is a member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), a main German political party, and a member of the Young Union youth organization. He introduced the situation of the Confucius Institute to the members of the organization, and organized related activities in Germany to request the termination of the cooperation between the Confucius Institute and German universities. On August 4, 2021, the Human Rights Foundation published a report stating that Confucius Institutes "cultivated a climate of intimidation and surveillance within American classrooms." and "Both information censorship and self-censorship are especially prevalent, as educators, researchers, administrators, and students alike are steered away from learning and critically thinking about topics that may be deemed sensitive to the Chinese government such as democracy, “the three T’s,” Hong Kong, the Uyghur genocide, and the CCP's other prevailing human rights infringements." As of 2022, all of the Confucius Institutes located on SUNY campuses were closed because federal research funding was jeopardized. The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act is the act that could restrict federal research funding to universities that host Confucius Institutes. Political goals The Confucius Institute has non-academic goals. Li Changchun, the former 5th-highest-ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party said in 2007 that the Confucius Institutes were "an important part of China's overseas propaganda set-up". Some foreign scholars have characterized the CI program as an exercise in soft power, expanding China's economic, cultural, and diplomatic reach through the promotion of Chinese language and culture, while others have suggested a possible role in intelligence collection. The soft power goals also include assuaging concerns of a "China threat" in the context of the country's increasingly powerful economy and military. Retired British diplomat and China expert Roger Garside concludes in his submission to the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission that academic freedom is "inherently compromised by permitting a state agency controlled by the Communist Party of China to establish a teaching operation in any school or university". While Chinese authorities have been cautious not to have CIs act as direct promoters of the party's political viewpoints, a few critics suggest that the Confucius Institutes function in this way. Officials say that one important goal of the institutes is to influence other countries' understanding of China. Peng Ming-min, a Taiwan independence activist and politician, claims that colleges and universities where a Confucius Institute is established have to sign a contract