Congressional Hearing Sounds the Alarm on Chinese Communist Influence in K-12 Classrooms

A congressional hearing was held about the Chinese Communist Party using Mandarin language programs to influence America’s K-12 classrooms.

Students in the library receive candy and red envelopes in a cultural celebration of the Lunar New Year at a school in New York City on Feb. 2, 2022. Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

A congressional hearing sounded the alarm about the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) using Mandarin language programs to spread communist ideology and grow its soft power in America’s K-12 classrooms.

Confucius Classrooms, the K-12 version of Confucius Institutes (CI) in universities, are language programs for which the CCP provides funding and controls curriculum and teacher vetting. In August 2020, the State Department designated the CI program’s D.C.-based headquarters as a “foreign mission” of China based on its “skewed Chinese language and cultural training for U.S. students as part of Beijing’s multifaceted propaganda efforts” and that the CI language programs were under guidance from the CCP’s United Front Work Department, the leading agency in charge of influence operations.