【大纪元2020年12月12日讯】2020年12月9日,美国国务卿蓬佩奥在亚特兰大佐治亚理工学院演讲。以下是演讲视频(中英文字幕)、中文翻译和英文原文。
地点:佐治亚理工学院,亚特兰大,佐治亚州,美国
卡布雷拉校长:因此,这样的背景,他绝对具有令人着迷的背景,我感到无比荣幸-佐治亚理工学院所有人都感到无比荣幸,请加入我欢迎美国国务卿, 热烈欢迎。蓬佩奥国务卿。请。
蓬佩奥:谢谢。谢谢。非常感谢你。谢谢。感谢你的介绍。欢迎大家,早安。我喜欢文科院长在这里。当我在学校时,要确保我掌握了句号和段落,一切都正确,这始终是一个很大的挑战。我喜欢数学,零和一。卡布雷拉校长,感谢你今天对我的热情洋溢的介绍。我要亲自感谢你和林在这里接待我们的整个团队。我来的时候并不总是那么简单。特别是在这些日子里,所有要求都变得更加棘手。我感谢你的准确周到。
还要感谢佐治亚理工学院的所有领导人和学生,所有在观看的人,我感谢你们加入我,希望今天的对话愉快。我有一些开幕词,然后卡布雷拉校长和我将有机会进行热烈的交谈。
我知道我们有一位特别的客人,一些好朋友:前国会议员菲尔·金格里在这里。菲尔,很高兴见到你。尚布利斯议员,也谢谢你。当我被提名担任中央情报局局长时,尚布里斯参议员是如此亲切。他在情报界花了很多时间。你对我如此仁慈,帮助我弄清楚上上下下,我对此深表感谢。很高兴再次见到你。
正如卡布雷拉校长所说,我虽然在西点美国军事学院学习工程,但是我开个玩笑,不要开车穿过与我有关的桥梁。这是很久以前了。
我的一些同学最终进入了陆军工程兵团。我碰巧指挥一个骑兵部队。但是我可以告诉你,当你觉得M1A1坦克的加农炮视线模糊时,数学就变得非常重要。
我也要说,即使是国务院,你谈到了人们离开这个学院后有去从事外交职业的。在我的国务卿办公桌上碰到的第一件事是,在伊拉克的一座桥梁上有一座重要的水坝,它正陷入麻烦之中。我们如何挽救它,如何把资源用在一个困难的地方。我们有美国政府最好的工程师,其中一些人在美国国务院为我工作,试图找出最好的解决方案,最好的承包商,以及我们将如何保护巴格达和伊拉克人民。如果大坝倒塌,这个历史悠久的幼发拉底河河谷和底格里斯河河谷的下游地方可能遭受洪水侵害。因此,你在这里的所有工程师都去国务院网站state.gov。转到网站,仔细看一下。我们欢迎你在美国国务院的求职。
现在,你知道我没有迷路。我知道这是乔治亚州而不是乔治亚国。 (众笑。)但是重要的是,我来这里谈论今天面对的这个话题,因为在这里,美国国家安全与像这样的重要研究机构中发生的事情有着深刻的交集。
我会先讲一个简短的故事,今天也在这里说王飞凌教授给了我们一个解释。教授,你在哪里–我没看到你坐在那里?欢迎。很高兴见到你。
几年前,王教授去中国旅行,在中国境内遭安全人员逮捕。他被关押在一个秘密地点两个星期。王教授受到了审问和威胁。它们(中共,下同)想了解他关于中国的研究以及他在我的母校西点军校教书的经历。那些故事他能讲得比我好。但是它们认为它们可以恐吓他或者招募他,因为他是华人。
谢天谢地,他(王飞凌)今天能和我们在一起。值得庆幸的是,在来自很多地方领导的压力下,包括这所大学和卡特中心,他被释放了。
我认为我们可以从中得到的教训是很清楚的。那就是中共想得到我们拥有的东西,并且它们会不择手段来获取它。它们会偷我们的东西。它们将向中共的批评者施压,让他们保持沉默。它们会不惜一切代价。
