China has provided over $158 million to U.S. schools for Confucius Institutes to...
WASHINGTON - China has provided over $158 million to U.S. schools for Confucius Institutes to promote Chinese culture, U.S. Senate investigators said on Wednesday, releasing a report saying the centers have acted as tightly controlled propaganda arms for Beijing and should be changed - or shut down.
But the centers have been criticized, particularly in the United States, for promoting the views of the Chinese Communist party, assertions denied by both the institutes and the government. China’s government said on Feb. 24 that it plans to “optimize” the spread of the institutes and they will remain a key part of government policy.
Earlier on Wednesday, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told a House of Representatives committee that the United States will need to maintain the threat of imposing tariffs on Chinese goods for years even if a deal is struck to end the current dispute.The Senate investigators did not find evidence that staff at the Confucius Institutes were involved in espionage or other activity that would need reporting to law enforcement.
“Absent full transparency regarding how Confucius Institutes operate and full reciprocity for U.S. cultural outreach efforts on U.S. campuses in China, Confucius Institutes should not continue in the United States,” Senator Rob Portman, the subcommittee’s Republican chairman, said in a statement. He said the institutes were open and transparent and contributed to advancing people-to-people exchanges between the two countries.
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