They’re NOT on Campus for the Culture …
Daily Caller As tensions between China and the rest of the world mount due to the coronavirus outbreak, American and foreign lawmakers are growing evermore suspicious of Beijing’s influence on college campuses.
Most recently, Sweden decided to close all of its Confucius Institutes and classrooms as the country’s relationship with China further deteriorates into mutual suspicion. China launched the Confucius Institute program in 2004 with the stated goal of promoting Chinese culture and language, but it has been criticized for being a Trojan horse for Chinese-state propaganda.
The Institute has been regarded as a promotion of Beijing’s soft power, and reports reflect a culture of self-censorship within the chapters so as to not defy the Beijing headquarters’, also known as the Hanban’s, wishes.
For example, Portland State University’s Institute chapter had sponsored lectures on Tibet’s scenery, customs, and tourism in 2011, but the director noted that the group tries “not to organize and host lectures on certain issues related to Falun Gong, dissidents and 1989 Tiananmen Square protests” because these were not topics the Confucius Institute headquarters would like to see organized, Oregon Live reported.
Glenn Anthony May, a professor of history at the University of Oregon, argued that there are three “T” words as anathema to the Chinese government: Taiwan, Tibet, and Tiananmen. Because these topics are sensitive in China, they will likely not be introduced or discussed in Confucius Institute teaching materials, according to the Jamestown Foundation.
To see MORE and the number of “Institutes” on American college campuses click here.
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Quick editorial thought from China Decoupling:
When the media report in the US anything about China, they use the phrase/word “Beijing” … they offer up this sobriquet as some sort of softened identifier for China. But, it’s not the city of Beijing, China, we’re all talking about over these last six months; it’s the Communist Party of China, a vicious oligarchical dictatorship seated in Beijing with no or little regard for human rights (the individual is subsumed to the will / direction of the state … not to the Rule of Law).
Anytime we as individuals learn about something new (e.g., a multi-syllabic SAT type word that you begin to hear used in business meetings; a potential new car purchase that you now see everywhere on the road; a new music group that suddenly everyone knows about) we develop a cognitive bias toward that thing which has now somehow become “ubiquitous.” So it is with China during this crisis. We are collectively seeing Chinese-related topics like Beijing, China, Wuhan, trade sanctions, virus, trade wars, and the latest and greatest of these is the “Confucius Institute” that China Decoupling sees daily/hourly headlines on our favorite newspapers, cable outlets, and online news platforms.
Communists/statists/fascists have long held to the notion that if you capture the young, you own them for life. Which brings us to the “Confucius Institute” which has seemingly popped (propped?) up interminably around the globe (numbering in the hundreds) and (86 currently) on American campuses (Harvard, UCLA and other elite colleges).
But the screw may have finally turned on this pretextual college entity as there are now dozens of these “institutes” closing across the country as administrations are becoming aware of the security threats, including University Chicago, Texas A&M, NC State, UofM, Western Kentucky and others.
