[lg policy] House Proposal Targets Confucius Institutes as Foreign Agents

Fri Mar 16 14:32:34 UTC 2018

 House Proposal Targets Confucius Institutes as Foreign Agents The draft
bill is the first legislative attempt to push back against the Chinese
state-run programs.
By Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian
<http://foreignpolicy.com/author/bethany-allen-ebrahimian/> | March 14,
2018, 3:19 PM
[image: Chinese consular staff wave national flags in front of a
demonstration by supporters of the Falungong spiritual movement outside the
venue where China's Vice President Xi Jinping was opening Australia's first
Chinese Medicine Confucius Institute, at the RMIT University in Melbourne
on June 20, 2010. (William West/AFP/Getty Images)]
<https://foreignpolicymag.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/gettyimages-102236311.jpg?w=1781&h=1024&crop=0,0,245,0>
Chinese consular staff wave national flags in front of a demonstration by
supporters of the Falungong spiritual movement outside the venue where
China's Vice President Xi Jinping was opening Australia's first Chinese
Medicine Confucius Institute, at the RMIT University in Melbourne on June
20, 2010. (William West/AFP/Getty Images)

A new draft proposal in the House of Representatives seeks to require
China’s cultural outposts in the United States, the Confucius Institutes,
to register as foreign agents.

The effort, spearheaded by U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), targets any
foreign funding at U.S. universities that aims to promote the agenda of a
foreign government.
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“The bottom line is transparency,” Wilson tells Foreign Policy in an
interview.

The draft bill does not single out Confucius Institutes by name, but
according to Wilson it will apply to the Chinese government-run programs,
which offer language and culture classes on more than 100 American college
and university campuses. The institutes have come under increasing scrutiny
<https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/16/how-china-infiltrated-us-classrooms-216327>
in recent months due to their sometimes heavy-handed attempts to censor
discussion of topics that the Chinese Communist Party deems off-limits,
leading to growing concerns about academic freedom.

Wilson’s initiative would clarify language in the Foreign Agents
Registration Act (FARA), a Nazi-era law intended to combat foreign
propaganda. FARA requires organizations and individuals engaged in lobbying
or public discourse on behalf of a foreign government to register with the
Department of Justice, and to disclose their funding and the scope of their
activities. FARA does not prohibit such funding or activities but rather
seeks to provide transparency about the true source of the messaging.

As currently written, FARA includes an exemption for “bona fide” academic
and scholastic pursuits, but what is meant by “bona fide” is not clearly
spelled out. The draft proposal would redefine what is meant by a bona fide
academic pursuit to exclude any foreign-funded endeavor that promotes the
agenda of a foreign government. If enacted, the legislation would, in turn,
trigger mandatory registration for the institutes, though it would not
interfere with their activities.

“The goal is transparency by the foreign agents themselves and also by the
universities,” Wilson says. “The American people need to know that they are
being provided propaganda.”

Wilson joins a growing number of lawmakers to express concerns about the
Chinese state-funded programs. In February, Republican Florida Sen. Marco
Rubio called on his state’s schools to close their Confucius Institutes,
citing
<https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/02/06/more-scrutiny-confucius-institutes-one-close>
“China’s aggressive campaign to ‘infiltrate’ American classrooms, stifle
free inquiry, and subvert free expression both at home and abroad.” And
last week, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, a Democrat from Massachusetts, sent
<https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/03/09/moulton-wants-local-colleges-cut-ties-with-chinese-institute/2l5Y9Oa1WgG3SuapqGCaNP/story.html>
a letter to 40 colleges and universities in his state, urging them to close
their Confucius Institutes or refrain from opening them in the first place.

The Chinese Communist Party has openly said that Confucius Institutes are
used for propaganda. Former top party official Li Changchun has referred
<https://www.economist.com/node/14678507> to the institutes as “an
important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up.”

“Confucius Institutes in the U.S. have been fully complying [with] the
university policies and requirement as open and transparent initiatives,”
said Gao Qing, executive director of the Confucius Institute U.S. Center in
Washington. “It is wise to further comprehend Confucius Institutes’
operations and impact through people who [are involved with] and
participate in the programs, not through speculations. The conclusion
should not be drawn upon unfounded allegations.”

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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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