University of Hawaii’s Confucius Institute closes as FBI raises alarm
Star-Adv July 29, 2019: … The University of Hawaii has shuttered its China-influenced Confucius Institute following new federal restrictions and amid FBI warnings that universities are not doing enough to stem intellectual property theft and espionage.
UH closed the institute effective May 31 “in order to maintain federally funded research and educational opportunities for its faculty and students,” the university said in a news release.
“We thank the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China for 13 years of support of our K-16 and community outreach efforts,” UH said….
The university in early May told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that it planned to end the program. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2019 prohibits the use of defense funding for language programs at colleges or universities that also host Confucius Institutes, except in cases where Defense Department waivers are granted.
The Defense Department determined it was “not in the national interest” to provide waivers….
Greg Shepherd, a music and drama professor at Kauai Community College, said the closing of Confucius Institutes at UH and elsewhere “should come as welcome news to anyone who values freedom and human rights.”
“The institutes are a blatant attempt at propaganda by a Chinese government that oppresses the people of Tibet and Xinjiang, as well as practitioners of Falun Gong and other religions,” he said. “It’s a sad reflection on the University of Hawaii that it took 13 years to boot the institute off the UH campus — and only then because of the threat of funding cutoffs by the Department of Defense.”
More than 15 of the institutes, which are controlled, funded and mostly staffed by the Chinese government, have closed since the Pentagon crackdown and with growing criticism of China’s intentions.
“I would say that there is no country that poses a more severe counterintelligence threat to this country right now than China,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing….
read … University of Hawaii’s Confucius Institute closes as FBI raises alarm
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