US curbs on China’s Confucius Institutes are welcome, but they’re not the real target

Name: US education says no to Chinese resources
Uploaded: 2020-08-17T20:30:12.000Z
Duration: 4 min 12 s
Description: US education says no to Chinese resources

The Trump administration should drop the far-fetched narrative that Beijing is foisting Communist Party propaganda on unsuspecting Americans learning Mandarin, and focus on the real threats China’s authoritarian government poses

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A student takes a traditional Chinese painting class at the Confucius Institute at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Photo: AP

Robert Delaney

Published: 4:30am, 18 Aug 2020Updated: 5:36am, 18 Aug 2020

Washington has finally cornered China with its move against Confucius Institutes in the US (CIUS) last week.

United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s order that the US headquarters of Chinese government-funded Confucius Institutes must register as a foreign mission makes sense, but the distorted narrative that is being spun around the issue risks undermining the overall effort to counter Beijing.

An investigation by the US Congress’ own Government Accountability Office last year turned up nothing to suggest that Confucius Institute instructors are forcing Chinese Communist Party propaganda down the throats of Americans looking to learn Mandarin.

If the CIUS has been guilty of anything, it is the opacity of some of the contracts it has signed with US universities that host its programmes and – according to a 2017 report by the conservative-leaning National Association of Scholars, an organisation that would naturally seek to ferret out any malfeasance within the organisation – a reluctance to engage in topics deemed sensitive to Beijing.

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US education says no to Chinese resources

With the glare of publicity over the past few years renewed by last week’s State Department order, the organisation couldn’t hope to undermine the US with pro-Beijing propaganda even if it wanted to.