Several U.S. schools have hosted the Confucius Institute, a CCP-sponsored language and culture program.
The House of Representatives on May 7 passed a bill that would ban the Department of Homeland Security from providing grants to colleges and universities that partner with the entities of China’s ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
By a vote of 266–153, the chamber passed HR 881, “DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Entities of Concern.” Every Republican present voted for the bipartisan legislation, along with 55 Democrats.
Confucius Institutes are Beijing-backed Chinese language centers that run in universities in the United States and other countries. Critics warn that the programs serve as a vehicle to spread the CCP’s propaganda and censorship on American college campuses.
U.S. schools that host Confucius Institutes are already prohibited from receiving Department of Defense funding.
“The [CCP] exploited the open and collaborative nature of American academia to conduct widespread industrial military espionage inside the United States,” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) said during the House Rules Committee’s discussion of the bill on May 5.
The bill also prohibits colleges and universities from contracting with China’s Thousand Talents program, or any entity connected to that nation’s military, police, or intelligence agencies, or its Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
“The institute of higher education may regain eligibility for these funds upon termination of the relationship,” the resolution reads.
The University of Michigan, the University of California-Berkeley, and the Georgia Institute of Technology recently severed their ties and hosting of CCP-linked entities.
This proposal has been debated for years. The House passed a version of it last year, but Democrats and then-President Joe Biden said that the measure was overly broad and should not disqualify any schools from receiving federal disaster aid, which Homeland Security administers.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who co-wrote the bill, said the new version of the bill includes providing technical assistance to help schools comply with the regulations, and a waiver where higher education institutions could participate with Chinese entities in limited circumstances if cooperation “is of national interest.”
