Another great action

[chuck_curtis]

The Department of Defense has been barred from funding Chinese Communist Party-backed Confucius Institutes located at universities across the United States.

When President Donald Trump on Aug. 13 signed the defense budget bill for the next fiscal year, the measure included a provision added by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that bars the Pentagon from using any funds on Chinese-language programs offered by Confucius Institutes.

“Sen. Cruz is very concerned about China’s ongoing efforts to infiltrate American higher education, and worked to secure an amendment to the NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] that prohibits universities from using Pentagon money for Confucius Institutes, which Communist China uses as propaganda arms on American campuses,” a spokesman for Cruz’s office said in an email to The Epoch Times.

The provision further prohibits funding for Chinese-language programs at universities that even host a Confucius Institute. These programs, though not directly affiliated with the institute, may be influenced by it.

The endorsement of the provision was the first action taken to address the issue both for Congress and for the White House, after years of warnings about the institutes being an extension of the Chinese Communist Party’s soft power and intelligence-gathering operations.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-bars-pentagon-from-funding-china-backed-confucius-institutes_2625992.html

[wvit1001]

The Dept of Defense was funding Chinese language studies?   Why and where were they funding this in the first place?

[wvit1001]

He's referring to Arizona State, which for two years had a Pentagon grant to build a pipeline to its collegiate-level Language Flagship Program (funded by the Pentagon) from its K-12 Chinese language programs, which are heavily supported by its Confucius Institute. The Flagship program is prestigious, and its graduates often go on to be top national security officials covering China.

The actual overlap was limited, and Arizona State University had informed the Pentagon about the cooperation in documents the school provided me. The cooperation might not have raised eyebrows except that top ASU officials claimed it to be deeper and more significant than it actually was. In an April panel at the National Press Club, former Arizona congressman Matt Salmon, now the university's vice president for government affairs, claimed (incorrectly) that the Pentagon was funding ASU's Confucius Institute and therefore did not see it as a national security concern.

"The Department of Defense has invested in Arizona's Confucius program because they are looking for this kind of a pipeline to find people who speak Mandarin and are able to do so in their field of study," Salmon said. "I think that shows they are not concerned about it being a threat to national security."

Salmon also said those who are concerned about the institutes were engaged in "McCarthyism," adding that, "if it does pose a security threat, then the Department of Defense has made a big mistake by funding our program."

The new law could have the unintended (or perhaps intended) consequence of forcing universities to choose between U.S. government or Chinese government money. They should not have to make that choice in the first place; the United States should be paying for American students to learn Chinese, not the Chinese Communist Party's influence operations arm.

At the very least, a national discussion is needed to establish best practices and minimize risk. Confucius Institutes must not become one more way Beijing uses money to get American institutions to support the Communist Party's agenda.


https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/08/16/china-pays-americans-learn-chinese-security-concern

[chuck_curtis]

It's the little things, like preventing the farking with America's ideals that are great.  Like calling out the fascist media.  These are great things.