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Conclusion and Recommendations

US-China academic exchanges are valuable to both China and the United States and
should be maintained and developed. However, in doing so, universities must be alert
to the risks of engaging with the Chinese government, institutions, and funders and
be proactive in applying a higher level of due diligence and vigilance as a defense of
the core principle of academic freedom, especially when conflicts take place at home
in their own universities.

Promote Transparency

Confucius Institutes We do not endorse calls for Confucius Institutes to be closed,
as long as several conditions are met. US institutions should make their CI agreements
public to facilitate oversight by members of the university community and other
concerned parties. Those agreements, in turn, must grant full managerial authority
to the host institution (not on a shared basis with the Hanban), so the university has
full control over what a CI teaches, the activities it undertakes, the research grants it
makes, and whom it employs. The clause in all Hanban contracts that CIs must operate
“according to China’s laws” must be deleted.

If these standards cannot be attained, then the CI agreements should be terminated.
Furthermore, universities should prevent any intervention by CIs in curricular
requirements and course content in their overall Chinese studies curricula or other
areas of study by maintaining a clear administrative separation between academic
centers and departments on the one hand, and CIs on the other. Finally, universities
must ensure that all public programming offered by their CIs conform to academic
standards of balance and diversity and do not cross the line to become a platform
for PRC propaganda, or even a circumscribed view of a controversial issue. In fact,
this report would suggest that universities not permit Confucius Institutes to become
involved in public programming that goes beyond the CI core mission of education
about Chinese language and culture. To go beyond these two categories invites
opportunities for politicized propaganda.

Apply Due Diligence To minimize the risks just identified, universities must rigorously
apply far stricter due-diligence procedures to scrutinize the sources and purposes of
gifts and contracts from China to ensure that they do not interfere with academic
freedom. Universities accepting gifts from Chinese nationals, corporations, or
foundations must insist that there be no restrictions on academic freedom. Foreign
donations should continue to be welcomed, but universities must ensure that the
conditions of acceptance are reasonable, consonant with their principles, subject to
oversight, and do not allow the program to become a beachhead for inappropriate
influence. It is important that all universities exercise high standards of due diligence
and not only scrutinize the source of the gift but consider the implications of such

Universities

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