Chinese Involvement in Higher Education in America

Floor Speech

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Mr. BEAN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to stand before you and lead this Special Order tonight.

I have a message. That message is our Nation's higher education system is being purchased and manipulated by the Chinese Communist Party.

America needs a wake-up call. I thought that wake-up call would come in the form of a Chinese spy balloon. If it was the Chinese spy balloon sent to wake us up, it seems that America has hit the snooze button.

A few weeks ago, several members of the Education and the Workforce Committee were briefed on the scheme, the manipulation of the Chinese Communist Party on higher education in the USA, and we were all shocked. It was a shocking report, and we wanted to share the truth of how China is infiltrating and taking control over higher education in the United States.

Since 2013, $12 billion has poured into our higher education system from foreign sources. China is by far the largest of foreign donations since that time.

Between 2013 and 2020, U.S. universities accepted nearly a billion dollars from Chinese donations. The tuition paid by Chinese students is estimated to be over $12 billion per year. It is time we look at this influence and take it seriously.

It started over 20 years ago, Mr. Speaker, that China has been playing this game of infiltration, manipulation, and trying to purchase influence. It started with this game they play that they call the Confucius Institutes. These centers teach Chinese languages and culture but avoid discussing China's widespread human rights abuses and present Taiwan as undisputed Chinese territory.

They are simply a propaganda machine funded and directed by the Chinese Government, and we haven't even gotten started on what they are stealing from us, Mr. Speaker.

Tonight, members of the Education and the Workforce Committee and other invited Members are going to tell the story of just how far China has been infiltrating our university system. You are going to hear how top colleges and universities have not fully reported donations from foreign sources, including that of the Chinese Government.

You are going to hear the administration is not enforcing existing laws requiring full reporting of these foreign sources.

Universities, in their desire to seek donations from the public, sometimes unexpectedly or overtly take money from foreign sources and, in this case, many times from the Chinese Government.

You are going to hear also how the United States is losing the technology edge that we have long enjoyed for many years in computing, science, and engineering, all kinds of energy sources where we were the dominant player, but now because of theft and China's influence in our university system, those edges in technology are now leaning China's way. You are going to hear about that.

So, Mr. Speaker, as we begin tonight, I just want to say that it is long overdue that we hear the truth and we are fully aware how bad China is.

I would first yield a few minutes to the chair of Education and the Workforce Committee, the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx).

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Mr. BEAN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Kiley).

Mr. Speaker, for those just tuning in, China is manipulating and trying to peddle influence among our higher universities, and Members are standing up and saying enough.

A few weeks ago, and to great amazement, we saw this Chinese spy balloon that cruised over our most sensitive sites in our country.

We were told we were blocking it from transmitting any data at the time, but now we have found that that spy balloon was transmitting pictures and information of our most sensitive military and nuclear sites in real time.

Who knows? I don't know if we will ever find out the true damage of that espionage break. Why on earth it wasn't shot down, I don't know. But what about the things we can't see? We can't see what China is doing to buy influence and to infiltrate our university systems.

Mr. Speaker, somebody that is going to tell us his angle on it is a gentleman who was part of a delegation that just last week went to Taiwan, went on an Asia tour to meet with leaders about just exactly what is going on over there.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Moran).

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Mr. BEAN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, our Nation's higher education system is being purchased and manipulated by the Chinese Communist Party. You have heard about it and we keep hearing about it. China can't keep up with our Nation's unrelenting free market system that is constantly innovating, so the only way they see to catch up with us is to cheat and steal our intellectual property and infiltrate our university systems and steal our discoveries. It has got to end.

Let's hear more about what China is doing to manipulate our university systems.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Owens), the distinguished chair of the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development.

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Mr. BEAN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, our Nation's higher education system is being purchased and manipulated by the Chinese Communist Party. You have heard from various Members giving you details of how it is done, but we need somebody who can give us the big picture.

We need somebody who can give us big ideas. We need somebody who can give us big solutions. There is only one guy that can do that, Mr. Speaker.

I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs).

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Mr. BEAN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, our Nation's higher education system is being purchased and manipulated by the Chinese Communist Party. Tonight, you have heard from various members of a fantastic committee and other Members, led by Dr. Virginia Foxx, shining the light on just how bad it is, just how blind an eye that we have turned to it for the last 20 years.

We now realize through donations and purchases and influence in sending their kids here to school, as well as something called the Confucius Institutes, that it is all for the propaganda and a way for China to infiltrate and manipulate our higher education system.

Mr. Speaker, where do we go from here? We have work to do, including alerting America, which is what we are doing tonight, but also alerting our higher ed, our leadership in our universities and colleges, to let them be wary of any foreign donation coming into their institutions, particularly anything coming from China should be a red flag.

The Department of Education should immediately enforce existing laws. Should we make a new law? How about enforcing the laws that are already on the books requiring these institutions, some of the biggest names in higher ed, to report foreign gifts and grants?

The Biden administration should ban Confucius Institutes and all collaborations between U.S. institutions and Chinese entities affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of State Security immediately.

Congress should also consider withholding State and Federal funds from colleges and universities that resist efforts to eliminate CCP influence operations.

Lastly, the State Department--Mr. Biggs said it so well. The State Department must review applications from adversarial countries, including the CCP, the background and research plan of every applicant for a student visa. We need to say no. We need to say no to the CCP coming in, getting our information, and then going back home.

We have lots to do, but it starts with alerting the American people. We have done that tonight. The rest of the work is up to this Congress. It is up to the administration to enforce our laws and to hold these universities and China accountable for exactly what they are doing, which is manipulating and using undue influence in our higher education system. It stops now and going forward.

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