CHINA WATCHWhen Could a College or a University Hosting a Confucius Institute Receive DOD Funding?

Published 19 January 2023

A new report proposes a set of criteria for the U.S. Department of Defense to consider in developing a waiver process that would potentially allow U.S. institutions of higher education to receive DOD funding while hosting a Confucius Institute.

new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine proposes a set of criteria for the U.S. Department of Defense to consider in developing a waiver process that would potentially allow U.S. institutions of higher education to receive DOD funding while hosting a Confucius Institute. The proposed criteria identify conditions that should be met by colleges and universities with respect to academic freedom, freedom of expression, and national security. 

Confucius Institutes (CIs) are Chinese government-funded language and culture centers located worldwide. More than 100 U.S. institutions of higher education hosted CIs on campus during the late 2000s and early 2010s. Sustained concerns from Congress about the potential for encroachment on academic freedom and freedom of expression as well as for espionage and intellectual property theft, coupled with a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019, led to the closure of dozens of Confucius Institutes on U.S. campuses. As of December 2022, the study committee that authored the report was aware of seven U.S. institutions with active Confucius Institutes, two of which receive DOD funding for scientific research.

The committee’s work was conducted in response to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021. The law contained a provision that barred institutions hosting Confucius Institutes from receiving DOD funding, but allowed for DOD to waive this limitation after consultation with the National Academies. 

While Confucius Institutes provided a source of funding and other resources that enabled U.S. institutions of higher education to build capacity in Chinese language and culture, they presented an added, legitimate source of risk to host institutions with respect to academic freedom, freedom of expression, and national security, the new report says. 

The committee is not aware of any evidence at the unclassified level that Confucius Institutes were associated with espionage or intellectual property theft. While incidents affecting academic freedom, freedom of expression, and shared governance did take place, the report says, the most egregious of these occurred at Confucius Institutes outside of the U.S. 

The report identifies conditions that DOD could use to evaluate whether an institution of higher education has taken appropriate precautionary measures to understand and address risks, and to consider granting a waiver to a college or university to host a Confucius Institute: