NPR: As Scrutiny Of China Grows, Some U.S. Schools Drop A Language Program
The Defense Department wants more Americans to speak Chinese, and it provides millions of dollars to train students at U.S. universities.
China’s government, through language centers known as Confucius Institutes, has been doing the same thing, for the same reasons, and at some of the same U.S. universities.
But a new law has forced these American universities to choose: They can take money from the Pentagon or from the Confucius Institute — but not both.
“Confucius Institutes expose U.S. universities to espionage, to the threat of theft of intellectual property, which we are seeing far too frequently at colleges and universities,” Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said in an interview with NPR.
Cruz attached an amendment last year to the U.S. military spending bill that says a university with a Confucius Institute cannot also receive money from the Defense Department program that pays for Chinese language training.