Rep. Jim Banks Demands Answers on DOD’s Waiver Plan for Colleges Hosting Confucius Institutes

Rep. Jim Banks  (R-Ind.) expressed concerns to the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) over its waiver plan that allows U.S. colleges to receive DOD grants while hosting Beijing-funded Confucius Institutes (CIs).
“CIs act as agents of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on U.S. campuses, spreading Party propaganda, monitoring students and dissidents, and providing China a launching pad for espionage against our nation’s most valuable research and technology,” Banks wrote in the letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin dated April 21.
A section of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, the congressman stated, bars U.S. institutions of higher education to host Confucius Institute programming after October 2023. Otherwise, colleges would lose eligibility for federal funding from the Defense Department. Banks said the provision of the legislation is the “removal of all CIs from U.S. campuses and to remove the espionage threat which CIs pose to DOD-sponsored research and development (R&D).”…}