New firewall prevents Pentagon cooperation with Confucius Institutes on American campuses
The new provision, tucked in the US defence bill, comes after Arizona State University bragged about mixing Pentagon-funded Mandarin programmes and its Chinese-funded Confucius Institute
Concern about Chinese influence operations on American campuses hit a new high this year after officials at Arizona State University bragged about mixing the school’s Pentagon-funded Chinese language programmes and its Chinese Communist Party-funded Confucius Institute.
Now, all US institutions may have to choose between Washington or Beijing paying for its students to learn Chinese.
Tucked inside the US$716 billion John McCain 2019 National Defence Authorisation Act that US President Donald Trump signed Monday is a provision barring any US university from using Pentagon resources for any programme involving Confucius Institutes, Chinese government-funded language schools embedded inside US colleges.
In the future, any universities that have Pentagon-funded and Chinese government-funded Chinese language programmes will have to secure a Pentagon waiver if they want to keep both.
