During a speech on Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized schools for self-censoring “out of fear of offending China.” And said that “So many of our colleges are bought by Beijing.”
Pompeo said the Chinese Communist Party wants “to influence American students as well, professors and administrators too. Look, they know that left-leaning college campuses are rife with anti-Americanism, and present easy targets for their anti-American messaging. That’s why they planted Confucius Institutes on our campuses. … Look, it’s why there are groups on campuses called Chinese Students and Scholars Associations here too. They’re directed and almost always funded by the Chinese embassy or a local Chinese consulate. Its purpose, to keep tabs on students and to press pro-Beijing causes. Now, you would think at freedom-loving places like Georgia Tech and institutions and scholars all across the world, administrators, school faculty would be more up in arms about the Chinese Communist Party’s outright theft and flagrant violation of freedoms that I’ve described, but we see it too seldom. Well, why? Why do schools censor themselves? They often do it out of fear of offending China.”
- Thursday, December 10, 2020
Friday on FNC’s “Your World,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) argued that similar to what one might see in a third-world country when a strongman “takes over in a coup d’etat,” the American left was engaged in taking over the way American citizens communicate, which could be a way to maintain power.
The Mississippi Republican U.S. Senator warned such an effort could threaten free speech, protected by the First Amendment.
