Fears of Chinese infiltration on US campuses reveal the closing of the American mind

Simplistic judgment is a common malady from which academics and intellectuals, alas, seem no more immune than politicians. In Texas, a “red scare” has whipped up like a prairie storm: a pair of congressmen, expressing unctuous concern, are pressuring local universities to cut formal educational links with China, in particular its Confucius Institutes. They have told state officials of worries about “communist government influence on your campus”.

Even so, Texas A&M University wilted in the hot-air windstorm, and it was not the first. It followed opt-outs at the University of Chicago and Pennsylvania State University. Chancellor John Sharp explained why he followed the recommendation of Republican Congressmen Michael McCaul and Democrat Henry Cuellar this way: “They have access to classified information we do not have. We are terminating the contract [with China] as they suggested.” Other universities, in and out of Texas, are reviewing their institutes.

Back in 2004, the University of Maryland took in the first Confucius Institute; their numbers have grown dramatically in the United States since then. They also train Chinese-language teachers and underwrite scholarly publications. As, ultimately, they are under China’s Ministry of Education, they can be somewhat likened to libraries operated overseas by the US Information Agency in their fealty to the home government. The paranoiac pair of Texas congressmen believe the effort is confusing students with pro-Chinese communist notions and other evil, subversive ideas.