China is influencing American K-12 classrooms and universities to shape how Americans view the country, according to a report by the watchdog group Defending Education.
Defending Education released its report "Little Red Classrooms" Thursday, stating that at least 83 universities and 26 K-12 schools across 30 states have participated in China's Young Envoys Scholarship (YES) program.
The YES program is run by the China Education Association for International Exchange (CEAIE), which facilitates study abroad opportunities for American youth “to deepen and expand cross-cultural understanding among countries.”
“These aren’t just cultural trips," Reagan Dugan, director of the education initiative at Defending Education, told The Christian Post. "They’re an integral part of China’s broader soft power strategy aimed at infiltrating America’s classrooms."
According to the report, CEAIE states on its Chinese website that it is guided by “Marxism-Leninism” and "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism" and must “always adhere to the leadership of the Party and integrate the Party’s work into the entire process of the association’s operation and development.”
Dugan noted that federal pressure resulted in the closure of Confucius Institutes “after Congress saw what they were.”
“The Young Envoys Scholarship program does the same work under a name most Americans have never heard,” Dugan stated. “Its operator’s own charter commits to ‘adhere to the overall leadership of the Communist Party of China’ and to carry out Party activities.”
"Disclosure requirements need to catch up," he continued. "American students and families deserve to know if their school is partnering with a CCP operation.”
The China Education Association for International Exchange did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment. This article will be updated if a response is received.
In November 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping invited 50,000 U.S. students to study abroad in China over the next five years through the YES program.
“CEAIE oversees 31 provincial associations, local chapters in 16 major cities, and its members include institutions from the ‘entire education sector in China,'" Defending Education’s report stated. "CEAIE has ‘established a wide network with partner associations and institutions at home and long-term working [relationships] with over 170 educational organizations in more than 50 countries and regions.'"
Defending Education contends that CEAIE is devoted to "enhancing its soft power through more engagements in bilateral and multilateral cooperation.'"
Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), issued a warning about CEAIE in an August 2025 letter to Montgomery County Public Schools in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Moolenaar wrote that CEAIE “presents itself as a ‘non-profit social entity’ engaged in benign international educational exchanges,” but warned that “it conceals the organization’s ideological motive and its ties to the CCP from foreign audiences.”
In its report, Defending Education highlighted several of the trips U.S. students have taken, including a University of Chicago delegation that visited the Beijing People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.
The Iowa-based Muscatine High School took a 2024 trip that prompted Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, to label it “a national security concern” that reflected “the CCP’s widespread influence across the U.S.”
The Chinese president later wrote to one of the students, referring to her as his “friend.” The high school’s trip was also fully funded by the Chinese government, Defending Education reported.
This article was originally published by The Christian Post.
