GOP Senators Are Working To Stop Communist China’s ‘Attempts To Infiltrate American Colleges’
On Thursday, Republican Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Bill Hagerty and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, and Tim Scott of South Carolina proposed legislation to defend American universities against foreign influences, particularly the Chinese Communist Party.
“The Chinese Communist Party has made consistent attempts to infiltrate American colleges and universities. Our bill will close donation loopholes, barring the CCP and other foreign agents from donating millions, or even billions, to levy influence and steal American intellectual property,” Cotton said in a news release.
The CCP has made consistent attempts to infiltrate American colleges and universities. Our bill will close donation loopholes, barring the CCP and other foreign agents from donating millions to levy influence and steal American intellectual property.https://t.co/Wz2cbKKr6y
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) June 17, 2021
“As a strategic adversary seeking to overtake the United States, the Chinese Communist Party is going to extraordinary lengths to exert malign influence over America’s free and open society, including our higher education system,” Hagerty stated.
“By increasing transparency, closing loopholes, and imposing new civil penalties in U.S. law, this important legislation seeks to prevent the CCP and its intermediaries from hiding in the shadows to buy control and influence within our higher education, to manipulate what American students are taught about China, and to steal intellectual property from our nation’s researchers,” he added.
China’s use of money to influence American higher education was also mentioned by Blackburn.
“Communist China has infiltrated American colleges and universities. It is imperative we cut off Beijing’s access to funnel money in exchange for influence in higher education,” she said.
“Our children’s education should not be available for purchase by the CCP,” Blackburn added.
“Attempts by the Chinese Communist Party and other bad actors to infiltrate the American education system is a blatant example of foreign competitors trying to maintain and expand their global power to our detriment,” Scott said, citing the CCP as an example of foreign competition.
Cotton released a report in February titled “Beat China: Targeted Decoupling and the Economic Long War” to analyze the economic risk China presents to the United States.
“China started its struggle for mastery against the United States decades ago, but only recently has America awoken to the challenge,” Cotton wrote in the report.
According to a press statement released on Thursday, the Department of Education launched an online reporting system in June and the system had already, “recorded $3.8 billion in foreign gifts and contracts.”
The proposed law would tighten restrictions and increase transparency in order to minimize outside government influence.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected a bill last year that aimed to shield American colleges from the Confucius Institute’s influence.
According to a December article by The National Pulse, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy scolded Democrats for failing to confront the Chinese government’s warnings.
“The changes to the Confucius Institute language in NDAA are another example of the Democrats’ China problem. Americans know a whole-of-society approach is needed to combat the Chinese Communist Party’s attacks on our democratic freedoms. We must take a comprehensive approach, especially drawing from the China Task Force’s recommendations, so that our solutions are not constrained in scope in this way,” he said.
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