我来到这儿与美国人民讨论的这个问题很重要,因为美国人必须知道中共是如何为了自己目的而毒害我们高等教育机构的,以及这些行为是如何削弱我们的自由和美国国家安全的。如果我们不自我教育,如果我们不能诚实面对正在发生的事情,我们就会被北京打败。
现在,我们这个国家,乃至整个自由世界,花了很长时间才明白中国(中共)今天的发展路线。事实上,我们还没有完全明白,世界各国也没有完全明白。
有人对此事负责,但是那不是最重要的部分,因为长期以来共和党人、民主党人、学术界、研究机构、商界的领导人都认为,通过与中国进行贸易和接触,中共会自我改革,它会放松,它会拥抱经济自由和政治自由,它会给世界各地的自由带来较小风险。
但是我们得到的却不是这样。相反,中共利用由此创造的财富来加强对权力控制,加强对中国人民的控制,建立一个世界上从未见过的利用高科技进行压迫的国家。
习近平总书记已经表明了他的意图。你只要听听他说什么就行了。他说,他希望完全控制国内局势,并使中国成为世界头号强国,而且他已经开始着手那个项目了。
他正在建设人民解放军队(中共军队),他操纵着国际组织为北京的利益服务。正如我们在电视上看到的,就在过去的两天里,他在全世界范围内进行着一场巨大的施加影响战役。
对于今天坐在家里的你们中一些人来说,这似乎是一个很遥远的事情,但是对于习近平来说,这是一个野心勃勃的行动。我必须说,他一直在关注着我们每一个人。
在过去的一年里,我曾经在华盛顿DC与美国各州州长,在威斯康星与州议员,与硅谷的科技领袖以及许多其他团体就此进行过交谈。我已经和他们谈过这个挑战。今天,我想谈谈在美国各地的学校,特别是研究机构,以及像我今天站在这里的地方正在发生的事情。
想一想,中国共产党的科学家并不是癌症治疗的先驱,我们是。生产安全的COVID疫苗的不是朝鲜的生物化学家,我们是。伊朗人在超级计算方面并不领先。不是,事实上,是我们领先。自由的世界和自由的人民产生了这些优越的结果。我们应该为此感到非常自豪。
但是我们有义务对其进行保护,保存,以确保从现在起10年,50年和100年都是如此。
因为在像这个校园这样的地方,科学家们已经开创了量子计算、人工智能、儿科技术,甚至包括可以在没有人类控制的情况下自主运行的机器人——我必须说这让我有点害怕。
你看,中共知道它永远比不上我们的创新。它有国有企业,但是那是一个独裁政权,以政府为中心。这就是为什么它每年送40万学生到美国学习,每年40万学生在我们的大学学习,都来自一个国家。这并非偶然。
中国国内的许多高端工业基地都是基于偷来的技术,或者从其他国家购买的技术,都不是国产的。
北京不希望中国研究人员留在美国。事实上,在他们接受训练后,它们希望他们回国。它们想引诱他们回国,目的只有一个,就是为社会主义祖国服务。
你看,中共的宣传机器不能容忍它们讨厌的美国人或中国人揭露它们破了产的制度,也不能容忍揭示中国人在自由社会中确实可以繁荣昌盛的事实。
它不希望你知道我要告诉你的内容。现在,让我们澄清一下。我想确保我的语言今天很准确。当我说“中国”时,我是在说中国共产党。像我们所有人一样,我爱和珍视我们的华裔美国人社区,以及生活在美国的华人以及也生活在中国的华人。我们要为他们提供好东西。
我要“真诚地”说,因为发生过像王鑫(Xin Wang,音译)这样的案例,他是加州大学旧金山分校的一名研究员,据称他隐瞒了自己是人民解放据(中共军队)军官的身份,一直在收集加州大学旧金山分校实验室的信息。好消息是联邦调查局逮捕了他。
还有,季超群在位于芝加哥的伊利诺伊理工学院学习电气工程。他曾试图应征参加美国军队,据称他隐瞒了自己与中共情报部门的关系,后者让他负责在自己工作的地方招募工程师和科学家。
