Undergraduate student Moe Lewis, left, shows her watercolor painting of peony leaves at a traditional Chinese painting class at the Confucius Institute at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., on May 2, 2018. U.S. lawmakers are pushing for tighter regulation or even closure of the more than 100 Chinese Confucius Institutes set up on campuses across America. But for university students, they offer a chance to learn about Chinese language and art. (AP Photo/Matthew Pennington)

While many conservatives have been aware of the threat China poses to the United States on many levels for years (or decades), in the Wuhan Flu era both the US’s vulnerabilities and China’s true motives have become increasingly clear to everyone. Through Beijing’s fake “capitalism,” the tentacles of CCP money and influence reach further into our culture, supply chain, and public health system than anyone is (or should be) comfortable with.

In addition to their capitalist intrusion, Chinese communists have infiltrated our universities with their propaganda via on-campus Confucius Institutes. Confucius Institutes are funded by Beijing and are ostensibly a forum to teach Chinese language and culture. What’s wrong with that, you ask? Charlie Kirk explains:

For anyone who says that a CI chapter is simply about promoting culture, they’re right in a way. But it is promoting a culture of intolerance and authoritarian control with a long record of human rights abuses: Intolerance of the West and of Christianity; authoritarian control of anything from the press and social media to political dissent, most famously in Hong Kong; and human rights abuses against the unborn and millions of Uighur Muslims.

Because most college professors and staff have an “Any Culture But Ours” mentality, the CCP’s methodology has worked like a charm. From Politico:

A 2011 speech by a standing member of the Politburo in Beijing laid out the case: “The Confucius Institute is an appealing brand for expanding our culture abroad,” Li Changchun said. “It has made an important contribution toward improving our soft power [emphasis added]. The ‘Confucius’ brand has a natural attractiveness. Using the excuse of teaching Chinese language, everything looks reasonable and logical.”

Even the caption underneath the AP photo used in this article shows a pro-China bias. Reporting on proposed legislation that would strengthen regulations on or close Confucius Institutes, the photo depicts an American student displaying a watercolor painting she created at a CI meeting, a smiling Chinese (CCP-paid) Confucius Institute leader to her right, and is captioned (emphasis mine):

Undergraduate student Moe Lewis, left, shows her watercolor painting of peony leaves at a traditional Chinese painting class at the Confucius Institute at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., on May 2, 2018. U.S. lawmakers are pushing for tighter regulation or even closure of the more than 100 Chinese Confucius Institutes set up on campuses across America. But for university students, they offer a chance to learn about Chinese language and art.

Oh no! Do they mean to imply that there are no qualified professors in all of the land who can teach about Chinese language and art? (If that’s the case I need to ask Boston University for a refund on my Chinese art and history class.)

Fortunately, a 2019 Defense Authorization Act limited Pentagon funding to universities that have a sanctioned Confucius Institute on their campus, and a number of universities have recently booted Confucius Institute chapters, including the University of Missouri and Miami University. That’s a great start, but Congress needs to step up and tell the other 100 or so universities still sanctioning CI chapters that either the commies go or the school loses all access to federal funding.