A Chinese government-linked scholarship program operating at 83 American colleges is being accused of using academic travel and cultural exchange to shape U.S. students’ views of China, expose them to Beijing’s influence network and potentially create security risks for participating universities.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A Chinese government-backed student exchange program operating across 83 U.S. colleges and universities is drawing new scrutiny from education and national security experts who say the initiative may serve purposes extending beyond academic and cultural exchange.
The Young Envoys Scholarship, or YES, was launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2024 with the stated goal of bringing 50,000 American students to China for study programs, educational exchanges and cultural visits, according to a report by Defending Education.
Click here for the full pdf report: Little Red Classrooms_ Young Envoys Scholarship Program – Defending Education
The watchdog organization described the program as part of an “ongoing effort … to influence American students’ perceptions of the communist country.”
YES is administered by the China Education Association for International Exchange, or CEAIE, which Defending Education said operates under ideological and political guidance connected to the Chinese Communist Party.
According to the report, CEAIE is “guided by ‘Marxism-Leninism’ and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism.”
The program’s presence in elite American universities is extensive.
Thirteen of the 83 participating institutions are located in California, including UCLA, UC Berkeley and Stanford University. Six of the eight Ivy League universities participate, along with prominent engineering and performing arts institutions including MIT and Juilliard.
Other highly selective schools involved with the program include Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, Northwestern University and the University of Virginia.
Critics say those institutional connections warrant considerably more scrutiny because American students may not fully understand the political structure behind the exchange.
Reagan Dugan, director of Higher Education Initiatives at Defending Education, told The College Fix that students and their families may be participating without being given a clear picture of the program’s underlying objectives.
Dugan called for American authorities to apply greater scrutiny to U.S. students participating in China-based programs.
“US oversight must apply the same diligence to American students traveling to China at the behest of the CCP that they do to foreign students studying in America,” she said.
National security analysts have raised similar concerns.
Andrew Harding, a policy analyst for national security at the Heritage Foundation, told The College Fix that American students should not view YES strictly as a conventional educational exchange.
“While marketed as an educational exchange, it is best understood as part of the Chinese Communist Party’s broader strategy to shape foreign perceptions of China among students and, ultimately, future professionals,” Harding said.
He said the scale of Beijing’s financial and organizational investment in bringing American students to China should itself prompt questions about the program’s goals.
“Beijing would not devote substantial resources to bringing thousands of Americans to China unless it expected a return in the form of improved perceptions,” Harding said.
Recent YES programming illustrates the breadth of subjects American students are exposed to while participating.
During a 2026 trip, students from New York University, MIT and Harvard University attended the Zhi-Xing China: U.S.-China Youth Leaders Dialogue, where discussions included green energy, technology and “social governance.”
Defending Education also identified a 2024 program involving University of Chicago students that included direct contact with organizations the group characterized as connected to the Chinese government’s United Front system or state propaganda operations.
During that trip, students visited the Beijing People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.
House Republican Elise Stefanik later urged institutions to sever relationships with the organization because of its alleged ties to the Chinese government’s influence apparatus.
While visiting the association, students were asked to consider how the United States and China could “build mutual trust,” according to a YES newsletter cited by Defending Education.
A separate exchange involving Indiana University raised additional questions about connections between participating Chinese universities and entities associated with military or sensitive technology research.
According to the Defending Education investigation, Indiana University students and faculty “participated in a four-day exchange program at Xi’an Jiaotong University, which the Australian Strategic Policy Institute flagged for ties to ‘sanctioned, Russia-linked, and military/critical-technology-connected entities.’”
The controversy surrounding YES comes after years of disputes over another Chinese government-linked academic initiative: Confucius Institutes.
Those institutes operated at American universities for years before facing growing federal scrutiny over concerns that they were being used to advance favorable views of the Chinese Communist Party and expand Beijing’s influence within U.S. educational institutions.
According to Defending Education, the federal government ultimately concluded that the Confucius Institute system intentionally fostered pro-CCP perceptions among Americans.
The YES initiative is now being characterized by critics as a newer vehicle for similar soft-power objectives.
The program itself is structured as a short- or long-term intensive experience in China and is presented publicly as a vehicle for international education and cultural engagement.
Its official website states that international excursions are a “key pillar and powerful enabler to deepen and expand cross-cultural understanding among countries.”
Behind that public-facing language, however, Defending Education points to CEAIE’s own statements about its relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.
According to the group, the Chinese-language CEAIE website states that the organization intends to “always adhere to the leadership of the Party and integrate the Party’s work into the entire process of the association’s operation and development,” as documented in the watchdog’s report.
CEAIE also has leadership drawn from China’s government and education establishment.
The organization’s president, Liu Limin, previously served as China’s vice minister of education, according to another section of the Defending Education investigation.
Those connections are central to concerns that YES functions as part of China’s broader international influence strategy rather than solely as an academic exchange program.
The College Fix said it contacted the YES program through multiple emails seeking additional information about the initiative’s purpose but received no response.
The publication also contacted Indiana University and the University of Chicago seeking explanations for why the institutions encourage student participation in a program controlled by an organization linked to the Chinese government.
Neither university responded, according to The Fix.
Federal authorities have separately intensified scrutiny of American universities’ relationships with foreign entities considered potential security risks.
The U.S. Department of War has ordered 30 American academic institutions to conduct immediate and comprehensive research security audits examining academic, financial and research relationships with foreign entities of concern, according to a report by The College Fix.
The institutions subject to those audits were not publicly identified.
A department news release stated, however, that “organizations associated with rebranded Confucius Institutes” are among the foreign relationships receiving scrutiny.
The renewed attention places YES within a broader debate over how American colleges should evaluate educational partnerships connected to foreign governments, particularly when those programs involve students traveling abroad under institutions whose leadership and stated mission are closely tied to ruling political parties.
With YES now operating through dozens of leading U.S. universities, critics are calling for greater transparency about who controls the program, which organizations students encounter while abroad and how those experiences fit into Beijing’s wider efforts to build international influence through education and cultural diplomacy.
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