Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) proposed a bill Tuesday aimed to block federal funding for American colleges and universities that have ties to the Chinese Communist Party, a move she says will combat Beijing’s attempts to “undermine” our country.
The legislation, titled the “End College Chinese Communist Partnerships Act," would limit taxpayer funds from going directly to institutions that have partnerships with Confucius Institutes and the People’s Republic of China, according to the Epoch Times.
“The CCP is partaking in genocide, censoring speech, and influencing our academia. Taxpayer $$ should NOT fund their partnerships with U.S. schools! Period,” the congresswoman said in a tweet.
If the bill were to pass, all colleges and universities that have a “contractual partnership in effect with an entity that is owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by the Government of the People’s Republic of China, or organized under the laws of the People’s Republic of China,” will no longer receive federal funding, Fox News reports.
Department of Education funds that are provided directly to students would be exempt from the bill.
Stefanik’s bill would allow institutions to regain federal funding eligibility if they release to the secretary of education “all contractual partnerships” with a related entity from the last 10 years and provide “sufficient evidence that such partnerships have been terminated.”
“House Democrats may have blocked my amendment last week, but their dangerous partisan obstruction will not stop me from standing up for America and strongly against China,” Stefanik told Fox News. “I’m proud to introduce the End College Chinese Communist Party Act to halt taxpayer dollars from flowing through American education institutions to benefit the CCP once and for all.”
The bill discloses that Congress has found the Chinese Comunist Party has “been engaged in a sustained effort to undermine all facets of American power through influence campaigns within the United States” and that the party has “engaged in the theft of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of intellectual property and academic and scientific research on college campuses, within national labs, and within the private sector.”
It adds that the Chinese Communist Party “has attempted to recruit Chinese Americans and ethnic Chinese within the United States for intelligence collection and coercion to advance the CCP ideology and agenda,” and urges that the ideology “has gained a foothold in all facets of our society, including in academia, business, entertainment and the media.”
But, this bill is unlikely to become law under the current administration because of Joe Biden’s long standing entanglement with China.
Stefanik’s move comes just after the Biden administration sneakily withdrew from a Trump administration proposed rule that would require American schools and universities to disclose their partnerships with Confucius Institutes, which some U.S. officials argue are front groups for Chinese Communist Party propaganda.
