Hostility to China unites young Democrats and Republicans

04.06.2020, Washington.

Both the College Republican National Committee and the College Democrats of America (national organizations for college and university students) signed a joint open letter asking to ban the Confucius Institutes at U.S. college campuses across the country, Fox News reports on June 3.

“The Chinese government’s flagrant attempts to coerce and control discourse at universities in the United States and around the world pose an existential threat to academic freedom as we know it,” the message states. “It is a civic and moral imperative that we protect that freedom.”

The youth wings of both US parties then repeat accusations against the PRC for violating the rights of Uighurs and Tibetans and for other “crimes against humanity“.

The Confucius Institute is a network of educational centers that aims to promote Chinese culture as well as study of the Chinese language by foreigners, and exchanging students and teachers between China and other countries.

Editorial comment

According to the British philosopher and sociologist Karl Popper’s two-volume work The Open Society and Its Enemies, concept of an “open society”, which Popper introduces in contrast to a “totalitarian” one, is only stable if there is an image of an enemy to unite it.

The story with the Confucius Institute is a telling illustration of this principle. Outright hatred toward the Chinese organization was able to unite the youth representatives of both parties even at a time when the country is being torn apart by mass riots, and both parties are already at each other’s throats.

Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency

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