University of Montana Defies Call to Shutter Program Linked to Chinese Influence Operation

The University of Montana defended its partnership with an organization tied to the Chinese Communist Party’s political-influence apparatus, after the House select committee on China asked that the academic exchange be shut down last month.

The program, which involves an educational trip to China, is hosted by an institute founded by former U.S. ambassador to China Max Baucus, a Democrat who had served six terms as one of the state’s senators.

Baucus, who served in Beijing during President Obama’s second term, has since become a voice loudly advocating an accommodating posture toward Beijing and has pointedly criticized the committee and its chairman, Representative Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.).

In remarks to Politico on Monday, Baucus took aim at the House select committee’s work: “It seems to be more anti-China than it is honest to goodness constructive investigation of how to deal with this relationship,” he said.

The interview followed the committee’s decision to request information from the Baucus Institute over the partnership with the Chinese U.S. Exchange Foundation, which Gallagher warned is a Chinese influence operation.

During the Baucus Institute’s previous study trips to China, students traveled across the country at CUSEF’s expense, taking classes in comparative law and attending meetings with China’s ministry of foreign affairs and the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries — a group accused of “malignly” influencing American lawmakers. CUSEF’s founder is former Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee-hwa. Tung now serves as a vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, the main coordinating mechanism of the party’s united-front apparatus — the sprawling political ecosystem through which it influences non-CCP members in China and across the world.

CUSEF-sponsored educational programs have previously caused controversy. Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) raised concerns about CUSEF’s plan to fund a program at the University of Texas at Austin in 2018, leading the school to scrap it.

That’s why Gallagher referred to CUSEF as “an organ of the CCP’s approach to influence operations” in a December letter to University of Montana president Seth Bodnar asking that he end the program and put in place a robust vetting process for future exchanges.

But the university vigorously defended the partnership with CUSEF, with Bodnar leaning into his military service to defend its collaboration with a Chinese Communist Party influence operation.

“As a former Special Forces officer, I understand firsthand the threats to freedom posed by foreign adversaries,” he told National Review last month. “This program is in complete compliance with state and federal law.”

A University of Montana spokesman further defended that position by pointing to the fact that CUSEF is not on the consolidated screening list of entities with which Americans are prohibited from trading. The spokesman also said the school is in compliance with a Montana law that requires disclosure of partnerships with foreign countries of concern.

“Rather than shrink opportunity, it is our responsibility to expand learning experiences for our students so that America can compete and win around the globe,” Bodnar said.

While the university spokesman said that none of its own students are currently signed up for the Baucus Institute’s 2024 iteration of the program, the Baucus Institute has not yet opened the application form for the trip.

Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow in Indo-Pacific studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, told National Review that “merely complying with federal and state law doesn’t ensure national security. The Chinese Communist Party routinely exploits America’s open political system via legal means.”

“Many American universities simply care more about securing lucrative funding than insulating their students and curriculum from the malign influence of foreign adversaries,” said Sobolik, a former staffer to Cruz. “This was a problem six years ago when concerns about CUSEF were initially raised by Senator Cruz. Clearly, it’s still a problem in 2024.”

In comments to National Review last month, a spokesperson for the House committee’s majority doubled down on its recent warnings about how the party uses united-front work as a “magic weapon” to undermine democracies. “The Chairman continues to call for UMT to terminate its ties with CUSEF and will continue to educate the American people about the threat that the CCP’s influence operations pose,” the spokesperson said, adding that committee staffers “would be happy to brief” the university’s leadership about united-front work.

Despite its defense of the program, the University of Montana appeared to have made some changes to the Baucus Institute webpage that describes it, removing a reference to Tsinghua University, which was previously on the itinerary. It also changed the description of the program, now calling it “CUSEF Cultural Exchange.”