(The Center Square) – A new report from Defending Education details Chinese influence on American education from kindergarten to college, with programs such as the Young Envoys Scholarship where China invited 50,000 U.S. students to study in the nation in partnership with many U.S. schools.
Director of Higher Education Initiative at Defending Education Reagan Dugan told The Center Square that “American students and families deserve to know if their school is partnering with a CCP operation.”
"Confucius Institutes closed under federal pressure after Congress saw what they were,” Dugan said. “The Young Envoys Scholarship program does the same work under a name most Americans have never heard.
“Its operator's own charter commits to ‘adhere to the overall leadership of the Communist Party of China’ and to carry out Party activities,” Dugan said.
“These aren't just cultural trips,” Dugan stated. “They're an integral part of China's broader soft power strategy aimed at infiltrating America's classrooms.”
“Disclosure requirements need to catch up,” Dugan said.
American partnership with China via the Young Envoys Scholarship (YES) began when “in November 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping invited 50,000 U.S. students to study abroad in China over the next five years,” Defending Education’s report says.
The report noted that about 83 American universities and 26 K-12 schools are documented as participating in the YES program.
One school involved in the YES program is Iowa’s Muscatine Community School District. In 2024, Muscatine sent 24 students and four educators to China “as guests of China’s minister of education” on a trip that was “fully funded by the Chinese government,” the report said.
Another example of these Chinese-American partnerships is the University of Chicago, which in 2024 sent a delegation of “33 young student representatives” to Beijing, Defending Education said.
Defending Education’s report said that “the YES program is founded on the principles that international exchanges are a ‘key pillar and powerful enabler to deepen and expand cross-cultural understanding among countries’ that ‘provide a nurturing environment for young people to move and see the world.’”
The YES program is “run by the China Education Association for International Exchange (CEAIE)” Defending Education’s report said, which is “an organization guided by ‘Marxism-Leninism’ and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism.”
As Dugan mentioned, CEAIE stated its commitment to “always adhere to the leadership of the Party and integrate the Party’s work into the entire process of the association’s operation and development.”
U.S. lawmakers “have identified CEAIE as part of China’s ‘United Front’ system, an international influence operation aimed at neutralizing opposition to CCP policy,” the report said.
Defending Education’s report said that programs like the YES program as well as the now nearly defunct Confucius Institutes are a part of the “Belt and Road Initiative."
“For decades, the Chinese government and its affiliates have been engaged in a global soft power campaign called the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ designed to advance the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) political and cultural agenda,” Defending Education’s report said.
“This ongoing Initiative includes various forms of programming intentionally aimed at American students from K-12 through university level meant to influence how youth in the United States view China,” the report said.