这只是两个例子,但是更重要的是:中共为了获取有价值的情报,不惜动用美元,就像它们使用斗篷和匕首一样。
有许多美国学者经常在美国纳税人的资助下进行研究,但是被吸引到中共的人才招聘计划中。中共付给他们对他们来说很大的一笔钱,让他们为中共,或者在中国,做与他们当前领域相关的研究,然后经常利用他们的智慧成果来建立中国(中共)的军事力量。
一名来自我的家乡堪萨斯州的研究人员和哈佛大学化学系系主任都堕入了这个陷阱。大家想想吧。
国家情报总监约翰‧拉特克利夫(John Ratcliffe)最近把中共战略描述为“抢劫、复制、取代”。
但是,我想在国家情报总监的列表上再多加一个R,那就是“压制”(Repress)。
杨舒平是一名来自中国的学生,就在几年前的2017年,她在马里兰大学的毕业典礼上致辞,赞美美国“言论自由的新鲜空气”,她很快就被妖魔化,并且受到中共宣传机构的骚扰。我向你保证,虽然我不能告诉你一切,但是这不是巧合。
2018年乔治亚大学的一名学生在谈到中共秘密警察时说,“他们不断地骚扰我,要求我提供海外民运积极分子和持不同政见者的活动信息,他们对维吾尔人和藏族人的活动尤其感兴趣。”
校园里一些中共的最大受害者是无辜的中国人自己。这是一场悲剧。我们有责任监督此事。
另一个例子,在普林斯顿大学,就在今年,中国政治课的学生被迫在作业中使用代号,以免中共发现他们的身份并且依据严苛的新版《国家安全法》起诉他们自由表达对香港和中共的看法。就在这里,这一切就发生在美国,发生在美国学生身上。
美国学生谈论“安全空间”是为了躲避他们不喜欢的思想。中国学生需要安全空间来学习他们喜欢的思想。多么鲜明的对比啊!
在美国大学就读的中国学生也生活在恐惧之中,害怕他们在国内的家人会因为他们在美国课堂上说的话而被逮捕,被审问,被折磨,甚至更糟。
但是,中共并不仅仅针对中国人,它们也想影响美国的学生、教授和行政人员。
你看,它们知道,左倾的大学校园里充斥着反美思想,他们的反美信息很容易成为(中共的)目标。
这就是为什么它们在我们的校园里建立了孔子学院。在川普(特朗普)总统的领导下,我们的国务院已经明确表示这些孔子学院是没有任何好处的。许多已经撤掉了,许多校园已经看到了这一点,他们选择关闭这些学院。但是就在这里,在乔治亚州,卫斯理学院在梅肯(Macon)仍然有一个。
你看,这就是为什么校园里也有名为中国学生学者协会的组织。他们由中共大使馆或中共当地领事馆指导,资金几乎都是由那里提供。其目的是:密切监视学生,并推动支持北京的事业。
现在,你可能会认为在热爱自由的地方,比如乔治亚理工学院等机构,全世界范围内的学者、学校行政人员、学校教师都会更加愤怒地抗议中共赤裸裸的盗窃以及公然侵犯我所描述的自由,然而这种情形我们很少看到。
嗯,为什么呢?为什么学校要自我审查?他们这样做通常是出于害怕冒犯中国。
事实上,我必须得告诉你们,麻省理工学院没有兴趣让我到他们的校园来做这些评论。拉斐尔‧赖夫(Raphael Reif)校长暗示,我的观点可能会侮辱他们的华裔学生和教授。当然,没有什么比这更偏离事实的了。我的这番话正是要保护这些人,要保护他们的自由。
我必须说,对“伤害感情”的反对做出让步则正中中共下怀。它们密切关注着美国。这是中共在回应世界各地合理批评时经常说的话,大家可以看到。
这个党怎么可能知道中国人民的感受呢?从来没有人投票。
共产党怎么会知道中国人民的感受,因为没人会投票?
