Welcome to the fifth installment of my “Tracking China in the Americas” series, in which I cover some underreported stories on China’s footprint in the Western Hemisphere. Last week, we talked about shoddy infrastructure, but this week we’re diving into the soft-power shenanigans that are aimed at shaping — and indoctrinating —an entire generation.
That’s right. China’s going after the young people in Latin America and the Caribbean, shaping future policy makers, business leaders, journalists, diplomats, and academics to be pro-Beijing. And the United States is, well… let’s just say we aren’t keeping up. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is offering thousands of irresistible scholarships and building educational programs and partnerships that teach students about Chinese culture, values, and language. But it’s more propaganda than pedagogy.
China’s education diplomacy isn’t a gesture of goodwill to these countries. It’s a subtle power grab. It’s a decades-long strategy that dates back to at least 2004, and it runs deeper and is more structured than most people in the U.S. realize. The CCP is getting to the kids in our own backyard and creating an entire ecosystem of future globalists — and supporters.
What Does China’s Education Diplomacy Look Like?
Technically, it dates back to the 1950s. Tsinghua University Professor Wen Wen said that even back then, “China sought to train foreign students to ‘know China,’ ‘be friendly toward China,’ and ‘love China.'” But it’s really ramped up since Xi Jinping assumed office in 2012.
Between 2004 and 2024, China built hundreds of Confucius Institutes, at least 45 to 50 of which are currently located in Latin America. These programs are designed to promote Chinese language and culture, support Chinese teachings, and facilitate international cultural exchanges. Kids learn Mandarin, can attend summer camps in China, and can even become eligible for scholarships to study at Chinese schools or simply spend time in the country. There are also the Confucius classrooms, which do the same, and are integrated into primary and secondary schools.
But, as the Wilson Center points out, this is just the tip of the iceberg: “China’s educational partnerships in the region — including through institutional arrangements, scholarship programs, research support, company initiatives, and other platforms — number in the thousands.”
Those scholarships often include “airfare to and from China, free accommodation, free tuition, a yearly living stipend, and instruction in international business, public policy, educational management, tourism and hotel management, environmental engineering, project management, social work, fishery science, international communications, and theoretical economics.”
In 2017, Xi announced his “Double First-Class University Plan,” which aims to build “world-class universities” and make China a global knowledge superpower by 2050.
Just this past May, at the China-CELAC summit, Xi promised 3,500 government scholarships and 10,000 training slots for CELAC members between 2025 and 2027.
As I said, this isn’t about goodwill. It’s a strategy that aligns with China’s national security and foreign policy goals. In 2022, Jake Gilstrap, author of the academic paper “Confucius Institutes of China in Latin America: Tools of Soft Power,” told Voices of America that “China is seeking to create a ‘generation of future leaders in Latin America, that through their close relationships and cultural understanding of China will come to view the world in a way that is more similar to China’s worldview.'”
It’s also obvious when you look at the specific subject matters China often targets, like mining, medicine, biotechnology, telecommunications, agriculture, energy, space research, and public policy. The dragon isn’t out in our hemisphere searching for women’s studies majors. It’s shaping the young minds who will one day run the industries it depends on to influence and control other nations, whether it’s for its own supply chain or geopolitical leverage.
Something else that helps this so-called education diplomacy spread quickly is that it’s decentralized. It doesn’t always come through a central CCP ministry, so it doesn’t look like some sort of government infiltration. It comes via partnerships with Chinese universities, private companies like Huawei, and Chinese cities and provinces. At first glance, it’s an organic web of individual programs with their own goals. But the reality is that it all aligns with CCP goals.
What’s at Risk?
That’s not the only sneaky thing about it. On the surface, these programs themselves don’t look like propaganda. There is no blatant brainwashing. The teachers and instructors don’t get into politics, but they also avoid sensitive topics involving criticism of China, like political freedom, censorship, or the repression of the Uyghur population. Parsifal D’Sola, director of the Andrés Bello Foundation’s China Latin American Research Center, told Voices of America that he fears that the heavy Chinese presence could influence Latin American professors to avoid talking about these important topics as well.
Potential case in point: In 2018, the National University of La Plata in Argentina, which is home to a Confucius Institute that opened in 2009, created a graduate program in Chinese Studies. Andrea Pappier, an Argentine architect who helped set up the institute and whose online presence indicates she is unapologetically pro-China, told Americas Quarterly that the graduate school had “24 students, from lawyers to economists and architects. What unites us is our passion to understand China and to link our work to that country.” She added, “It’s such a fascinating country, which I feel is greatly misunderstood here in Latin America.”
