House Bill 1352 is one of several bills that Gov. Sarah Sanders has dubbed the “Communist China Defense Legislative Package.” Five of the anti-China bills passed the state Legislature this session and were signed into law by the governor, while one failed to pass the Senate.
HB1352 builds on a 2021 law that banned state higher education institutions from hosting Confucius Institutes or “any entity affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, The People’s Republic of China or China’s People’s Liberation Army.”
Confucius Institutes are cultural exchange programs partly funded by the Chinese government in partnership with colleges and universities to promote Chinese language and culture education. Critics of China have said the programs could be used to spread propaganda and influence on behalf of China. There were once more than 100 Confucius Institutes at schools across the U.S., but a U.S. Government Accountability Office study from 2023 found that they had almost all closed after Congress began restricting federal funding to schools that hosted them.
The new Arkansas legislation goes a step further. It broadens the 2021 ban on Confucius Institutes to include any “similar institute related to the People’s Republic of China, including without limitation a Chinese cultural center.” The law requires the state to withhold funding from a college or university that “does not certify that it does not have a prohibited institution.”
