funds for universities that host CIs, is further exacerbating a national “language deficit” precipitated in part by decreased U.S. government higher education and foreign language funding over the years. In addition, some universities still have difficulty finding qualified Mandarin teachers, especially at the K-12 level, to satisfy remaining demand.
Meanwhile, Chinese students are required to learn English from elementary school and as a requirement to gain admission to, and in many cases graduate from, college, with an estimated 400 million Chinese—including front-line military troops—now learning English.
To be sure, some private U.S. NGOs offer Mandarin learning, including an Asia Society program with 35,000 students studying Chinese in 100 K-12 schools around the country that are linked with sister schools in China. U.S.-based China and Taiwan-oriented groups also offer various Chinese education, culture and teacher training courses, as well as teaching of Chinese dialects and traditional Chinese characters still used in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Nonetheless, federal funding is needed to adequately meet the Mandarin language challenge and lessen cash-strapped universities’ dependence on Chinese funding and other teaching support. The U.S. government launched an initiative with Taiwan in December 2020 to expand existing Mandarin language opportunities in the U.S. and help fill a gap created by CI closings. It should also increase Mandarin language and China studies funding under other critical language programs, and re-authorize the Fulbright program with China, including language awards, that were terminated in July 2020.
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