American students are being sent to summer camps affiliated with Chinese intelligence agencies and promote propaganda from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The information was exclusively discovered by The Daily Caller.
According to the report, the advertised “Root-Seeking Summer Camp in China” serves as an opportunity for Chinese children living in the United States to learn more about Chinese culture. Upon further investigation, however, it was learned that Chinese influence groups are affiliated with the camps.
Some children as young as 10 years old participate in military-linked boot camps, the investigation found. Photos from 2017 show children marching, saluting, and participating in other activities observed by People’s Liberation Army soldiers.
The program, launched in 1999, invites “tens of thousands of overseas Chinese youths to visit China on site, learn to communicate, find roots and ask ancestors every year, and be welcomed by the vast number of Chinese youths overseas.”
Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the U.S., told The Daily Caller via email, “The legitimate rights for overseas Chinese to learn and inherit their own language and culture should be respected and protected. The Root-Seeking Summer Camp in China provides a platform to help overseas Chinese learn their native language, understand their culture, and go to their ancestral country, China, to seek their roots and to study and exchange in China.”
Pengyu added, “The Root-Seeking Summer Camp has always been conducted in accordance with international laws and the laws and customs of the country where the overseas Chinese live. The Root-Seeking Summer Camp not only satisfies the needs of overseas Chinese to learn their own language and culture, but also effectively promotes exchanges and integration between different cultures around the world, and provides convenience for the world to understand China and for China to understand the world.”
It was previously revealed that kindergarten-aged children underwent combat training in boot camps across China.
The children were reportedly taught how to handle weapons using toy knives, grenades, rifles, and shoulder-fired missiles.