‘It would be important to know if those companies and universities … are pressured to promote these textbooks,’ a human rights lawyer said.
An American lawmaker and scholars have expressed concern over transparency and accountability regarding the use of some Chinese language textbooks in U.S. colleges containing propaganda from the Chinese communist regime.
Cynthia Sun, a researcher at the Falun Dafa Information Center who has studied Chinese state-funded Confucius Institutes in Western universities and the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) transnational repression campaign, pointed out that “Discussing Everything Chinese,” a textbook containing CCP propaganda against Falun Gong practitioners, is still in use in Chinese language classes at some U.S. universities.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, was introduced to the public in 1992 by Li Hongzhi. It’s a traditional meditation practice rooted in Buddhist traditions, following the principles of truth, compassion, and forbearance. Due to its effectiveness in improving physical and mental health, it spread rapidly across China. There were 70 million to 100 million practitioners in China by the end of the decade, according to estimates at the time.
Feeling threatened by its popularity, China’s ruling Communist Party and its then-leader Jiang Zemin launched a severe repression campaign against Falun Gong practitioners in July 1999. Since then, practitioners have been detained, tortured, and killed by the Chinese regime.
The book has been used by at least 10 universities in the United States, including Yale University, according to Sun.
A Google search indicates that “Discussing Everything Chinese” is used by the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at San Francisco State University, and sold in the Harvard University Bookstore, on Amazon, and other online U.S. bookstores.
At the “Back in Class: Foreign Funding & Malign Influence on U.S. Higher Education” event at the International Spy Museum in Washington on Sept. 23, Sun brought up the problematic Chinese language textbook with Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
Sun asked if it would be possible to address a curriculum like this through legislation.
Moolenaar replied, “What China is doing is really trying to infiltrate every aspect of the private sector, kind of across the board, universities, cultural … and they’re being very deceptive about it.”
In terms of the book, he said, “I think the more transparent things are, the more accountability there is.”
“Some of that could be legislative but a lot of it on the federal level is probably going to be hearings, highlighting the issue and making sure people are aware that something is very deceptive and that shouldn’t be part of the program,” Moolenaar said.
American international human rights lawyer Nina Shea, director and senior fellow at the Center for Religious Studies at the Hudson Institute, told The Epoch Times that she’s shocked that “Discussing Everything Chinese” is being used as a Chinese language textbook in American universities.
Such books “reflect CCP genocidal views on Falun Gong over the past 25 years. The CCP has vowed to ‘eliminate’ Falun Gong merely because it is a movement outside of the party and proved particularly successful in appealing to large numbers of the Chinese people,” Shea said on Oct. 3. “It is shameful that these textbooks, where the hatred of a religious minority shouts out from the pages, are being promoted by American universities and Amazon, Apple and Barnes & Noble. They should stop doing so and those who exhibited the bad judgment to use and sell them should be called to account.”
Shea called on The Department of Education to investigate the matter.
“It would be important to know if those companies and universities doing business in China are pressured to promote these textbooks,” she said.
She said any institution that is using these textbooks should be reported to the U.S. Department of Education, which should then withhold any federal funding from that school.
Frank Xie, a business professor at the University of South Carolina Aiken told The Epoch Times on Oct. 3, that “course materials in American universities are chosen by the professors themselves.” He said that many Chinese professors teaching Chinese language classes in U.S. universities are from communist China and they use textbooks from China with “some modifications, but they definitely contain the CCP’s propaganda content.”
Xie pointed out that some of them “not only teach Chinese to American students but also to U.S. military personnel, using textbooks from China.”
As the selection of curriculum is part of academic freedom, Xie said “the U.S. authorities have no right to interfere. Then, it [CCP’s propaganda in the curriculum] can only be documented and exposed by students or people with conscience. There is no other special method to deal with it.”
Feng Chongyi, a China studies professor at the University of Technology Sydney, shared a similar view. He told The Epoch Times on Oct. 3, “Universities have always talked about academic freedom. Legislation cannot solve this problem. This is a political issue.”
Feng pointed out, “Whether it is in many universities, in politics, in business, in the media, or in credit companies, there’s [the CCP’s] infiltration. This is a problem faced by the entire democratic world.”
The Epoch Times reached out to San Francisco State University, Harvard University, Amazon, and the Department of Education for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
Sherry Dong and Luo Ya contributed to this report.