During a speech on Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized schools for self-censoring “out of fear of offending China.” And said that “So many of our colleges are bought by Beijing.”
Pompeo said the Chinese Communist Party wants “to influence American students as well, professors and administrators too. Look, they know that left-leaning college campuses are rife with anti-Americanism, and present easy targets for their anti-American messaging. That’s why they planted Confucius Institutes on our campuses. … Look, it’s why there are groups on campuses called Chinese Students and Scholars Associations here too. They’re directed and almost always funded by the Chinese embassy or a local Chinese consulate. Its purpose, to keep tabs on students and to press pro-Beijing causes. Now, you would think at freedom-loving places like Georgia Tech and institutions and scholars all across the world, administrators, school faculty would be more up in arms about the Chinese Communist Party’s outright theft and flagrant violation of freedoms that I’ve described, but we see it too seldom. Well, why? Why do schools censor themselves? They often do it out of fear of offending China.”
He added, “MIT wasn’t interested in having me to their campus to give this exact set of remarks. President Rafael Reif implied that my arguments might insult their ethnic Chinese students and professors. But of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Those are the very people that this set of remarks is intended to protect, to protect their freedoms.”
Pompeo continued, “And I must say that yielding to the objection of hurt feelings plays right into the Chinese Communist Party’s hands. They watch America closely. It’s what the party says constantly in response to legitimate criticism around the world. You can see it. … Look, we can’t let the CCP weaponize political correctness against American liberties. We have to protect and preserve them. Fraudulent cries of racism or xenophobia should never drown out a candid exposure of the activities of the Chinese Communist Party. But we see too often on American campuses that there’s silence and censorship. It’s being driven by the Chinese Communist Party. It usually boils down to something far less idealistic. So many of our colleges are bought by Beijing.”
He later added, “The U.S. Department of Education, over the last years, has found that schools have taken an estimated $1.3 billion from China since 2013. That’s just what we know about. Like so many — like Columbia — so many schools have failed to report the true amounts.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett