The Daily Signal - How Chinese Communist Party Is Influencing US Classrooms

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

A Republican congressman is speaking out about how the Chinese Communist Party is influencing U.S. classrooms. "Well, they come in, and they sort of soft-pedal their propaganda, but yet, they also whitewash history by eliminating Taiwan," says Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee's early childhood, elementary, and secondary education subcommittee. “You can’t talk about Taiwan. You can’t talk about Tiananmen Square. You can’t talk about the Uyghurs. You can’t talk about Tibet, the Dalai Lama—all these things that they are influencing and really trying to grasp the young minds of young students to say how great China is,” adds Bean, who was elected to Congress last November.  Bean joins today’s episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss a hearing his subcommittee held Tuesday, “Academic Freedom Under Attack: Loosening the CCP’s Grip on America’s Classrooms”; the Confucius Classrooms located throughout the U.S.; and what’s at stake if the U.S. isn’t able to counter the communist regime’s influence in American classrooms.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's only going to grow. Their influence is only going to grow. They also steal our stuff. They steal our technology. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, September 22nd. I'm Samantha Sherriss, and that was Representative Aaron Bean of Florida's fourth congressional district. Earlier this week, the subcommittee on early childhood elementary and secondary education held a hearing titled Academic Freedom Underage. attack, loosening the CCP's script on America's classrooms. In his opening statement, Representative Bean, who chairs the subcommittee, said that over 500 K-12 schools across the United States have allowed the CCP to establish itself in their halls under the guise of Confucius classrooms. But when you pull back the curtain on these cultural exchange centers, you find a CCP-backed agenda that undermines the principals,

upon which our education system is built. Chairman Bean joins today's episode of the Daily Signal podcast to discuss Confucius classrooms, how the Chinese Communist Party is influencing our classrooms, and much more. But before we get to my conversation with Representative Aaron Bean, I want to tell you about a podcast that is hosted by the Heritage Foundation. Whether it's high prices at the pump, EVs, or power grid problems causing outages, energy and environmental policy impacts you, your community, and our country.

And we're breaking down the how and the why on the power hour, a show on the Heritage Podcast Network. Host Jack Spencer brings in top experts to tell you what you need to know, from gas prices to gas stoves, and everything else in between, and what the decisions our leaders make means for all of us. Find the power hour on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, or just head to heritage.org slash podcasts. Today I have the honor of welcoming Representative Aaron Bean of Florida's fourth congressional district to the Daily Signal podcast. Representative Bean was elected to Congress in 2022 and is the chairman of the subcommittee on early childhood, elementary, and secondary education. Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

Samantha, what an honor it is to be here in your studio. Of course. Now, earlier this week on Tuesday, your subcommittee held a hearing titled Academic Freedom Under Attack, loosening the CCP's grip on America's classrooms. In your opening remarks, you said that the influence of the Chinese Communist Party is rampant in America's classrooms, and that over 500 K-12 schools across the United States have allowed the CCP to establish itself in their. Halls under the guise of Confucius classrooms. First and foremost, tell us a little bit more about

Confucius classrooms. So, first of all, China has been aggressively maneuvering itself in the world for decades. And I like to tell everybody, I think America has first woken up to the Chinese, the aggressive nature of the Communist Chinese Party. The wake-up call came in the form of a Chinese spy balloon and now Americans are waking up. So this conversation and study came from a report from a group called Parents Defending Education. They found 143 of what's called Confucius Institutes, which it's under the guise. The disguise is it's a goodwill move by China to put a cultural center. They give money. They give volunteers to teach the language and the culture. But what we've discovered, it's just a front to spread propaganda by the Communist Chinese Party.

