The Chinese Student and Scholar Association (CSSA), formerly known as the Confucius Institute U.S. Center, is a People’s Republic of China-funded nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. The center employs public relations, advocacy, and research to promote the network of university-based and Chinese-government funded Confucius Institutes that have been established across the United States since 2004 to promote Chinese culture and language. Confucius Institutes are funded at universities with funds from China’s Office of Chinese Language Council International (known as Hanban). Similar programs have been initiated at U.S. primary and secondary schools.

CSSA chapters have been engulfed in controversy since coming to the United States in 2004 due to allegations the institutes suppress academic freedom at US universities, are controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and disseminate Chinese propaganda across the United States. ¹

As of 2025, the organization and its chapters rebranded as the CSSA. ²

Background

The Chinese Student and Scholar Association (CSSA) was founded in 2012 as the Confucius Institute US Center and was established to act as the Washington, D.C.-based think-tank arm of the global network of Confucius-linked groups across the globe. The center’s sole member and funder is the Chinese Office of Chinese Language Council International. The organization, known colloquially as Hanban, is overseen by a branch of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Ministry of Education. ¹

Hanban has sole discretion over appointment of the Board of Directors and Executive Director of the center. The center boasts that its location in Washington’s “Think Tank Row” gives it influence to use public outreach and advocacy to promote Chinese language and culture in the US, as well as promoting the nearly 100 chapters of the CSSA in the United States. The center offers professional development for the many Chinese language teachers sent to the United States by Hanban to teach at chapters across the United States, as well as many outreach and promotional campaigns. ³

While the CSAA claims to support 100 university-based chapters across the country, the right-of-center National Association of Scholars counted 86 active institutes as of February 2020, with three scheduled to close over the summer of 2020. ⁴

The most prominent area of focus for the center is “public outreach and communication,” which it states is to promote cooperation and cultural exchange between China and the US. The Center has partnered with the World Affairs Councils to launch the US-China Global Education Television Series involving interviews with prominent American officials and presidents of Universities that host CSSA chapters. The Center also hosts an annual gala at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. ⁵

As of 2020, the executive director of the CSSA, then known as the Confucius Institute US Center, was Gao Qing. Qing leads the center and represents the nearly 100 US-based CSSA chapters in the United States. Qing previously ran the CSSA, then Confucius Institute, chapter at George Mason University. While at Mason, Qing’s chapter received the “Confucius Institute of the Year” award. Prior to joining the faculty at George Mason, Qing worked for the US-China Policy Foundation, another pro-PRC public policy institute in Washington, D.C. that frequently partnered with CSSA chapters. ⁶

As of 2025, the organization and its chapters rebranded as the CSSA. ²

Controversy

The Chinese Student and Scholar Association (CSSA) has garnered significant criticism since the first chapter was founded in South Korea in 2004. The first chapter, then under the name Confucius Institute, in the United States came to the University of Maryland-College Park in 2004. Academics at many universities looking to establish Confucius Institutes in the United States immediately began to express apprehension at the idea of a Chinese government-funded center at their university. ⁷

In the years following their initial founding, CSSA chapters continued to grow across the U.S. and internationally, surpassing 500 locations at universities as of 2020. with nearly 100 installed at colleges and universities across the United States, including some of the nation’s most notable and largest research universities. ⁸

Hanban also funded hundreds of “Confucius Classrooms” in K-12 school districts across the US, usually as an agreement for funding Mandarin-language instruction in the school district. In some cases, school districts have announced plans to make Mandarin-language education required in their schools, prompting not only criticism about the CSSA, but also questions on practicality. The College Board, the large nonprofit best known for administering the SAT college entrance examinations, announced plans in 2014 to partner with then-Confucius Institute chapters to teach Chinese language and culture in 20 school districts in the United States ⁹

Alignment with the Communist Party

Critics have accused CSSA chapters of being a mouthpiece for the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a charge that Liu Yunshan, the Chinese Communist Party’s former First Secretary and head of the propaganda department, confirmed in a 2010 article in the Chinese Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily, stating that the PRC will “Coordinate the efforts of overseas and domestic propaganda, [and] further create a favorable international environment for us [. . .] With regard to key issues that influence our sovereignty and safety, we should actively carry out international propaganda battles against issuers such as Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan, human rights and Falun Gong. [. . .] We should do well in establishing and operating overseas cultural centers and Confucius Institutes.” ¹

Closures

Increased visibility of CSSA in the United States has led to the closure of over ten chapters since 2019, with more Institutes looking to wind down operations. Reports of the importation of Chinese propaganda and censorship have become commonplace at Institutes across the country, with instructors often told by Hanban to avoid any mention of Taiwan, Tibet, the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and banned Chinese spiritual teachings. A 2014 report from the American Association of University Professors urged colleges “to close their Confucius Institutes or renegotiate the agreement to ensure academic freedom and control.” ¹⁰

Federal Inquiries

In 2018, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the United States Senate that the FBI was concerned about the existence of CSSA chapters, then called Confucius Institutes, in the U.S. ¹⁰

In February 2019, the U.S. Senate issued a report condemning the then-titled Confucius Institutes in the U.S. calling for either stringent controls mor closure of the institutes. The 93-page report argued that the Institutes’ ostensible purpose of promoting Chinese language and culture in the United States is misleading and is a propaganda tool of the People’s Republic of China government. The report further slammed the institutes’ lack of transparency and accused schools of hiding Chinese government funding, stating that “Nearly seventy percent of U.S. schools with a Confucius Institute that received more than $250,000 in one year failed to properly report that information to the Department of Education.” ¹¹

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