Article by FLN Staff.

The People’s Republic of China is investing $10 Billion per year to pump pro-Chinese propaganda into the minds of American college students, according to Politico. They have a model, whereby they offer campus administration officials large sums of money to set up front organizations with scholarly names like the “Confucious Institute”, which seem innocuous, yet spread Chinese propaganda about Chinese foreign policy. They peddle the Beijing party line, including that Taiwan and Tibet are rightfully part of Chinese territory.

Politico reports that “Confucius Institutes have sprouted up at more than 500 college campuses worldwide, with more than 100 of them in the United States—including at The George Washington University, the University of Michigan and the University of Iowa.”  They continued, “At a time when universities are as willing as ever to shield their charges from controversial viewpoints, some nonetheless welcome foreign, communist propaganda—if the price is right.” National Association of Scholars suggests universities close the Confucius Institutes, and the larger American Association of University Professors believes they should not continue as constituted.

China has astutely gathered that academia is profoundly influential in democratic society and that shaping public opinion begins there. They are following the steps of Pro-Palestinian, Anti-Israel ideology that has permeated academia, yet take a different approach as they employ state-sponsored propaganda. If the PRC ever moves against democratic Taiwan, these fronts will have softened public opinion as a means of consolidating left-wing elements in the USA against fulfilling treaty obligations to defend an independent Taiwan.