Originally published August 15, 2023 2:00 pm PDT
Scholar Peter Wood recently admitted that the infiltration of China in U.S. schools is “almost everywhere.”
QUICK FACTS:
- Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, stated recently that China’s infiltration into American K-12 schools is “almost everywhere.”
- The scholar argued that China’s influence could be seen most often in schools that “feed” into elite colleges and universities.
- “That is, in every state that we’ve looked at, we have found instances of it, but I would say it’s concentrated in the feeder schools to elite education, which means mostly West Coast and East Coast, but not exclusively those,” Wood said.
- “While we were working on the Confucius Institutes, we gained some knowledge of the junior version of Confucius Institutes, Confucius Classrooms, which were being spotted in American K-12 education around the country, oftentimes at the sorts of schools that were feeders to elite colleges and universities,” he continued.
- The National Association of Scholars president believes China wants to influence U.S. children at a young age so they are already “well-disposed” in their opinion of the Eastern nation.
- “So they wanted to get access to America’s students at an even younger age and make sure they were well-disposed toward China, at least China in the version of it that the Chinese Communist Party sees fit to share,” he said.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCHOLARS PRESIDENT PETER WOOD ON CHINA PURCHASING LAND IN THE U.S. WHERE THEIR “INFLUENCE” WILL LAST:
“The effort here is, China’s not just spreading around its resources promiscuously across the land. It’s looking for places where buying influence will yield results in the long term,” WOOD SAID. “So, it’s widespread, but much more prevalent here on the East Coast and California.”
BACKGROUND:
- In February 2023, U.S. Department of Agriculture data revealed that as of 2020, China owns 338,000 acres of American farmland.
- Although the acreage is less than 1% of U.S. farmland owned by foreign nationals, the acquisition of land has raised national security issues.
- The data showed that half of the land owned by Chinese citizens was located in Texas.
- Earlier this year, former President Donald Trump announced in a campaign video his plan to restrict Chinese investment in the U.S.
- He accused Beijing’s government and businesses of “spending trillions of dollars to take over the crown jewels of the United States economy.”
- Trump’s plan includes a ban on Chinese nationals buying U.S. farmland and “aggressive new restrictions on Chinese ownership of any vital infrastructure in the United States, including energy, technology, telecommunications, farmland, natural resources, medical supplies, and other strategic national assets.”
- The former president called for an immediate halt to transactions with China and firms that it backs and for pressure to be put on them to relinquish existing ownership “that put our national security at risk.”
- Trump stated, “If we don’t do this, the United States will be owned by China which would make them very happy.”
