
SMITHFIELD – Bryant University has no plans to close the university’s United States-China Confucius Institute even though U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said publicly earlier this month that he hoped all such institutes on U.S. college campuses would be shut by the end of the year.
When the U.S. announced Sept. 3 that it would require senior Chinese diplomats to receive State Department approval before visiting college campuses in the country, Pompeo, according to a report from CNBC, said the State Department recently wrote college governing boards alerting them to threats from the Chinese Community party. The threats, Pompeo said, can come “in the form of illicit funding for research, intellectual property theft, intimidation of foreign students and opaque talent recruitment efforts.”
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Pompeo also said, per CNBC, he was hopeful that dozens of Chinese government-funded Confucius Institutes on U.S. college campuses would all be closed by the end of the year. He accused them of working to recruit “spies and collaborators.”
Bryant President Ross Gittell, in a response Wednesday to Providence Business News, said that no scientific research activities relevant to national security or intellectual property issues are involved with the U.S.-China Institute’s activities and programs.
Gittell also said that Bryant’s institute is independent of the Confucius Institute U.S. Center in Washington, D.C. – which was designated as a foreign mission by the State Department after Pompeo reportedly accused it of advancing Beijing’s “malign influence.”
“We have never been in contact with or contacted by the center,” Gittell said. “Regarding receiving, reporting, spending and auditing, Bryant’s Confucius Institute funds are in full compliance with U.S. laws and regulations.”
Bryant spokesperson Cecilia Cooper told PBN Thursday that Bryant’s only recent communication with the State Department was an Aug. 19 letter “specifically detailing that the [Confucius Institute U.S. Center] action does not apply to the Confucius Institute at Bryant.” Bryant’s institute is one of 67 Confucius Institutes across the country, including at Tufts University and Central Connecticut State University, Cooper said, and are “not anticipating that these will be closed by the federal government.”
Gittell also said the university is continuously assessing the Confucius Institute’s initiatives as circumstances change.
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.