我们不能让中共利用政治正确来对抗美国的自由。我们必须保护和维护它。
绝不应该让所谓种族主义或者恐华症的虚假叫嚣阻挡对中共活动的彻底曝光。
可是我们经常看到美国校园在静静地接受审查。这是由中共推动的,其结果往往是远远背离了理想主义,我们的那么多大学都被北京收买了。
我跟大家说一说周维拉(Vera Zhou,周月明)的遭遇。
她是美国永久居民,来自中国,是华盛顿大学的大四学生。
2017年10月,也就是三年前,她去中国看望父亲。地方当局把她关进再教育营,在那里对她再教育5个月,软禁18个月,因为她使用了虚拟专用网络访问她学校的网站,也就是在我说话的时候,你们中的许多人正在做的事。
看我们这边,我们看到的情形是:我们的国务院团队、周维拉的母亲、中国人民的好朋友傅希秋(Bob Fu)竭力恳求华盛顿大学出面呼吁让她返校。
但是华盛顿大学联邦关系办公室主任,一个名叫萨拉‧卡斯特罗(Sarah Castro)的女人说大学不会提供帮助,因为它与中国有一笔数百万美元的交易。
现在,感谢上帝,维拉最终被释放并回到了美国,但不是因为华盛顿大学,也不是因为它与中共达成的交易。
美国教育部在过去几年发现,自2013年以来,美国学校从中国获得了大约13亿美元的资金。这只是我们所知道的。很多,比如哥伦比亚大学,很多学校都没有报告真实的数字。
这些学校还会做出哪些更多的糟糕决定?既然他们已经上了中共资金的钓钩。
他们将能够选拔哪些教授或保持沉默?
他们会迫使哪些教授合作,或者让他们闭嘴?
还有哪些盗窃和间谍行为他们会置若罔闻?作为结果,他们会达成什么交易?
你看,我们有很多事要做。我提出了一些模式和做法,每个美国人都需要了解。
我们需要对此做出反应,越早越好。我们的政府已经开始这样做了,但是还有大量的工作要做。
我们不能允许这个专横的政权窃取我们的东西,建立他们的军事力量并洗脑我们的人民,或买断我们的机构来帮助他们掩盖这些活动。
我们不能,我们不能让中共摧毁学术自由,学术自由曾保佑我们的国家,也保佑我们拥有像我今天站在这里的这样的伟大学府。
但是,我们需要你的帮助。
我们需要学生们的帮助,我们需要教师们的帮助,我们需要全美各级政府的帮助。我们需要受托人监督他们的捐赠基金,监督他们的大学与中共以及中共支持的集团达成的交易。
我们需要管理者关闭孔子学院,并调查由中共基金支持的所谓学生团体在他们的校园里到底在做什么。政府会提供帮助,但是我们需要人们协助我们。
我们需要科研人员警惕欺诈和盗窃,需要学术界抵制中共的钱财诱惑。
我们需要学生们能真正捍卫言论自由,捍卫他们自己的言论自由,包括那些在美国长大的人,尤其是在我们校园里的中国学生的言论自由,他们来到这里是为了学习,改善他们的权利和生活,享受我们在美利坚合众国提供给他们的自由果实。
我们需要你们团结一致,向当权者说出真相,抵制校方施加压力实施审查以便与北京达成交易,这种事情已经发生过多次了。
让我们行动起来吧。让我们高举自由的旗帜,捍卫我们的学校,捍卫这些机构的基础。这将有助于我们的国家安全,有助于抵抗我们这个时代的主要威胁——中共。
卡布雷拉校长,我期待着我们的热烈对话。
我感谢大家今天早上的关注。
愿上帝保佑乔治亚州和美国。谢谢您今天早上在这里来我。 (掌声)
The Chinese Communist Party on the American Campus
SPEECH
MICHAEL R. POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
DECEMBER 9, 2020
MR CABRERA: So with that background, his absolutely really has a fascinating background, and I’m incredibly honored – incredibly honored on behalf of all of us at Georgia Tech to welcome and please join me for a warm welcome to the Secretary of State of the United States, Secretary Pompeo. Please.
SECRETARY POMPEO: Thanks. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks for that kind introduction. Welcome. Good morning, everyone. I love having the liberal arts dean back there. It was always a big challenge when I was in school making sure I got the periods and the paragraphs, everything just right. I like the math, zeros and ones. President Cabrera, thanks for the very warm introduction that you gave me today. I want to personally thank you and Lynn for hosting our entire team here. When I come, it’s not always simple. And especially in these times, it’s even trickier with all the requirements. I thank you for getting that right.
