s*******y
发帖数: 351 | 1 文章照片里那些给中共摇旗的人真是獐头鼠目啊！
http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/14/house-proposal-targets-confucius-institutes-as-foreign-agents-china-communist-party-censorship-academic-freedom/
A new draft proposal in the House of Representatives seeks to require China
’s cultural outposts in the United States, the Confucius Institutes, to
register as foreign agents.
The effort, spearheaded by U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), targets any
foreign funding at U.S. universities that aims to promote the agenda of a
foreign government.
“The bottom line is transparency,” Wilson tells Foreign Policy in an
interview.
The draft bill does not single out Confucius Institutes by name, but
according to Wilson it will apply to the Chinese government-run programs,
which offer language and culture classes on more than 100 American college
and university campuses. The institutes have come under increasing scrutiny
in recent months due to their sometimes heavy-handed attempts to censor
discussion of topics that the Chinese Communist Party deems off-limits,
leading to growing concerns about academic freedom.
Wilson’s initiative would clarify language in the Foreign Agents
Registration Act (FARA), a Nazi-era law intended to combat foreign
propaganda. FARA requires organizations and individuals engaged in lobbying
or public discourse on behalf of a foreign government to register with the
Department of Justice, and to disclose their funding and the scope of their
activities. FARA does not prohibit such funding or activities but rather
seeks to provide transparency about the true source of the messaging.
As currently written, FARA includes an exemption for “bona fide” academic
and scholastic pursuits, but what is meant by “bona fide” is not clearly
spelled out. The draft proposal would redefine what is meant by a bona fide
academic pursuit to exclude any foreign-funded endeavor that promotes the
agenda of a foreign government. If enacted, the legislation would, in turn,
trigger mandatory registration for the institutes, though it would not
interfere with their activities.
“The goal is transparency by the foreign agents themselves and also by the
universities,” Wilson says. “The American people need to know that they
are being provided propaganda.”
Wilson joins a growing number of lawmakers to express concerns about the
Chinese state-funded programs. In February, Republican Florida Sen. Marco
Rubio called on his state’s schools to close their Confucius Institutes,
citing “China’s aggressive campaign to ‘infiltrate’ American classrooms,
stifle free inquiry, and subvert free expression both at home and abroad.”
And last week, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, a Democrat from Massachusetts, sent
a letter to 40 colleges and universities in his state, urging them to close
their Confucius Institutes or refrain from opening them in the first place.
The Chinese Communist Party has openly said that Confucius Institutes are
used for propaganda. Former top party official Li Changchun has referred to
the institutes as “an important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up
.”
“Confucius Institutes in the U.S. have been fully complying [with] the
university policies and requirement as open and transparent initiatives,”
said Gao Qing, executive director of the Confucius Institute U.S. Center in
Washington. “It is wise to further comprehend Confucius Institutes’
operations and impact through people who [are involved with] and participate
in the programs, not through speculations. The conclusion should not be
drawn upon unfounded allegations.”
The draft proposal is the first legislative measure to address Confucius
Institutes, according to Ben Freeman, director of the Foreign Influence
Transparency Initiative at the nonprofit Center for International Policy. It
is also the first that targets FARA’s academic exemption.
“This is an important issue of language clarification for the FARA statute,
” Freeman says. Certain key portions of FARA are written in vague language,
causing “a lot of confusion for transparency groups and also for people
who think they might have to register but aren’t sure.”
On the surface, Confucius Institutes are analogous to Germany’s Goethe-
Institut or France’s Alliance Française, which both receive government
funding to teach language and culture classes. But the Chinese programs are
embedded in American schools, unlike their freestanding European
counterparts, and at times institute staff have sought to block host
universities from holding discussions on sensitive political topics such as
Tibet or Taiwan.
Within Confucius Institutes, “there is a very strong understanding that
certain topics are off limits,” said Rachelle Peterson, the author of a
2017 study about the institutes published by the National Association of
Scholars. “To speak about China in a Confucius Institute is to speak about
the good things. The other things don’t exist as far as the Confucius
Institute is concerned.”
A lack of transparency has made it difficult to assess exactly how much
control universities have over Confucius Institute management and curricula,
or how much money each school receives from the Chinese government.
Agreements between institutes and their host institutions are not typically
disclosed; much of what is known about specific conditions come from leaked
contracts or from Freedom of Information Act requests filed by journalists.
The draft proposal also seeks to strengthen foreign funding disclosure
requirements for universities themselves. Section 117 of the Higher
Education Act currently requires universities to disclose any foreign
funding and contributions exceeding $250,000; the proposal would lower that
amount.
Wilson emphasizes that he strongly supports Chinese language education. “My
dad served in China during World War II, so I grew up in a family that
truly has a deep affection for the people of China,” Wilson tells FP.
“When I first saw the Confucius Institutes, I thought, hey this is good, we
want a good and positive relationship with the people of China,” he says.
“But it needs to be known that it has a propaganda side too.” | t**x
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