Companies with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are purchasing private schools with junior ROTC [Reserve Officers’ Training Corps] programs and military academies in the United States, warns Representative Mike Waltz (R-FL).
“It’s incredibly concerning that there are American private schools owned by companies with strong ties to the Chinese Communist Party,” said Waltz in a press statement. “From Florida to New York, there is clear evidence that the ownership of these schools are linked to our greatest adversary and it’s ridiculous that we are developing potential future military leaders through JROTC programs where the CCP could be shaping school curriculum and activities.”
Appearing on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle Thursday evening, Waltz, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, warned, “We have got to wake up as a country.”
“Chinese-backed private equity are buying up boarding schools, private schools, and secondary education all over Florida, New York, California, from what we can tell,” the lawmaker explained to host Laura Ingraham.
“And many of them have junior ROTC programs,” the congressman continued, observing the purchase of the schools “is a double win for the Chinese Communist Party.”
Watch The Ingraham Angle interview:
“One, they’re now putting Confucius Institutes basically into our elementary schools and high schools and having propaganda platforms to the next generation of America, including our military leaders going through the ROTC program,” he explained.
“And they get to send their elites there, you know, at probably a reduced cost,” Waltz noted. “So, this is a double win for them.”
The U.S. representative from Florida said the purchase of schools in America with ROTC programs by subsidiaries of companies with leadership with ties to the CCP “is part of the broader assault of the Chinese Communist Party buying up America, whether it’s our farmland, it’s in our educational system.”
“They have hundreds of thousands of students in our universities,” he observed. “Of course, we’ve seen the billions pouring into endowments, researchers in our labs that are stealing our I.T. We have got to wake up as a country.”
Waltz said future U.S. military leaders are already being “influenced by ‘woke leftist teachers.’”
“But now we have Chinese-influenced schools as well producing the next generation of (U.S.) military leaders,” he added, asserting that Congress should “put a spotlight on Chinese money across the board … and defund it and pull it back.”
Waltz’s warning comes as a Chinese surveillance balloon that had been floating across the United States was eventually shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, the U.S. Department of Defense reported.
The balloon, said U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, was “being used by the PRC [People’s Republic of China] in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States.”
In a letter last week to Austin regarding the purchase of American schools by companies with ties to the CCP, Waltz requested the defense department “survey all of its JROTC, NJROTC, and AFJROTC programs located at private schools across the country,” and the names of subsidiaries of foreign companies that might own them:
I write to you regarding the growing acquisition of American private schools by entities linked to the highest ranks of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Many of these entities are controlled by members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a body which maintains close ties between private sector wealth and the ruling party. I am concerned that Department of Defense resources are being allocated to support these private schools that may undermine our national security interests.
“These acquisitions could be a part of the CCP’s Belt & Road infrastructure and global influence initiative in the American education sector,” Waltz continued. “It seems they are focused in acquiring schools in parts of the country with advanced technology industries.”
The congressman listed both the Florida Preparatory Academy in Melbourne and the New York Military Academy as examples of military/private schools owned by subsidiaries of companies having top officials with links to the CCP:
Florida Preparatory Academy is located within the Space Coast Technology Corridor in Melbourne, Florida. In 2017, Florida Preparatory Academy was purchased by Newopen USA. This company is a subsidiary of the Chongqing, China-based Newopen Group. In 2021, Zhou Dengguang, Newopen Group’s chairman, met with the Secretary General of the CCP-sponsored Chinese Entrepreneurs Association. During this meeting, they discussed “the national strategic development layout and greater resource cooperation”. Florida Preparatory Academy has an Air Force JROTC program assigned to it.
“The New York Military Academy is located just 6 miles north of West Point,” Waltz added in his letter to Austin. “In 2015, the school was purchased by the Research Center on Natural Conservation, funded by Fang Holdings Ltd and controlled by Mo Tianquan.”
“In 2013, Mo Tianquan, was a delegate to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a political advisory body convened by the CCP as part of its broader United Front work,” he noted. “The New York Military Academy has an Army JROTC program.”
“With the ongoing military recruitment crisis, I am concerned that any students we recruit into the service from these CCP-influenced schools will have a sympathetic view of China’s political and strategic aims,” Waltz explained, asking Austin to forward the results of the survey he requested to his office.
– – –
Susan Berry, PhD is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Rep Mike Waltz” by Mike Waltz and “Jr ROTC” is by S.C. Air National Guard CC0.