And can you speak more to, you know, between this report and what we heard at the hearing on Tuesday, how the CCP is influencing our classrooms? Well, they come in and they sort of soft pedal their propaganda. But yet they also whitewash, history by eliminating Taiwan. You can't talk about Taiwan. You can't talk about Tiananmen Square. You can't talk about the Uyghurs. You can't talk about Tibet, the Dalai Lama, all these things that they are influencing and really trying to grasp the young minds of young students to say how great China is. And so we're raising that alarm. We're raising the red flag, really, to let everybody know this is happening and schools need to be aware of what's going on. And just regarding

the conversation, we've had Nicole Neely, actually, who was a witness on Tuesday on the show before to talk about the report that you referenced, a little red classrooms. Why was it important for you to not only host this hearing, but also bring attention to this issue? Well, let's call Nicole Neely what she is. She's a fireball, a fireball for freedom. And she stood courageously to say, this is happening America, let's wake up, because we just ignore it. So many people ignore it. It's important to know. She also has flagged. It's a red flag, by the way, so let's be clear what that is as well. But a red flag on, they're really focused on schools surrounding our military basis. So they're focused on kids, the sons and daughters of our service men and women at these bases. So they know exactly what they're doing. But people like Nicole Neely and the parents defending education have called, I guess, raise that flag.

said, this is happening America. We all need to be aware of it. Schools need to be aware of it. I'm going to tell you the biggest shocker. The biggest shocker for me, you were there. You were there, Samantha. You were there and you watched the hearing. The biggest, I guess I'm, you know, I'm a naive, new congressman. You know, I've been there nine months now. We came in and there is a lot of fighting between parties. And I keep thinking, what issue, what issue is going to bring us together. I would have bet the farm, yes, or whenever our committee was two days ago, I would have bet the farm that this issue, China invading America through our classrooms, you know what? This is going to be the issue that brings parties together. Shocker. They were on the other side.

Democrats seem to excuse it or say it's Asian American racism. They ignore the problem and how we want to welcome culture and how important it is to learn the language. So this is. This is not the issue that brought the parties together. So thank goodness there were a lot of folks like Dr. Virginia Fox who stood up for freedom, Lisa McLean, Burgess Owens, so many other patriots, Mary Miller stood up and said that we need to call the Chinese what they are, propagandists trying to take the minds of American youth. And you just brought up the military bases with these, you know, Confucius classrooms surrounding them. I think if I'm remembering correctly, they're, at least in the Little Red Classrooms report, there were 20 that they were able to identify around the military bases.

In terms of what you were talking about in your opening statement with, you know, the 500 K through 12 schools, where are some of those located throughout the country? There are 34 states. So you think if you're listening in, there's a great chance that your state has one or two in them. But to call attention to it, you know, Oklahoma had a hand. And we heard from Ryan Walker yesterday, who's one of the senior leaders in education in Oklahoma, that they started having a requirement that if you're accepting money from foreign influences, particularly the China, then that needs to be, everyone needs to know it. And he's had success with reporting requirements.

That's something that we need to study going forward to make sure that maybe that's an option to prevent, or at least let everybody know this is what's happening. Absolutely. Something I also wanted to highlight from the hearing that you talked about were the risks associated with Confucius classrooms. And you talked about how they're threatening America's national, geopolitical, and academic interests. First and foremost, let's talk about national security. What are the risks associated with Confucius classrooms in relation to national security? Well, we're just, we're allowing our enemy. And let's be clear. China is moving as an adversary. They are making strategic moves around the globe to thwart American influence. They're buying up mining rights in Africa and South America.

These countries do dominate a lot of the rare earth minerals that are the future of our production. They know exactly what they're doing. And so we need to wake up. They're promoting apps like TikTok that record and spy on our young people and everybody that is on those types of platforms. So all this information can and perhaps could be used against us in maneuvers going forward as they're getting aggressive and they're maneuvering. So that is definitely a national concern for us. And also, you know, just to continue on with geopolitical interests, if you could speak. more to that. Well, we just need to be aware. You know, they told us when this Chinese spy balloon,

the administration said, oh, don't be alarmed. First of all, it was a weather balloon. Then it was just simply off course. Then it was just following the winds. But yet it always seemed to hover over our military bases and just long enough to take multiple pictures. You know, in Montana, for some of our missile sites, I think it circled more than three times to make sure it got the the clear pictures. And only when it left airspace did we shoot it down. We were told, Samantha, we were told, don't worry, they're not recording. They're not taking pictures.

