By Townhall Chicago News Staff
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has designated Confucius Institutes as a national security concern, according to the U.S. House Select Committee on China. Most university-level institutes in Illinois, including programs previously run at the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois, have closed in recent years.
A Chinese-government-linked program at William Howard Taft High School in Chicago Public Schools remains active, according to a caller to AM 560 “The Answer” who said he graduated from Taft and researched the school’s current programs during Wednesday’s broadcast.
The caller, identified on air as Bob of Buffalo Grove, said Taft maintains a Chinese Language Club that meets weekly and is led by two teachers. He said the school also holds an annual “Chinese Language Day” assembly featuring cultural performances.
Bob said Taft has a formal sister-school relationship with Jinan No. 9 High School in Shandong, China. He said about 30 Taft students took a field trip to the Chinese consulate in downtown Chicago, where consulate officials met with the group.
The website Radar Online reported roughly two months before the broadcast that a Confucius Institute-style program continued to operate inside a Chicago Public Schools building, according to the AM 560 broadcast. Confucius Institutes are Chinese-government-funded programs that the U.S. House Select Committee on China has said are used to promote Chinese Communist Party messaging on American campuses.
Co-host Jeannie Ives, a former Illinois state representative from Wheaton, said during the broadcast that Chinese state media has reported such programs are intended to help American students “experience China and fall in love with China.”
Ives said during the broadcast that she was not aware of any other Chicago-area high school running a similar program.
Details about the terms of Taft’s sister-school agreement with Jinan No. 9 and the full scope of the program were not available.
