Gallagher drew Austin’s attention to the “looming deadline” under a section of the 2021 National Defence Authorisation Act that prohibits the Pentagon from “providing funds to institutions of higher education that host a Confucius Institute” after October 1, 2023.
Confucius Institutes are Beijing-backed language and cultural centres that China says are a bridge of friendship to the rest of the world. In recent years, though, critics in Washington have accused these schools of partnering with American universities to gain access to crucial intellectual property and promote propaganda.
A bipartisan congressional report in 2019 found “no evidence that these institutes are a centre for Chinese espionage efforts or any other illegal activity”.
On Thursday, Gallagher said he was glad to see Alfred “finally doing the right thing”, calling Confucius Institutes as “only one tool in the CCP’s toolbox” to “gain access to sensitive research and technologies that fuel the PLA’s advancement”.
Alfred also partners with the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, a national university overseen by the Chinese Ministry of Education, that allegedly conducts classified research on advanced weaponry for the Chinese military. Gallagher did not say whether Alfred would also cut ties with it.
The committee’s staff did not immediately respond to an inquiry about whether Alfred’s collaboration with the Chinese university remained an issue.
Alfred had been asked to submit copies of emails, letters and electronic documents regarding its agreement with the geoscience university by Wednesday.
Gallagher claimed that the Chinese Communist Party “will use research partnerships, talent programmes, and other initiatives”, vowing to “continue to dig into the facts to make sure that no American taxpayer dollars are supporting research partnerships that the CCP can exploit for its own purposes.”
The statement on Thursday said that the University of Toledo in Ohio, St. Cloud State University in Minnesota and the University of Utah still receive Pentagon grants to conduct sensitive military research while “publicly operating CCP- affiliated Confucius Institutes on their campuses”.
According to the National Association of Scholars, an American conservative group, 13 Confucius Institutes continue to operate in the US while around 108 centres have either closed or are in the process of closing.
A report by the association in March claimed that at least 58 universities maintain “close relationships with their former Confucius Institute partner”.