They're not doing anything. They were. Oh, we were told, don't worry, they're not transmitting in real time. They were. They were. So this administration, and that's another discussion of why they didn't shoot down the spy balloon immediately, are they compromised. That's another conversation too.

but it certainly has raised America's attention that China is not a friend. And then just finally, academic interests, if you could expand on this and, you know, sort of just walk us through what you talked about on Tuesday's hearing with regard to academic interests. Well, they want to rewrite history. China wants to rewrite history and that China wants to whitewash history. We want to be clear today. And so your listeners know we are not trying to be at war with the Chinese people. We're not trying to push back against the rich culture of China.

But it's the government. The government is the one that's actively being aggressive and trying to, as all the things we mentioned, that you can't talk about Taiwan and Tiananmen Square. We heard Brandon Williams, Representative Brandon Williams from New York, who was in China at the time, Tiananmen, Square went down and he also has a great story to tell of how that went down. And now that's erased from history if you're in China because we know they're not about freedom. They're about control and our heart aches for the 1.4 billion people that are under the control of tyranny and

repression. So that's something that we're standing up to. That's something that we're raising the red flag to and hopefully the hearing brought attention. And Samantha, I think we're already at a success. If you and this podcast is spreading that message, We're raising the flag that everybody needs to know that China needs to be watched. They're an aggressor. They're not our friend. They are an agitator and we need to put them in a corner. What's at stake if we aren't able, you know, in the United States to counter this influence of the Chinese Communist Party in our own classrooms?

It's only going to grow. Another topic on another podcast, we can talk about their infiltration of higher. of the universities that have accepted money from the Communist Chinese Party. What happens there? They continue to spread their influence. They also, Samantha, they steal our stuff. They steal our technology. And we've had hearings on college campuses, how they come in and they want to, you know,

they'll have a donor that will give this college money. But they always want to focus it on the computer lab or on the quantum physics department or whatnot. And they get their hooks into that technology and whatever. comes out, they steal it. So we're also telling universities they need to be aware of. They're, that they need to be keenly aware that China's on the move. And, and we just don't need to sell out for money. We need to be aware that this is going to have long-term impacts on our country if we're not aware of it. Absolutely. Congressman, just before we go, what are the next steps? You know, we have this hearing on

Tuesday. We had the witnesses come forward, you know, with regard to the Little Red classroom. report what happens now I think we're going to look at legislation just have reporting requirements that everybody that's accepted money from foreign influence needs to report it and needs to be widely known who's doing what and who's you know what they're up to and then really examine China who's been aggressively doing this so we need to let everybody know that they're out there they're on the prowl and so we need to be aware so maybe I don't know in the coming months, this is something that will be introduced.

Dr. Fox has talked about it. Our committee has talked about it and hopefully we'll have a product that we've got work to do because I've already mentioned there were people in our committee that refused to acknowledge that this is even a problem. And with that, I just wanted to give you opportunity, final thoughts. If there's anything, you know, key takeaways that you want our audience members to know about Confucius classrooms and the work that your subcommittee is doing. You've got a lot of people that want to keep our country free and strong and to be aware

that there are the countries, bad actors, that want to harm us as a country. And so I think you've got a lot of patriots in Congress that are working to do that. I want to thank you. That committee, Samantha, you get credit for sticking around. That was a very long committee. We heard from a lot of people. and for you to stick with us and then to talk about it on this podcast is certainly appreciated and to be committed. Of course, but we appreciate you coming into the studio.

It's such an important topic that we will certainly be continuing to follow. Congressman Aaron Bean of Florida's 4th Congressional District. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks, Samantha. Have a great day. And that's going to do it for today's episode. Thank you for listening to my interview with Representative Aaron Bean of Florida's 4th Congressional District. Make sure you subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you get your podcasts and help us reach even more listeners by leaving a five-star rating and review.

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