House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mast joins Chairmen Moolenaar and Walberg in Asking Rubio to Act on the Chinese Students and Scholars Association

Today, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast (R-FL), Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI), and House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio asking him to designate the Chinese Students and Scholars Association as a foreign mission of China’s government. This designation would require CSSA chapters to provide advance notice to the State Department of any meetings they have with local governments and universities. It would also require them to have prior approval from the department for public events in the U.S.

"We are writing to express our grave concerns that the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) is advancing the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) interests on U.S. campuses, raising serious foreign policy and national security risks—particularly given that it remains insufficiently regulated and has not been designated as a foreign mission of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)," the lawmakers begin in the letter.

"The Foreign Missions Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1982 was designed not only to ensure reciprocity in treatment for U.S. diplomatic and consular missions abroad, but to also regulate the activities of foreign missions operating in the homeland and protect the U.S. public from abuses of privileges and immunities by members of those missions and ensure transparency," they continue. "The challenges presented by the increased presence of missions of foreign adversary countries have grown in recent decades. None more so than from the CCP, which utilizes a wide variety of front organizations that it owns or controls to do its bidding through its United Front strategy."

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“For example, the constitution of the Southwest Chinese Students and Scholars Association (SWCSSA), a registered 501(c)(3) that covers 42 American universities, expressly indicates that it operates under the oversight of the Chinese consulate. Article 4 of the SWCSSA’s constitution expressly states that it “accepts the guidance of the People’s Republic of China Consulate-General in Los Angeles.” Multiple CSSA branches on campuses advertise on their social media accounts that they are the only official association of Chinese students on their respective campuses recognized by their respective local consulates. This includes CSSA chapters at the University of Massachusetts Boston, University of Washington, University of California Santa Barbara, among others. Additionally, the Chinese Embassy in the United States controls the activities of CSSA branches through the approval of some of their leadership candidates. Also, the requirement for membership in some CSSA branches includes what amount to loyalty pledges to the Chinese government and to its policy objectives,” the lawmakers detail in the letter.

Copies of the letter were also provided to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. Read the full letter here.

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