In the ongoing series of scrutinizing China’s propaganda efforts, the Trump administration decided to scrap five China-funded propaganda initiatives that were disguised as educational exchange programmes. The Trump administration has been strict towards the interfering activities in the US and for the past two years, the US is focusing on restricting the so-called cultural and educational exchanges.
The decision came just two days after the US Department of State put severe but important travel visa restrictions on 92 million Chinese Communist Party members and their families. In its official statement, the department reiterated that it “terminated” many cultural exchange programmes with China namely – the Policymakers Educational China Trip Programme, the US-China Friendship Programme, the US-China Leadership Exchange Programme, the US-China Transpacific Exchange Programme, and the Hong Kong Educational and Cultural Programme.
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These terminations were in association with the Chinese Communist Party’s involvement in providing these incentives only to the members of the Party and not the regular citizens who are restricted from having the freedom of expression.
The terminated programmes were fully funded and operated by the Chinese government under an American law called the MECEA, which allows US government employees to travel using foreign government funds. This opened the means for the Chinese government to directly influence the internal working of the US government. These programmes reportedly targeted employees of the US Congress.
The Washington Times reported that the cancelled programmes were entirely funded by the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the National People’s Congress’ Foreign Affairs Committee, and in part of covert influence operations run by the party’s United Front Work Department. These agencies are engaged in destabilizing foreign governments and doing dirty work for the Chinese Communist Party.
This much-awaited decision by the Trump administration was welcomed by the American defence scholars who hailed the government for grabbing the Chinese threat by its neck. Since 2018, the Trump administration has been putting an end to educational and cultural relations with China. It shut the Confucius Institutes in their entirety and banned the issuing of visas to Chinese students and scholars.
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US Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe also accused China of being involved in numerous covert operations that targeted American policymakers to influence them regarding recently concluded Presidential elections.
The naked Chinese aggression which is against global peace is rightly being countered by the Trump administration. China’s false delusion bubble of its supremacy and grandeur is now being deflated very rapidly.
The decisions are taken by the US under the Trump administration, Australia under PM Scott Morrison, and India under PM Narendra Modi against the expansionism and bullying of China should be understood and implemented by other countries of the world. China’s promise of its peaceful rise was hollow from the beginning. Its desperation to acquire a strategic sphere of its own is causing consequences that are harmful to the entire humanity.
Its anarchic activities which exhibit the characteristics of a crime syndicate should be a reason of worry for every country on the planet. As China goes ahead with its malicious Border Road Initiative which is an example of neo-imperialism in disguise and its ‘Wolf-warriors’ defending it aggressively, the countries of the world who want peaceful prosperity will never be at rest. The Chinese bullying can only be squashed when nations of the world come out of their fear of Chinese wallet and unite against this shared threat.