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A new investigation by Defending Education, titled Little Red Classrooms: Young Envoys Scholarship Program, reveals that at least 83 U.S. universities and 26 K-12 schools in 30 states have participated in China’s Young Envoys Scholarship (YES) program—a CCP-linked initiative designed to shape how American students view the Chinese Communist Party.

Connecticut is not exempt.

Two of the state’s most prominent private universities appear in the report:

• Wesleyan University participated in the Young Envoys Scholarship in July 2024.
• Yale University has deeper ties. Students joined a month-long archaeology summer program at Shandong University in 2024, took part in the “Joint International Research Laboratory of Environmental and Social Archaeology,” and traveled to Bayannur, Hohhot, and Beijing in 2025 for additional “cultural and academic exchanges.”

The YES program is run by the China Education Association for International Exchange (CEAIE), an organization that explicitly states on its Chinese-language site that it is guided by Marxism-Leninism and Xi Jinping Thought and that it “always adhere[s] to the leadership of the Party.”

U.S. lawmakers and intelligence assessments have identified CEAIE as part of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front influence apparatus.

This is not neutral cultural exchange, according to Defending Education.

"These aren't just cultural trips. They're an integral part of China's broader soft power strategy aimed at infiltrating America's classrooms," Reagan Dugan, the director of Defending Education’s higher education initiative, told Fox News Digital. "Disclosure requirements need to catch up. American students and families deserve to know if their school is partnering with a CCP operation."

CEAIE effectively serves as a successor to the shuttered Confucius Institutes—offering fully funded trips and programming that present a carefully curated, regime-friendly version of China to American students. As Defending Education notes, participants often return with glowing testimonials that serve Beijing’s soft-power goals.

The Chinese government denies any political purpose behind the program.

Nonetheless, Connecticut parents and taxpayers would be wise to question these universities about their willingness to partner with an organization that answers directly to the Chinese Communist Party in order to shape how American students think about the Chinese Communist Party.

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