People’s Daily and Xinhua published a news report following the U.S. Department of State’s memorandum to rein in the use of J-1 visas for Chinese teachers at the Confucius Institutes. The report criticizes the U.S. memorandum for disrupting the educational activities at the Confucius Institutes across the U.S. The report used such subtitles as “unilateral halt baffling,” “political forces continuously vilifying (the Confucius Institute),” “U.S. public highly regards the exchanges.”
The report quoted insiders (informed sources) as saying that “the Confucius Institute class does not have the issue of accreditation because it does not count for subject credits or give degrees;” and “the memorandum is apparently a move to attack the institute. … There are indeed some political forces in American society that have, without justification, been attacking and defaming the educational activities of the institute.”
[Editor’s note: According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, a Department of State "memorandum, dated May 17, states that any academics at university-based institutes who are teaching at the elementary and secondary school levels are violating the terms of their visas and must leave at the end of this academic year, in June. And it says that, after a ‘preliminary review,’ the State Department has determined that the institutes must obtain American accreditation in order to continue to accept foreign scholars and professors as teachers."]
Sources: People’s Daily and Xinhua, May 24, 2012
http://world.people.com.cn/GB/17969508.html
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2012-05/24/c_123181802.htm
Chronicle of Higher Education http://chronicle.com/article/State-Department-Directive/131934