CLEVELAND, OH – On March 10, 2020 Cleveland State University (CSU) was one of 74 American colleges, universities and public school districts Republican United States Senator Charles Grassley forwarded a letter to with a warning about the Confucius Institute the Communist Peoples Republic of China was funding on its campus with foreign-sourced grant dollars. The concern from Grassley and other members of Congress has been that officials at universities like CSU have been operating under secret agreements that direct them to obey Communist China’s laws while ignoring our own.
Grassley warned of the unregistered foreign agents who were aiding Communist China’s “non-traditional” espionage activities right under the noses of “sanctuary city” elected officials and law enforcement officers in the 11th Congressional District. Cleveland, as a center of foreign espionage and a national security risk, was first exposed globally in 2016 during the Republican National Convention. The “Russian collusion” investigated by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller had roots to Cleveland where all the colluding players converged.
On August 13, 2020, Confucius Institute U.S. Center (CIUS) was designated as a “foreign mission” by the United States Department of State under the 1982 Foreign Missions Act. The federal law is codified at Title 22 of the United States Code sections 4301 through 4316. After the August 13, 2020 “foreign mission” designation, CSU officials were “required to notify the Department promptly (within 30 days) of the appointment of all foreign mission personnel, including all LE staff and part-time employees, and any dependents.” Confucius Institute officials at CSU were also required to register as foreign agents with the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
The definition of a “foreign mission” pursuant to Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 4302.a3(A) is a mission, agency or entity in the United States “which is involved in the diplomatic, consular or other activities of, or which is substantally owned or effectively controlled by a foreign government.”
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2021 and 2022 (P.L. 116-283, Section 1062) places restrictions on universities that apply for and acquire United States Department of Defense funding if they even “host” a Confucius Institute. That’s regardless of the source of funding. Hosting universities and public school districts are not authorized to receive a dime as entities that have agreed to operate under the Communist laws of the Peoples Republic of China.
The United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 (H.R. 4521) adds its own conditions on Confucius-hosting CSU applying for funding from the National Science Foundation and other federal funding agencies. The conditions are that American university officials and the Communist Chinese citizens they’re hiring as visa’d workers to teach and manage our schools cannot in any way acknowledge, obey or enforce a law of the Peoples Republic of China.
EJBNEWS reviewed the minutes from CSU board of trustee meetings prior to and after the August 13, 2020 designation of its Confucius Institute as a foreign mission by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The goal was to learn if CSU officials complied with or disobeyed new federal law mandates. EJBNEWS also sought to learn if the CSU Confucius Institute officials registered as a “foreign mission” with the United States Department of State as required. After the August 13, 2020 “foreign mission” designation, Confucius Institutes throughout the United States were “required to notify the Department promptly (within 30 days) of the appointment of all foreign mission personnel, including all LE staff and part-time employees, and any dependents.”
Minutes from CSU’s board of trustees 2020 and 2021 meetings don’t identify fired ex-CSU President Harlan Sands uttering a word to the governor’s appointed officials that Communist China’s unregistered agents on the university’s staff were registering or relocating back to China after their visas expired. The correspondence from Grassley and the United States Department of State do not appear to have been shared with the board of trustees and the public as a “receipt of communication” on the state governing body’s agenda.
Sands delivered no public report to the trustees about the U.S. Department of State “foreign missions” designation. There was no report from CSU’s legal counsel, Sonali Wilson, about the new federal law requirements imposed on its Confucius Institute. There was no order from the board of trustees David Gunning presided over as chairman in 2020 that instructed Sands to comply with federal reporting laws or close the Confucius Institute.
There is absolutely no published public record of CSU’s board of trustees adopting any resolution regarding the Confucius Institute that confirms spokesman Dave Kielmeyer’s email to Rachelle Peterson of the National Association of Scholars. Peterson released a January 2022 report of the “Confucius Institutes in the US that are closing” and quoted Kielmeyer.
“Cleveland State University evaluates its programs and partnership agreements on regular basis and make adjustments as needed to ensure we focus our efforts and resources on university strategic priorities. The university terminated its agreement with the Confucius Institute in March. The institute will end operations and close this September.”
Despite Kielmeyer’s emailed claim that CSU’s Confucius Institute’s contract was cancelled in March 2021, and was closing in September 2021, the university still maintains a Confucius Institute web page and identifies Zhou as its director. Grace H. Huang, Wenzheng Liu and Janine Handlovic are still identified as employees.
Another current CSU web page explains its MASTER OF EDUCATION PreK-12 Education in Chinese Language degree program. For information about the Chinese language degree readers are referred to the Confucius Institute. The page exists under the heading of the College of Education & Human Services.
A search of the USDOJ’s registry of foreign agents reveals that Zhou, Huang, Liu, Handlovic, Jianping Zhu, Edward Hill and Lih-Ching C Wang have not ever registered as agents of Communist China. After the August 13, 2020 “foreign mission” designation, CSU’s Confucius Institute continued to operate despite mandated duties imposed on its officials to obey federal espionage, immigration, labor and foreign mission reporting laws.
CSU officials are either hiding the grant money from Communist China as a bulk and renamed contribution; or continuing to operate the “foreign mission” using federal and state funds as a generic “international” program.
The trail of public records that should exist about the unregistered “foreign mission” since its 2008 inception do not exist in the published agendas and minutes of the board of trustees. If CSU’s board of trustees authorized past president Michael Schwartz to enter an agreement with the Peoples Republic of China’s unregistered agents to host a Confucius Institute the contract is not identified in the public records. None of the dollars CSU presidents Schwartz, Ronald Berkman and Sands received from the Communist Peoples Republic of China appear to have been openly discussed during CSU board of trustee meetings.
