While our trade war with China has recently inspired a deluge of headlines outlining the Chinese Communist Party’s anti-competitive trade and economic policies, another perverse tactic of theirs has gone relatively unnoticed in the published annals of American media. Last week, the U.S. Senate published a damning report on attempts by China to infiltrate American institutions of education through the innocuously titled Confucius Institute.
The report describes, with great alarm, the extent this government-sponsored organization goes to promote misguided perspectives on China’s geopolitical systems on American high school and college campuses.
Spending over $158 million on these centers since 2004, the report points out that China is using this silent arm of state to set the agenda on China discourse at schools in the U.S., vetoing speakers and topics that do not align with the goals of the Chinese government, thus chilling debate on issues of paramount importance as we reflect on China’s increasingly hostile role in the world.
In a particularly ironic twist, the Chinese government has prevented the U.S. government from setting up American cultural centers in China.
Of note to Maine is the University of Southern Maine’s chapter of the Confucius Institute, which is not only active under the leadership of professor Joseph McDonnell, but recently opened a new facility to house this organization on its Portland campus.
It is incumbent upon USM leadership, notably President Glenn Cummings, and others in the University of Maine System to determine if they wish to be affiliated with an organization that not only strikes at the worthy promise of academic freedom inherent in our public universities, but also threatens to undermine the greater experiment in freedom of speech that forms the foundation of our country.
Eamonn Dundon
Portland
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