Prominent figures including former President George H.W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel have addressed the National Chinese Language Conference, aiding in the Chinese Communist Party-funded event’s quest to amplify the reach of its propaganda Confucius Institutes, The National Pulse can reveal.
Confucius Institute headquarters, colloquially known as Hanban, has sponsored an annual National Chinese Language Conference (NCLC) since 2007.
It aims to amplify the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) funded initiatives, which masquerade as language and culture initiatives despite being a propaganda front, by “enhancing the capacity for teaching and learning of Chinese language culture by sharing cutting–edge practices and examples with educators and policymakers.”
Secretary of Defense and Intelligence Advisory Board Chair under President Obama Chuck Hagel delivered the opening keynote at the 2012 NCLC.
Joe Biden-endorser Hagel remarked on a “new world order” emerging, extolling the merits of a “global community underpinned by a global economy.” He expounds upon the importance of a “platform, a relationship, and a structure of common interests for common purpose based on some values we share.”
John Negroponte, appointed Director of National Intelligence and later Deputy Secretary of State under President George W. Bush, also spoke at the conference alongside Hanban Director Xu Lin and Chinese Ambassador Zhang Yesui, individuals with an extensive history working for the CCP.
Xu has actively censored academic work “contrary to Chinese regulations.” At a European Association for Chinese Studies conference, Xu “ordered her entourage . . . straight away to remove all the conference materials from the conference venue” contradicting CCP narratives, according to Wall Street Journal reports.
The Obama Department of Education and Department of State were also listed alongside the Confucius Institute as a “collaborating organization” for the conference. Senior Advisor for State’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs along with the DOE’s Director and Education Program Specialist were also members of the “program advisory committee.”
Obama’s Department of Education similarly sponsored the 2014 and 2013 conferences.
Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush have dedicated letters to the conference which have been read at NCLC opening ceremonies.
Carter, who normalized relations with the CCP as the first president to extend formal diplomatic recognition of the regime, emphasized:
And Bush, who continued establishment-style outsourcing and shifting of the American manufacturing base to China, told attendees:
His son Neil Bush attended the event, and his speech was summarized as “discussing the strategic and methodological ways the U.S. can strengthen its relationship with China—particularly in education.” That year, the NCLC collaborated with WeChat, a popular Chinese messaging app owned by the CCP-linked Tencent.
Tencent, whose CEO currently serves as a Congressional Deputy and member of the CCP’s Standing Committee, has been identified by the State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation as a “tool of the Chinese government,” noting the company has “no meaningful ability to tell the Chinese Communist Party ‘no’ if officials decide to ask for their assistance.”
Such collaboration is concerning, as Politburo propaganda czar Li Changchun insisted Confucius Institutes “are an important part of China’s overseas propaganda setup.” They’re rife with “undisclosed ties to Chinese institutions, and conflicted loyalties” and intellectual property theft according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
Even teaching resources are written by the CCP’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council (OCAO), part of a committee identified by the U.S. government’s China Economic and Security Review Commission as “working to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party.”
