John A. Gentry

wasn't a Maoist.

So Confucius is very much out in China.

But because it's a useful name, you create a Confucius Institute here, you staff it with people who you find loyal, you provide a lot of money

to greedy Western universities.

These are very mercenary organizations.

So if you make a pitch to them, gee, we're going to do a culturally useful thing.

We're going to help you teach people Mandarin.

This will help improve international relations.

And oh, by the way, we're giving you a lot of money.

universities have said, grand idea, so we'll do this.

So what the people who follow the Confucius Institutes are saying is that these are core influence peddling operations.

and they also are espionage centers.

So you've got Chinese citizens working for the state, whether formally or not, they are working for the state, and they are helping the Chinese intelligence services via businesses, via their think tanks, whatever it might be, to gather information in the United States.

So this is a nice combination.

So you can both do influence operations and espionage at the same time.

Well, the Soviet goal was to destroy the United States, as it was known as a what?

As a capitalist...

Christian, West-leaning, 500 years of Western civilization type of an organization.

So the goal was to have a crisis, whether it would be resolved by a civil war, a coup, or an election that would be the final election.

Any one of those is OK.