Some Chinese Americans are expressing fear they are being profiled as spies for China as tensions with the U.S. rise amidst the tariff war being waged by the Trump administration.
The Huff Post reports Rep Francis Rooney (R-Fl) has introduced the Stop Higher Education Espionage and Theft Act.
Rooney explicitly pointed out the China-funded Confucius Institutes “as a front by the Chinese Communist Party to infiltrate American campuses to gather information and steal American technologies.”
“There is a massive Chinese espionage campaign against the West, but the institutes are more intended to build China’s ‘soft power,’” he said to the HuffPost.
A similar measure was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)
Cynthia Choi, co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action in San Francisco, scoffed at the idea.
“The proposed bill is a bogus attempt to whip up fear and animosity towards Chinese and Chinese Americans. This form of painting an entire group as spies and an existential threat to American universities and technology is just wrong,” Choi said also to the Huff Post.
Professor Chi Wang of the US-China Policy Foundation agreed.
“The US is my home. I have lived in the US for more than 70 years and worked for the US government for 50 years before retiring – and yet I am beginning to feel unwelcome here,” he said to the South China Morning Post.
Back in February, FBI director Christopher Wray warned that Chinese spies were embedded in American universities.
14 Asian American groups signed a letter protesting Wray’s comments.
“Our goal is to ensure that in discharging the FBI’s duties, the agency is aware of the many millions of innocent, law-abiding, and patriotic Asian Americans, in particular Chinese Americans, who are affected directly or indirectly by its actions and statements,” the letter continued. “No doubt you are familiar with the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, two-thirds U.S. citizens, for which Presidents of both parties have apologized and Congress issued redress. We would like to avoid such a situation in the future. Ongoing dialogue is crucial.”
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