Columbia University accepted $1 million to underwrite an educational program that the State Department has since branded part of China’s “global influence and propaganda apparatus.”
The “Confucius Institute” at Columbia was established pursuant to a deal signed in 2013 “to help enhance Columbia faculty’s collaborations with Chinese scholars in teaching and research,” according to a page on the university’s website.
China has set up Confucius Institutes across the US, Europe, Asia and Africa, according to reports, but Columbia is the only Ivy League school to have hosted one, the Washington Free Beacon said Monday.
In August, the US State Department designated the Washington, DC-based Confucius Institute US Center — which is in charge of running the American network — as a Chinese “foreign mission.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the move was aimed at “recognizing CIUS for what it is: an entity advancing Beijing’s global propaganda and malign influence campaign on U.S. campuses and K-12 classrooms.”
“Confucius Institutes are funded by the [People’s Republic of China] and part of the Chinese Communist Party’s global influence and propaganda apparatus,” he added.
The move came shortly after China changed the name of the Beijing-based Confucius Institute Headquarters, also known as Hanban, to the Ministry of Education Center for Language Education and Cooperation.
The rebranding followed the closure of Confucius Institutes in the US and Europe amid accusations they were promoting Chinese Communist Party propaganda, the South China Morning Post reported in July.
The Columbia deal was initially reported in 2011 by its student-run newspaper, the Columbia Spectator, which said Hanban had pledged $1 million over five years.
A 2013 report by the China Daily, a state-run, English-language newspaper, quoted Columbia professor Robert Hymes, then chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Culture, as saying the plan was delayed “to identify and properly renovate the new Confucius Institute space.”
“We’re happy and relieved to at last honor our patrons, partners and collaborators in a proper way,” he added during a ceremony to inaugurate the center.
Chinese education officials, including the head of Hanban, also lavished Columbia president Lee Bollinger with gifts that included a book, a tie, artwork on a scroll and a crystal-plate emblem, according to the China Daily.
“OK, no more gifts,” Bollinger reportedly joked after receiving about six items.
None of the money Columbia received to host its Confucius Institute was reported to the US Education Department, although earlier this year it reported receiving $350,000 in donations for unspecified “centers/institute,” the Free Beacon said.
Under federal law, colleges and universities are only required to disclose gifts of more than $250,000 within six months and there are no caps on outside funding and no restrictions on who can give, according to an Education Department source.
It’s unclear if Columbia’s Confucius Institute is still operating.
The most recent post on Columbia’s website that mentions the program dates to 2018.
Meanwhile, Dedong Wei, a professor at China’s Renmin University who’s identified online as a visiting scholar at Columbia’s Confucius Institute, is currently listed as a non-resident scholar at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
A Columbia spokesperson said, “The university’s disclosure of funding from foreign sources fully complies with federal requirements for reporting donations.”
Wei didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Additional reporting by Ebony Bowden