And thank you too to all the leaders here at Georgia Tech and students. Those of you watching virtually, I appreciate you joining me for what I hope will be a good conversation today. I have some opening remarks, and then President Cabrera and I will have a chance to have a lively conversation.
I know we have a special guest, some good friends: former congressman Phil Gingrey is here. Phil, good to see you. Senator Chambliss, thank you too. When I was nominated to be the CIA director, Senator Chambliss was so gracious. He had spent so much time in the Intelligence Community. You were so gracious to me to help me figure out what was up and what was down, and I deeply appreciate that. It’s good to see you again.
As President Cabrera said, I graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point studying engineering, although I joke, don’t drive across a bridge that I had anything to do with. It’s been an awfully long time.
Some of my classmates ended up in the Army Corps of Engineers. I happened to command a cavalry unit. But I can tell you math matters an awful lot when you’re bore-sighting the cannon of an M1A1 tank.
And I’ll say, too, even the State Department – you talked about people leaving this institution going on to careers in diplomacy. One of the first things that came across my desk as Secretary of State was there was an important dam across a bridge in Iraq and it was in trouble, and we were trying to figure out could we figure out how to save it, could we figure out how to deploy resources in a difficult place. And we had the best engineers in the U.S. Government, some of whom worked for me at the United States Department of State, trying to figure out the best solution, the best contractor to bring in, how we would do this to protect Baghdad and the downstream places in this historic Euphrates River Valley and the Tigris River Valley from potential flooding should the dam collapse. So all you engineers out there, state.gov. Go to the website, take a good look at it. We would welcome your career in the United States Department of State.
Now, you know I’m not lost. I know this is Georgia the state not Georgia the country. (Laughter.) But it’s important that I come here to talk about the topic that I have in front of us today because this is the place where American national security intersects deeply with the things that happen at important research institutions like this one.
I thought I’d start with a quick story, by way of explanation. Professor Fei-Ling Wang is with us here today. Professor, where – I didn’t see you sitting? Welcome. Nice to see you.
Several years ago, Professor Wang took a trip to China where he was scooped up by security agents inside of China. He was held in a secret location for two weeks. Professor Wang was interrogated and threatened. They wanted information about his research about China and his time teaching at my alma mater, West Point. He could tell you the stories better than I could. But they thought they could intimidate him or perhaps recruit him because he’s ethnically Chinese.
It’s a blessing he’s here with us today. And thankfully, he was released after pressure from the leadership of lots of places, including this very university and the Carter Center.
The lesson I think that we can take away from this is clear. It’s that the Chinese Communist Party wants what we have, and they will do whatever they must do to take it and get it. They will steal our stuff. They will pressure critics of the Chinese Communist Party to keep quiet. They will do whatever it takes.
And it’s important to come and talk with the American people about this because Americans must know how the Chinese Communist Party is poisoning the well of our higher education institutions for its own ends, and how those actions degrade our freedoms and American national security. If we don’t educate ourselves, if we’re not honest about what’s taking place, we’ll get schooled by Beijing.
Now, it’s taken this country and indeed, the entire free world, a long time to understand the trajectory that China is on today. In fact, we’re not quite there yet everywhere in the world.
There’s no one to hold accountable for this. That’s not the important part. Because for a long time, Republicans, Democrats, leaders all across academia, institutions, commercial space thought that by trading and engaging with China that the Chinese Communist Party would reform itself, it would loosen up, it would embrace economic and political freedom, and it would present less risk to freedom around the world.
But instead, that’s not what we got. Instead, the Chinese communists used the wealth that was created by this to tighten their grip on power, their grip on power over the Chinese people, and to build a high-tech repressive state like the world has never seen.
General Secretary Xi Jinping has made clear his intentions. You only have to listen to what he says. He says he wants total control at home, and to make China the number-one power abroad. And he’s well on his way to working on that project.
He’s building up the People’s Liberation Army. He’s manipulating international organizations for Beijing’s benefit. And he’s engaging – as we have seen in TV only just these last two days, he’s engaging in a vast influence campaign all across the world.
And that may for some of you sitting at home today seem like a long ways away and very ambitious touch for Xi Jinping to make, but I must say he has his eye on each and every one of us.
