Institute...

Illustrating the wide range of U.S. grievances with China, a Senate committee released a report highly critical of the Beijing-funded Confucius Institute.

The Senate's  Subcommittee described systemic problems in the institute's language programs, saying they lack transparency, threaten academic freedom and give the Chinese government access to the U.S. education system that China does not extend to American programs.

Senate investigators uncovered no evidence connecting the Confucius Institute with Chinese espionage, an increasing U.S. concern that has prompted the Trump administration to step up its monitoring and enforcement efforts at American campuses.

But the investigation found that the Chinese government had provided about $158 million over the last 13 years to establish and run more than 100 Confucius Institutes in the United States, including seven in California.

The subcommittee also turned up lapses in U.S. government agencies' oversight of the programs.