Behind the Group That Controls Chinese Students in America

‘Fight with all their might for the motherland.’ Chinese students are pressured into advancing Beijing’s interests in America.Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images|January 09, 2026Updated:January 09, 2026One of Beijing’s most notorious influence operations in Western academia came cloaked under the guise of traditional culture and under the name of Chinese sage Confucius.Those entities—state-sponsored Chinese language programs called Confucius Institutes operating on American campuses—have since been exposed as a Trojan horse for Beijing’s propaganda, and most have shut down across the United States.