Over the past year I’ve talked to America’s governors in Washington about this, state legislators in Wisconsin, tech leaders in Silicon Valley, and many other groups. I’ve gone out to talk to them about this challenge. And today, I want to talk about what’s happening in schools across America, especially research institutions and places like where I’m standing today.
Just think about it. Chinese Communist Party scientists aren’t pioneering cancer cures. We are. And it’s not North Korean biochemists that are producing safe COVID vaccines. We are. And Iranians aren’t ahead in supercomputing. No. In fact, we are. It is the free world and free peoples that produce these superior results. And we should be very proud of that fact.
But we have an obligation to protect it, to preserve it, to make sure that that’s the case 10 and 50 and 100 years from now.
Because on places like this campus, scientists have pioneered quantum computing, artificial intelligence, pediatric technology, even autonomous robots that can function without human control – and I must say that frightens me just a bit.
Look, the Chinese Communist Party knows it can never match our innovation. It has state-owned enterprises; it’s an authoritarian regime; it is a government-centric focus. That’s why it sends 400,000 students a year to the United States of America to study – 400,000 students a year studying in our universities come from one country. It is no accident.
Much of the high-end industrial base inside of China is based on stolen technology, or technology purchased from other nations. It’s not home-grown.
Beijing doesn’t want Chinese researchers to stay here in the United States. Indeed, after they’re trained, they want them to come back. They want to induce their return for the singular purpose of serving the Socialist Motherland.
Look, the Party’s propaganda apparatus cannot tolerate pesky Americans or Chinese nationals exposing its bankrupt system, or the fact that the Chinese people can actually flourish when they are in free societies.
It doesn’t want you to know what I’m about to tell you. Now, let’s be clear. I want to be sure that my language is precise today. When I say “China,” I’m talking about the Chinese Communist Party. I love and value, as we all do, our Chinese American community, and the Chinese people that live here in the United States and those that live in China as well. We want good things for them.
And I say “genuinely” because of cases like Xin Wang, a researcher at the University of California at San Francisco, who allegedly lied about being a People’s Liberation Army officer, all the while collecting information on UC-SF labs. The good news is the FBI nabbed him.
And Ji Chaoqun studied electrical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He tried to enlist in the United States Army. He allegedly omitted his ties to Chinese intelligence, which tasked him with recruiting engineers and scientists where he was working.
These are just two examples, but what’s more: the Chinese Communist Party deploys dollars just as much as it does cloaks and daggers to get its hands on valuable knowledge.
There are many American scholars – often doing research funded by American taxpayers – that have been lured into the Chinese Communist Party’s talent recruitment programs. The CCP pays them what is for them a fortune to do research related to their current fields for, or in, China – and then often uses the fruits of their brainpower to build its military strength.
A researcher from my home state of Kansas was caught up in this trap, as was the Harvard chemistry department head. Think about that.
The Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, recently described the CCP’s strategy as “rob, replicate and replace.”
But I want to add another “r” to the DNI’s list: I want to add “repress.”
Yang Shuping, a student from China, delivered a commencement address at the University of Maryland back in 2017, just a couple years back now. She praised “the fresh air of free speech.” She was soon demonized and harassed by CCP propaganda – propaganda outlets. I promise you, while I cannot tell you everything, that was no coincidence.
One University of Georgia student said of the CCP secret police in 2018, quote, “They have harassed me repeatedly and asked me to give them information about the activities of overseas democracy activists and dissidents, [and] they are particularly interested in the activities of Uyghurs and Tibetans,” end of quote.
Some of the CCP’s biggest victims on campuses are innocent Chinese nationals themselves, and this is a tragedy. We have a responsibility to police this.
Another example: At Princeton, just this year, students in a Chinese politics class were forced to use code names on their work, lest the CCP discover their identities, and prosecute them for free expression of views on Hong Kong and the CCP under its draconian new national security law. That’s right here. This happened right here in the United States of America. American students.
American students talk about “safe spaces” as shelter from ideas they dislike. Chinese students need safe spaces to learn of the ideas that they love. What a stark contrast.
Students from China at American universities also live in fear that their families back home will be arrested, will be interrogated, tortured – or worse – because of things they say in an American classroom.
