Review of Chinese-owned US private schools and military academies sought by American lawmaker

Last month, Waltz raised the issue with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin in a letter, citing two US private schools with military training programmes that are owned by companies that have what he called “strong ties with the CCP”.

A Defence Department spokeswoman said that it would be “inappropriate to comment” on congressional correspondence but that the Pentagon was “looking into” the questions about the degree of national security threat posed by Chinese-owned private schools providing military officers’ training.

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It’s unclear how many such private schools there are in the US. Part of Waltz’s request to the Pentagon was that it survey all its Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) programmes at private schools and determine whether those schools are owned by foreign companies.

Such programmes focus on Army, Navy and Air Force training and include coursework on leadership, civics, geography, global awareness and US history. In 2000, the Army chief of staff told Congress that 30 to 50 per cent of graduating JROTC cadets join the US military.

One school Waltz cited in his letter to Austin rejected his claim that it was part of a CCP influence initiative as “patently false”.

“The education being offered at the academy has never been influenced in any way by any decision-making authority acting on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party,” said Marshall Willman, president of Florida Preparatory Academy in Melbourne.

On its website, the school says it was bought in 2017 by a “California-based investment company, Newopen USA” – without any mention of the firm’s Chinese parent, Newopen Group of Chongqing.

In his letter to Austin, Waltz said that Newopen Group’s chairman Zhou Dengguang had met with the head of the CCP-sponsored Chinese Entrepreneurs Association in 2021. “During this meeting, they discussed the national strategic development layout and greater resource cooperation,” he contended.

Willman did not address whether the alleged meeting took place, but noted that Waltz did not provide any evidence to support his claims. He emphasised that the JROTC programme at the school was run by two US Air Force veterans “with over 46 combined years of experience serving our nation”.

Since Waltz’s letter became public, Willman added, the school’s staff has been experiencing “hate speech” – “potentially placing our staff and students in danger”. He did not elaborate.

In his letter, Waltz also cited the New York Military Academy, whose alumni include former US president Donald Trump, noting that the school is located less than six miles from the US Military Academy at West Point.

In 2015 the academy was bought by a Chinese-owned non-profit group called Research Center on Natural Conservation; its director is Vincent Tianquan Mo, the founder of Beijing-based Fang Holdings, which operates China’s largest real estate internet portal. On the academy’s website, Mo is listed as the school’s secretary and treasurer.

In the interview, Waltz said that New York Military’s proximity to West Point could be a “coincidence” but that the question was whether Chinese companies were buying private schools in “certain key locations like Silicon Valley, or the Research Triangle in North Carolina or the Space Coast in Florida, or in proximity to our military academies like in New York”.

Waltz said that the school includes an Army JROTC programme, but in a response, the New York Military Academy said that it does not operate a JROTC programme.

Waltz’s office said that the academy was listed on JROTC’s official website at the time the letter was sent to Austin, adding that the programme was suspended in 2019.

“This doesn’t change the overall concern that private schools in America are being purchased by Chinese entities,” Waltz’s spokesman said.

With US-China relations plumbing new depths, Chinese investment in US sectors including telecoms, social media and agriculture has come under intense scrutiny from state and federal officials – Democrats and Republicans alike – across the country.

Increasingly, education has been a focus. Numerous Chinese professors working at top American universities have been accused of espionage and hiding their links to China. While some cases have ended in convictions, others have been dismissed by US courts.

Recently, several Congressional Republicans have also raised alarms over the CCP’s influence on primary and secondary school education through China’s “Confucius Classrooms” in an estimated 500 schools across the US.

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Last month, Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, the chairman of a new House select committee on China, said that the panel would “fight back” against the “malign influence” of the CCP wherever it affects American interests and national security, “whether that be in the private sector or in the classroom”.

Waltz favours expanding the scope of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), an inter-agency federal body charged with assessing national security risks involving foreign investments. Its focus is mainly on technology firms or products that can be transferred from civilian to military use.

“But we think that non-technology issues like farmland, like our private schools, should also be under CFIUS, and should also get a full review.”

“These acquisitions could be a part of the CCP’s belt and road infrastructure and global influence initiative in the American education sector”, he said, adding that it was “ridiculous” to “develop potential future military leaders” where the CCP “could be shaping school curriculum and activities”.

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