[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 63 (Monday, April 17, 2023)] [House] [Pages H1751-H1755] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Date: 2023-04-17
Chamber: HOUSE
Mr. MORAN: I thank my friend and colleague, Mr. Bean of Florida, for gathering us here this evening to raise awareness of the rising influence of foreign adversaries in our institutions of higher education, namely China and the Chinese Communist Party. As he mentioned, I have just returned from a Foreign Affairs congressional delegation trip to the Indo-Pacific region where we met with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to talk about the aggression of China not just from a military standpoint, but from a diplomatic and an economic standpoint. Here tonight, we are talking about the aggression of China to take over America through its educational institutions. Universities across the Nation are being exploited by the Chinese Communist Party and other foreign adversaries, with the CCP leading efforts to infiltrate college campuses to steal our intellectual property, spread propaganda, and collect information to send back to China. Our institutions of higher learning play a vital role in preparing our workforce for not only the next step in their career, but in evolving as contributing members of our society. On college campuses across the United States, China has sponsored ambassadors to enroll in American institutions called ``Confucius Institutes'' to take advantage of domestic resources while influencing public perception that China is somehow compassionate and does not pose an economic or security threat to this Nation. They are doing it all within our borders, and it is simply false. The Confucius Institutes aim to expand the Chinese footprint on universities around the world, influencing our students and threatening academic freedom. In the United States alone, China has spent over $150 million developing these programs by planting over 100 of the institutions. Today, there are 13 Confucius Institutes in the United States, with over 100 of the previously established institutes having closed or being in the process of closing, thankfully. These so-called culture centers have given universities a direct line of communication with foreign adversaries, in addition to a direct source of foreign funding. By law, universities receiving gifts from foreign countries with a value of over $250,000 are required to report these donations to the Department of Education. Several prestigious universities, however, across the United States, including universities such as the University of Pennsylvania, MIT, Harvard, Yale, and Georgetown received funding--lots of funding, millions and millions of dollars of funding--from foreign adversaries between 2014 and 2017. Yet, they failed to disclose any of these donations to the Department of Education. I wonder why. During the Trump administration, the Department of Education actually enforced the law and investigated these reports and donations ensuring that universities were compliant in this reporting. As we all know, transparency is the key to accountability in this country. Yet here we see a lack of transparency on the part of these universities. Unsurprisingly, the Biden administration, who has been weak on foreign policy and the promotion of American interests, has not yet investigated the nearly $6.5 billion in unreported foreign money received by colleges and universities during the Biden administration. I will repeat that again: $6.5 billion. And you ask, what is that money buying the Chinese Communist Party? The administration's failure to enforce the law and ensure transparency and accountability of foreign money funneled into the United States institutions is dangerous, and it reveals a lack of desire to protect American national security and our values from bad actors. The stake that the Chinese Government has in universities has given the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party a seat at the table of our educational institutions, a seat they should not have. They are strong-arming free speech and academic freedom. They are rewriting history, the history of the Chinese Communist Party, and they are doing it all through the dissolution of our free speech and our academic freedom, those pillars of our society.  As Members of Congress, it is of the utmost importance that we have accountability over the foreign dollars entering our college campuses and universities and ensure that dangerous ideals are not being promoted across the country through the Chinese Communist Party and other foreign adversaries that would use this information and these investments against our national security efforts. American universities and colleges are esteemed for brilliant research and academia. We must not tolerate foreign governments stealing critical information in these premier research programs for the purpose of using it against the United States and weakening our national security. I can tell you again from experience, these past couple of weeks have opened my eyes to the reality of the threat that is the Chinese Communist Party. Again, it is not just our diplomatic status, it is not just our economic warfare that we are engaging in, it is not just what we are seeing from a military presence that they have around the island of Taiwan. Know that it is now indeed in our educational institutions. We must push back on every front. It is a multi-front fight that we cannot lose, or we will lose this Nation.