Old Dominion News

Parents Defending Education, an education activism group, has written to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares to ask that the offices investigate reports of Chinese groups infiltrating school districts in Fairfax County.

According to a March 8 release from the agency, Vice President Caroline Moore sent the letter to Youngkin and Miyares, writing that the members are "concerned" about a possible link between groups linked to the Chinese government that are funding schools in Fairfax County School District, specifically between Thomas Jefferson High School and the TJ Partnership Fund. The letter claimed Chinese groups have donated more than $1 million to the TJ Partnership Fund in the past nine years.

"We ask that the Office of the Governor of Virginia promptly investigate foreign funding to the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology through the TJ Partnership Fund, act swiftly to remedy any unlawful policies and practices, and order appropriate relief," Moore wrote in the letter.

According to Fox News, Thomas Jefferson High School, a STEM school, has received more than $1 million in donations from Chinese-backed groups since 2014. While it is uncertain if these funds have been directly used to support critical race theory (CRT) and transexual education materials, critics have questioned if there is a connection between the donations and the district's support of controversial materials. Wai Wah Chin, founding president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, argued that the donations are an attempt at "soft propaganda" meant to divide Americans. 

"We don't know that there's any direct money going into the programs to teach CRT and trans, although those [are] two items that they're pushing," Chin said. "So if you wanted to make your people divided, this is the one way of doing it."

The donations came through the Thomas Jefferson Partnership Fund (TJPF), which was established in 2013 to raise funds for the school's renovation project, Fox News reported. A donor list obtained by Parents Defending Education showed all gifts and pledges to the renovation campaign as of June 30, 2015, and other donations since the campaign's launch in 2013. The TJPF received money from three Chinese-affiliated groups over the past decade, including Shirble HK, Tsinghua University and the Ameson Foundation. The campaign eventually raised more than $8 million, the group stated.

Chin told Fox News that Beijing has historically deployed the tactic of funneling money into American intellectual institutions to push its own propaganda initiatives using "soft power." Chin argued that this practice is not new, and Beijing seeks to influence the way Americans think about China. For example, she said, the Confucius Institutes are funded by the Chinese government and used to promote a certain perspective on China in American educational institutions.

A National Association of Scholars (NAS) Report found that 106 Confucius Institutes have closed or are closing but continue to operate in a similar fashion. As of September 2022, NAS reported that 15 Confucius Institutes remain in the U.S., with one at Stanford University in California. Many Confucius Institutes were rebranded as the Chinese International Education Foundation, formerly known as Hanban, which NAS says continues to allow the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to influence American higher education.

The Heritage Foundation calls Confucius Institutes a critical component of China's "soft war" against the U.S., intended to spread favorable impressions of China. Li Changchun, a CCP propaganda leader, called Confucius Institutes “an important part of China’s overseas propaganda setup.”