In 2019, Human Rights Watch published a report that also indicated that China was a threat to academic freedom, along with a Code of Conduct designed to encourage colleges and universities to combat CCP influence on their campuses. “Colleges and universities that stand together are better equipped to resist Chinese government harassment and surveillance on campuses, visa denials, and pressures to censor or self-censor,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at the organization.
Instead of brainwashing, China uses these programs and scholarships to essentially buy silence. Robert Evan Ellis, a research professor at the U.S. Army War College who specializes in China-Latin American relations, told the Miami Herald in 2022, “If you are a China expert in Argentina, you are not likely to criticize China’s policy toward Taiwan or China’s human rights situation. You will not want to be seen as disrespectful or ungrateful to your hosts, or to jeopardize your current and future contacts in China.”
In other words, students don’t become aggressive CCP activists, but they do become favorable Chinese voices. The Herald also points out that while there are more Latin American students attending colleges and universities in the United States, by far, they typically go on to the business world or do something in the private sector. The students who attend Chinese colleges and universities are more likely to come home and go into government roles, where they’ll create policy; academic roles, where they’ll mold minds; and media roles, where they’ll shape the narrative.
At one point, there were 110-ish Confucius Institutes in the United States, but in 2018, members of Congress — specifically Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and then-Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — began to express their concern over the political implications. Many schools, like Texas A&M and the University of North Florida, shut down voluntarily. In 2019, a law passed that would prevent schools that host the institutes from receiving funding for Chinese language studies from the Department of Defense. After the Human Rights Watch Code of Conduct was published, College Republicans and Democrats managed to find common ground and called for all schools to shut down their institutes. Most have — I believe there are fewer than five still operating here at home. Other countries, like Sweden and Australia, have followed suit. Latin America just hasn’t caught on, but I’d argue that no one has give them any reason to.
Suddenly, an entire generation loves China and welcomes it into every aspect of their lives — and their countries — with open arms.
China’s Education Diplomacy in Action
I had a difficult time finding exactly how many Confucius Institutes are located in each country, but there are at least four in Peru. Argentina has at least three. Honduras just opened one in May. The most current count I could find shows that they’re still operating in at least 23 countries in our hemisphere.
In 2019, Americas Quarterly wrote about a 16-year-old student who had been attending one for three years. “I remember reading a book titled Everything You Need to Know About China and I was immediately fascinated,” he said. At that time, he greeted his teacher in Mandarin and was learning how to write Chinese numbers in calligraphy.
That student, Felipe Araujo, also received a scholarship to visit China and “understand the country at a deeper level.” Upon returning home to Argentina, he decided that once he graduated, he would return to China for a six-month exchange program. “The world is becoming more and more globalized, and China’s role will only increase,” he said. “Those of us who study Chinese and understand China will have a leg up in the future.”
In other words, Felipe is the CCP’s dream kid, and there are thousands more just like him across the region.
In Peru, this type of “diplomacy” doesn’t end with students. “China regularly brings hundreds of Peruvian journalists, academics, politicians, and other government personnel to China for shorter trips,” according to The Diplomat. “This includes the targeting of Peruvian congresspeople, particularly those with leadership positions or belonging to the China friendship conference in the Peruvian legislature.”
An Update From the State Department
Well, here’s something kind of wild. As I’m literally writing this, the State Department just dropped an announcement that ties directly into this topic. Apparently, it’s taking over several programs that were previously managed by the Department of Education under a new interagency partnership, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA). The move aims to leverage “the State Department’s global reach and international education and public diplomacy expertise to advance U.S. national security and America First foreign policy priorities.”
The memo obviously doesn’t mention China specifically, but the fact sheet says, “This partnership [between State and the Department of Education] will allow State to oversee all foreign education programs. State is best positioned to tailor foreign language education programs with the national security and foreign policy priorities of the United States.” Amen to that.
In other words, it sounds like someone in the Donald Trump administration understands that educational opportunities are an important part of foreign policy and something we should act on — and encourage our schools and the private sector to act on — if we want to keep China out of our backyard. Let’s just hope it’s not too late to catch up.
In my Friday “The New Monroe Doctrine” columns, I always joke that Rubio isn’t handing me exclusives… yet, but it certainly feels like it today. We’ll see what happens.
Here are the previous weeks’ columns if you missed them:
1. China Is Making a Big Move in Our Own Backyard — but No One Is Talking About It — Just how much land does China control in Nicaragua?
2. Tracking China in the Americas: A New Column on Underreported Influence in Our Hemisphere — China is heavily invested in Bolivia, but the new Bolivian president-elect is 100% pro-U.S.
3. Tracking China in the Americas: When Beijing Controls the Capital’s Power Grid — China controls 100% of Lima, Peru’s electricity.
4. Tracking China in the Americas: Hongqi Bridge Is Falling Down — and Everything Else Is Too — When China signs onto a project, you can almost always expect less than stellar results.
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