Columbia University took at least $1 million in funding from the Chinese government for hosting a Confucius Institute that it did not disclose, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
The Free Beacon found that the government backed entity that operates the Confucius Institute, Hanban, vowed in 2010 to donate about $1 million to Columbia University, according to a report from Chinese state media. Records from the Department of Education show that the school did not disclose these donations to the federal government, though it did disclose about $350,000 in donates for unspecified “centers/institute” last spring.
The State Department last summer claimed that Confucius Institutes are “part of Beijing’s multifaceted propaganda efforts,” and designated them as a foreign mission.
"Unfortunately Columbia is really par for the course," said Rachelle Peterson, director of policy at the educational watchdog group the National Association of Scholars. "For many years, colleges and universities have been either completely negligent or willfully out of compliance of the law. They have fought transparency at every step of the way."
Some of the money, the Free Beacon reports, went to hiring Professor Wei Dedong, an adviser to the Chinese department of propaganda, from Renmin University in Beijing, to serve as the director of Columbia’s Confucius Institute. However, the institute’s webpage no longer lists him as director.
Columbia and the Confucius Institute did not respond to the Free Beacon’s requests for comment.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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