China’s Communist Party Buying Access to US High Schools

The Chinese Communist Party has pursued a decades-long, multilayered strategy to embed its influence in American education, adapting each time federal investigations closed one channel.

At the university level, Confucius Institutes, Chinese government-funded language and culture centers, peaked at 118 in 2017. In August 2020, the Trump administration designated their US coordinating office a Chinese “foreign mission,” and Congress cut off Pentagon funding to host universities. By 2023, fewer than five remained.

However, the K-12 version of the program, Confucius Classrooms, was never subjected to the same pressure. The State Department reported in 2020 that there were about 500, more than the number of university-level institutes at their peak. No equivalent disclosure law or funding threat targeted school districts. A 2023 investigation by Parents Defending Education found that 143 school districts, including 20 near military bases, were still running Confucius Classroom-style programs.

The same pattern has resurfaced in a new form: the Young Envoys Scholarship (YES) program, administered by the China Education Association for International Exchange (CEAIE). The organization states on its Chinese-language website that it is guided by Marxism-Leninism and Xi Jinping Thought and that it “integrates the Party’s work into the entire process of the association’s operations.”

YES has already reached 83 universities and 27 K-12 schools across 30 states, including Taft High School and at least three other Chicago Public Schools campuses. It operates with essentially none of the federal oversight that eventually reined in Confucius Institutes.

Beijing’s objective through YES is blatant. Chinese officials describe it themselves: bring as many young Americans as possible into direct, positive contact with China. Xi Jinping set a target of bringing 50,000 American students to China over five years so that they return as “messengers” of friendship, in the Chicago consulate’s words. According to one participating school official, they will become “multipliers” whose influence will “triple and quadruple” as they carry favorable views of China back into their communities.

The mechanism is emotional and experiential rather than curricular. It includes fully or heavily subsidized trips, personal outreach from Xi Jinping to individual students and schools, staged cultural immersion, and extensive coverage in Chinese state media. As a Parents Defending Education investigation documents, these programs are designed to shape “how youth in the United States view China” before those students are old enough to become policymakers, business leaders, or voters.

US officials have characterized this as a long-term soft-power investment. In 2018, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned of a Chinese “whole-of-society” influence campaign. The House Select Committee on the CCP later identified CEAIE as a “United Front” group. This is not espionage in the traditional sense but a calculated bet that today’s goodwill-primed exchange student will become tomorrow’s official, executive, or teacher who instinctively gives Beijing the benefit of the doubt.

On December 1, 2025, Taft High School Principal Ryan Glowacz and Mandarin teacher Chaoyi Li signed a memorandum with Shandong Jinan No. 9 High School during a ceremony at the Chinese Consulate in Chicago. The Chinese school’s report said the agreement established a framework for joint curriculum development, teacher training, student and teacher exchanges, and cultural programs. Taft subsequently accepted a Chinese government-funded trip for about 20 students to visit China in 2027.

YES sponsorship links run through the U.S. Heartland China Association, the U.S.-China Business Council, and Wanxiang Group. YES program materials state that Chinese host institutions cover accommodations, meals, transportation, and activities for American participants, who typically pay only for airfare and insurance. The Chinese Embassy also waives the visa fee.

Some trips go further. The Epoch Times reported that the Muscatine Community School District said the Chinese government fully funded a January 2024 trip for 24 students and four educators, including airfare.

What is happening in Chicago Public Schools is a rebranded version of a strategy the CCP previously used through Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms. It combines CCP-linked educational organizations, subsidized travel, school partnerships, teacher training, curriculum cooperation, consulate-sponsored events, and follow-up networks intended to maintain relationships with participating students.

Unlike university Confucius Institutes, these programs reach minors inside public schools, which lack the faculty senates, academic-freedom protections, and federal research-security offices found at universities. Oversight falls primarily to school boards and parents, yet the Taft memorandum, funding terms, and joint curriculum-development plans have not been made public. Those records should be disclosed before Chicago students travel to China in 2027.

The CCP is always looking for a soft spot. As the Trump administration fights Chinese infiltration and espionage at the university level, the CCP has expanded its focus to K-12 schools, which currently receive little federal oversight. It is no coincidence that this program has focused on blue, liberal Chicago rather than conservative Tennessee or Texas.  Conservatives tend to take the China threat more seriously than the party that is now electing democratic socialists to office.