One of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) concerns has been the intentional acts of concealment American and foreign university officials operating Confucius Institutes and “international” programs have conspired to violate at the direction of the foreign government’s unregistered agents. When asked for copies of Confucius Institute contracts, personnel records and communications between the Chinese aliens in our universities and their “handlers” in Communist China they’re instructed to resist the release of the public information.
The absence of a public discussion about the Confucius Institutes by CSU’s criminally derelict past board of trustees and administrative officers violates Ohio’s “Sunshine Laws” and acts to obstruct the state’s official business. EJBNEWS was threatened with litigation by CSU deputy legal counsel Kelly Marie King for publishing examples of the type of immigration records that should be found in Indian alien Nigamanth Sridhar’s personnel file.
China’s “ministers” of education, foreign affairs and culture are all officials of the Communist Party of China. Communism is outlawed in the United States of America under the National Security Act of 1950 and the Communist Control Act of 1954. CSU officials have no special authority under the Logan Act of 1799 and the Espionage Act of 1917 to communicate and exchange information with the officials of foreign and Communist governments.
The Confucius Institute at CSU was established on August 8, 2008. Communist China’s Ambassador to the United States, Zhou Wenzhong, visited the state university to announce that it would receive an initial $120,000 grant with an opportunity to receive more. It was described in Cleveland.com as a way to teach Americans the Chinese language so we could communicate with Chinese business investors. Confucius Institutes exist as an extension of the Communist Party of China’s “soft power” diplomatic strategy. Some published reports show Communist China as investing more than $10 billion to embed its citizens in American institutions and those of dozens of other strategic nations.
Since 2008 the Confucius Institute at CSU provided Communist China with a pipeline to infiltrate its “nationalized” and “militarized” citizens into the United States of America and embed them at CSU, Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), the University Akron, Kent State University, University of Toledo and Ohio State University. Locally, Confucius Institute “cells” were expanded from the universities into local school districts in Cleveland, East Cleveland, Cleveland Heights and Westlake.
In Cleveland the Confucius Institute at CSU hosted summer Chinese cultural “immersion camps.” Inside Ohio’s universities and public schools citizens of Communist China were given “facultied” and “student” access to the university’s information, technologies and administrative controls.
Children in American schools were falsely taught that Communist China is the #1 world power. America should consider the impact public school educators who were indoctrinated by a Confucius Institute will have on the minds of American children they’ve been brainwashed to teach that China is superior to us.
CSU board of trustees institutionalized the foreign infiltration and visa law violations by appointing Communist Chinese national Jianping Zhu as its provost. The former member of the Peoples Liberation Army, who arrived in the United States from China on a student visa in 1986, was allowed to hire over 200 employees, the majority of them foreign, in six years.
In 2020 Zhu received a “Scientific & Technological Achievement Award” from Communist China’s Ministry of Aerospace Industry during the “Artificial Intelligence & Security“ portion of its 6th International Conference in Hohhot, China. The conference was held from July 17 – 20, 2020 and included reports from more than 1000 information sharing Communist Chinese citizens embedded in universities in nations throughout the world.
Service in China’s Peoples Liberation Army is a compulsory part of the Communist nation’s education system pursuant to Article 55 of the Constitution of the Peoples Republic of China. “It is a sacred duty of every citizen of the People’s Republic of China to defend his or her motherland and resist invasion. It is an honoured obligation of the citizens of the People’s Republic of China to perform military service and to join the militia forces.”
Students in China’s middle schools, high schools and colleges attend two to four week military boot camps during each each elevation of their education. Those 18–22 years of age must register with China’s selective service and commit to two years of military service in the Peoples Liberation Army. Chinese men and women arriving in the United States to study have already been militarized by the Peoples Republic of China beginning in middle school.
United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) indictments identify Communist Chinese nationals working in all levels of American institutions who are engaged in acts of theft of national security and technology secrets. The FBI has accused members of the Peoples Liberation Army to be the orchestrators of the Equifax hack that resulted in the personal data of 143 million Americans being stolen.
At all times Zhu was required to obey every applicable “American” federal and state law as he discharged the statutory duties of a CSU official found in section 3344 of the Ohio Administrative Code. In hiring Zhu it was CSU’s mandatory federal law “duty” to submit paperwork to the United States Department of Homeland Security affirming that no qualified American wanted the $340,000 a year job. It was also the “specific performance” duties of CSU’s attorneys to guide its officials to obey only the constitutions and laws of the United States and Ohio.
Every foreign student or H1B worker comes with a “return home” expiration date of 3 years. H1B visa workers get one pre-approved extension for one year. CSU is proliferated like other universities and public schools with foreign students and workers who’ve never left on or before their visa expiration dates; and who are remaining, working and studying here unlawfully with the help of foreign “administrative” insiders like Zhu.
A review of the 177-page personnel record of an alleged H1B visa’d worker hired 18 years ago shows numerous blank spots where required information about his visa and citizenship status is mandated to have been obtained and signed off on by Zhu. H1B visas expire in three years. Indian alien Nigamanth Sridhar arrived in the United States of America from India in 1999 to earn a post-doctoral degree in math from Ohio State University. His student visa expired in 2002.
Instead of returning to India, Sridhar applied for a teaching job at Cleveland State University and was hired in 2004. CSU’s personnel file for Sridhar does not include any official document proving its officials sought permission to contract with and appoint the alleged H1B visa’d worker to positions as professor and now interim vice provost. Sridhar’s been working since 2004 and voting under the undocumented claim from CSU attorney King that he’s been an American citizen since 2016.
Like China, Communism has been embraced by India since 1920.