But look, the CCP doesn’t just target Chinese nationals. They want 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. And under President Trump, our State Department has made very clear these Confucius Institutes are literally up to no good. Many have gone away. Many campuses have seen that and they’ve chosen to close down these institutes. But right here in Georgia, Wesleyan College still has one in Macon.
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.
Indeed I must tell you that MIT wasn’t interested in having me to their campus to give this exact set of remarks. President Raphael Reif implied that my arguments might insult their ethnic Chinese students and professors. But of course nothing could further from the truth. These are the very people that this set of remarks is intended to protect, to protect their freedoms.
And I must say, the yielding to the objection of hurt feelings plays right into the Chinese Communist Party’s hands. They watch America closely. It’s what the party says constantly in response to legitimate criticism around the world. You can see it.
And how would the party know how the Chinese people feel anyway, as no one ever gets to vote?
Look, we can’t let the CCP weaponize political correctness against American liberties. We have to protect and preserve them.
Fraudulent cries of racism or Sinophobia should never drown out a candid exposure of the activities of the Chinese Communist Party.
But we see too often on American campuses that there is silence and censorship. It’s being driven by the Chinese Communist Party. It usually boils down to something far less idealistic. So many of our colleges are bought by Beijing.
Let me tell you about Vera Zhou.
She’s a permanent of the resident of the United States of America. She’s originally from China and a senior at the University of Washington.
In October of 2017, so just on three years ago, she returned to China to visit her father. Local authorities put her in a re-education camp, a re-education camp for five months and under house arrest for 18 months after using a virtual private network connection to connect to her school’s website, something many of you are doing even as I speak.
Back here, we saw this. Our State Department team; Vera’s mother; Bob Fu, a great friend of the Chinese people, desperately petitioned the University of Washington to advocate for her return.
But the University of Washington, a woman named Sarah Castro, head of the federal relations office, said – she said that the university wouldn’t help because of a multi-million dollar deal with China.
Now, thank God, Vera was eventually released and returned to the United States, but no thanks to the University of Washington and no thanks to the deal that it had made with the Chinese Communist Party.
The U.S. Department of Education over the last years has found that schools have taken an estimated $1.3 billion from China since 2013. That’s just what we know about. Like so many – like Columbia – so many schools that have failed to report the true amounts.
What more – what more bad decisions will schools make because they are hooked on Chinese Communist Party cash?
What professors will they be able to co-opt or to silence?
What theft and espionage will they simply overlook? What business deals will get done as a result of that?
Look, there’s a lot of work to do. And I have laid out a pattern and practice that every American needs to know about.
And we need to begin to respond to this sooner rather than later. And our administration has begun to do that, but there is an awful lot more work to do.
We cannot allow this tyrannical regime to steal our stuff, to build their military might and brainwash our people, or buy off our institutions to help them cover up these activities.
We cannot – we cannot let the CCP crush the academic freedom that has blessed our country and blessed us with great institutions like the place that I am standing today.
But we need your help.
We need help of students. We need help of faculty. We need help of administrations all across America. We need trustees to police their endowments and the deals their universities are striking with the CCP and CCP-backed groups.
We need administrators to close Confucius Institutes and investigate what so-called student groups backed by the CCP money are actually up to on their campuses. The government will help, but we need people to assist us.
We need researchers to be vigilant against fraud and theft, and the academic community to reject the CCP’s financial siren songs.
And we need students to truly stand for free speech – the free speech for themselves, those who grew up here in America, and especially the free speech of Chinese students who are on our campuses, who are here to study and learn and to improve their rights, their lives, and to enjoy the fruits of the freedom that we provide them here in the United States of America.
Look, we need you all to speak to truth to power in solidarity when administrations exert pressures on censorship as has so often happened to project deals – protect deals with Beijing.
Let’s do this. Let’s carry forward a banner of freedom to defend our schools, what these institutions were built upon. It will aid our national security. And from the central threat of our time, the Chinese Communist Party.
President Cabrera, I’m looking forward to our vigorous conversation.
I thank you all for your attention this morning.
May God bless the State of Georgia and the United States. Thank you for having me here this morning. (Applause.)