House Bill 1352, one of several bills dubbed the “Communist China Defense Legislative Package” that’s been passed by the state legislature of Arkansas, 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.”
University of Central Arkansas appears to have been the only institute of higher education in Arkansas that hosted a Confucius Institute, which opened in 2007 and closed in 2021. After it shut down, the university opened the Center for Chinese Language and Culture, which according to UCA’s website is funded only by the university itself.
UCA continued the memorandum of understanding the school had with universities in China under the new Center for Chinese Language and Culture. It’s not clear whether the Center for Chinese Language and Culture will be endangered by the new law.
Another section of HB1352 will prohibit towns and cities in Arkansas from having sister city relationships with cities in China.
That will force the City of Little Rock to end its 31-year sister city relationship with Changchun, the provincial capital of Jilin.
Little Rock will continue its relationships with other sister cities including Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England; Caxias do Sul, Brazil; and Hanam City in South Korea — a relationship endorsed by Governor Sarah Sanders.
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