At Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing, Portman Questions Experts on Confucius Institutes

Statement

During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing today, U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) questioned experts about the lack of transparency and reciprocity in Confucius Institutes--which are located at more than 100 American colleges and universities and have received more than $158 million in support from the Chinese government. These Confucius Institutes are controlled, funded, and mostly staffed by the Chinese government. Last month, Portman chaired a Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) that examined these institutes and China's impact on the United States education system. Prior to the hearing, Portman unveiled a new bipartisan report that details the lack of transparency in how American colleges and universities manage Confucius Institutes. The report also details China's one-sided treatment of U.S. schools and key State Department programs in China, and documents the lack of oversight by the Departments of State and Education of U.S. Confucius Institutes.

Portman: "I appreciate your holding this hearing. It's another good opportunity for us to take a broader view here. We talked about military soft power, and trade tools. There is so much to do with regard to China. I will, if it's okay, ask a question in regard to Confucius Institutes and the chairman is right. We had an eight month investigation and found some disturbing things about lack of reciprocity and lack of transparency that I want to touch on.

"Thanks to both of you, and Jim for your service on the Commission over the years. Just quickly on the trade issues and WTO: A lot of good points have been made this morning by Senator Romney, Senator Cardin and others. China has wanted to get out of non-market status for a long time, as you know. We have been the ones to push back. We have to continue to push back. They are a non-market economy, they still, unfortunately under this new administration in China, they have even more focus on their state-owned enterprises. We also have to deal with this issue of self certifying on developing status because of this growing economy that they have, they're taking advantage of what truly developing countries are able to use in the WTO system.

"So there are things that can be done, as you say, within the system. A nullification would require us to get the EU and Japan strongly onboard. They have reason to do that and I agree with you that we need to be more multilateral in how we approach it. But I will say, this administration has done the right thing, in my view, with regard to 301 case. As tough as it is for some of my Ohio farmers and manufacturers, and others. And I hope, we all have to hope, that by the next few weeks we'll have some good news coming out of those negotiations. If so, we will for the first time have dealt with some of the structural issues.

"You're right, we need to use our own tools more. We have a 269 percent tariff in place on rolled steel from China right now as an example because we did pass legislation here three years ago we're now using much more aggressively to go after dumping and subsidization, but it's way broader than that. And intellectual property is obviously the focus of the 301.

"On the Confucius Institutes, just quickly. What we found out was $158 million has gone from the Chinese government into these Confucius Institutes over the last half dozen years and it's amazing to me that we don't hear more from the academy about this because you've got about a 100 colleges and universities that have these Confucius Institutes now and they come with strings attached. Those strings can compromise academic freedom. I don't know if you've looked into this much, but any thoughts you have on that, Jim, would be appreciated. The Chinese government vets and approves all the teachers, the events themselves, the research proposals, the speakers at Confucius Institutes. Chinese teachers also sign contracts with the Chinese government saying they will follow Chinese law and conscientiously safeguard China's national interest. Any thoughts on Confucius Institutes?"

James M. Talent, Commissioner of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission: "Yes, and the influence goes even beyond Confucius Institutes because the influence of the money, the participation, it's causing scholars in the field, in some cases, to self-censor and be very careful about what they say because they won't have access to grant, they won't be able to travel to China as they need to. It's a real problem. I would encourage you to even broaden the approach and look at the work of the United Front Work Department, which is in charge of the Confucius Institutes. It's, I think, one of the oldest organizations, created by the Chinese Communist party. They've hired tens of thousands of new cadres or employees under Xi Xiang Ping. This whole concept of sharp power, you know we're used to soft power, smart power, hard power. Sharp power is gray war tactics that they use extremely effectively to disrupt, confuse the narrative in other countries and they're doing it through higher ed. I do think that we should not view the higher academy as the enemy in this. I mean they didn't know what was going on any more than other people did, but yes there's a broader narrative and I think it's important that the committee become aware of the facts and again, this is an area where we have to develop tools for countering effectively."

Portman: "One of the tools, Dr. Mastro I want to hear from you, that we've tried to develop is to have our own ability to have a presence in Chinese universities, colleges, educational system. We have failed in that because we have been blocked in doing that. That's the reciprocity concern, that while you have a growth of Confucius Institutes, by the way there are also about a thousand K-12 institutions that have Confucius Institutes, primarily focused on Chinese language as I understand it. We focus more on the colleges and universities but it also is K-12. We can't do that in China, in fact we're pulling back. As of this summer we will have no U.S. State Department presence in terms of our own American values and history being taught in China. Dr. Mastro?

Dr. Oriana Mastro, Assistant Professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University: "So, I think these Confucius Institutes, and in general the department that was previously mentioned, is extremely entrepreneurial in that China has combined covert operations with public diplomacy, which is something that the United States doesn't do. This is why they have been able to have such an influence on, I think, academic discussion to a degree and also instruction because the main goal of this funding is to shape the conversation about China to ensure that people aren't saying things about China in the United States, and other countries. This is a big issue about political interference that goes against what the party wants people to say. I don't think, bottom line, that it's bad to take any money from the PRC. To tell universities that there might be a big funder that comes from China and so they shouldn't engage with them, that might not be the right approach but there needs to be serious constraints in the amount of influence that China can have so it doesn't restrict academic freedom. For example, the universities should be able to choose their own instructors for these institutes. If they then, like with other donors, want to say, "And we'd like to thank the People's Republic of China for their donation for this,' that's fine, but this level of control and the lack of reciprocity is a real issue. I, myself, have spent time in Beijing studying and the amount of which the foreigners have to be kept separately -- at that time, I can't confirm now -- but at that time it was illegal for me to enter a dormitory to engage with Chinese students so I think the United States needs to demand more of this reciprocity."

Portman: "And Chinese monitors at all of those institutions. My time is expired and I apologize. On the transparency issue, just so you know, it's not so much the fact that these schools are accepting the funding, it's that they're not reporting it, and the fact that we think about 70 percent of the schools are out of compliance with our own U.S. Department of Education rules on that. So at a minimum, we should have reciprocity and transparency so people know what's going on."

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