Concerns Over Nations Funding University Campus Institutes in the United States Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to talk a few minutes about the good people of China, about Confucius Institutes, and the Chinese Communist Party.

I meant what I said when I referred to ``the good people of China.'' You visited China, Mr. President. The people of China are wonderful people. They are engaging. They are smart. They have a great sense of humor. They have built an extraordinary economy.

I wish I could say the same about their authoritarian government, but I can't. The Communist Party of China is trying to not only swallow China, it is trying to swallow the world.

We helped the Communist Party of China be admitted into the World Trade Organization. We were told that if we did, they would embrace free enterprise. We were told that the Communist Party of China would be a valuable participant in a stable world order. None of that has come to be the case.

We know what the Communist Party of China has done to Hong Kong. We know what the Communist Party of China has done to the Uighurs. We know what the Communist Party of China has done to the wonderful, wonderful people of Tibet. But I did want to make that distinction between the authoritarian government of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people.

The Communist Party of China, being as aggressive as it is, has for a number of years reached out to our colleges and universities to establish what the Communist Party of China calls ``Confucius Institutes.'' And this was the pitch made by the government of China to our universities: ``We will give you bucket loads of money if you''-- our American universities--``will allow us to establish Confucius Institutes where we can explain our culture to the young people of America, where we can have a free exchange of ideas, and where we can help young Americans learn the Chinese language if they would like.''

That sounds great. You know, I will take a dozen of those. But the Communist Party of China being the Communist Party of China, that is not how our Confucius Institutes have worked out.

These institutes, run by the authoritarian Government of China, will not allow the free exchange of ideas. They will not allow anyone to talk about the Uighurs or the people of Tibet or Hong Kong or what happened at Tiananmen Square. They basically--``they'' meaning the Communist Party of China--have used these Confucius Institutes as propaganda arms of their government.

Many of our universities have done the right thing. They have said: No, we stand for the free exchange of ideas, and if you are going to come on our campus and tell our people that there are things they can't talk about, then, respectfully, you need--you, the Confucius Institutes--to leave our campus.

But some of the universities haven't done the right thing. I am not suggesting that--I am not cynical enough to suggest that it is all about the money, but you can't ignore the fact that I think the Communist Party of China has given our universities, through the years--don't hold me to this figure exactly--but about $150 million to set up these Confucius Institutes. Universities, you know, they build that money into their budget, so they are reluctant to see the Confucius Institutes leave--not all of our universities but some of them. I recognize the economic reality.

I have a bill that would say to--we wouldn't get rid of Confucius Institutes. It will just tell our universities: You have to properly manage them. You can't allow the Confucius Institutes to stay on your campus if the Confucius Institutes will not allow for the free exchange of ideas.

If kids--I shouldn't call them kids. If young people in our universities want to talk about Tibet, they get to talk about Tibet. And the bill would say that the universities have to take back control of these Confucius Institutes from the Communist Party of China; otherwise, they are not going to be eligible for Federal funds.

My bill, once again, doesn't kick anybody off campus. It just says you have to--you, the Communist Party of China, have to do what you originally told us you were going to do.

My bill has--our bill, because the Senate passed it twice. Twice this bill has passed the U.S. Senate, the last time with bipartisan support. We put the bill on the NDAA, and, Mr. President, you know how conference committees work with the NDAA. Sometimes it is a ferret fire drill, and there is a lot of confusion, and somehow the Confucius Institute bill got watered down to do nothing in the conference negotiations on the NDAA. I am not criticizing anybody, but it happened.

So I am going to ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass the Confucius Institute Act for a third time, and I hope, in our new Congress, we can keep teeth in it in working with our colleagues, not only in the Senate but in the House.

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