Gen Z has a socialism problem. In recent months, that cohort of voters has helped secure victory for openly socialist and communist candidates in major American cities.

Growing numbers of American youth are embracing the same radical ideologies that once devastated Europe and have claimed over 100 million victims worldwide.

They don’t seem aware of the atrocities these ideologies historically produced. Some even think that these ideologies — and the nations that perpetuate them — are simply misunderstood.

A new report from Defending Education suggests that this trend could be, in part, a repercussion of the cognitive warfare of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in American classrooms.

The report investigated China’s Young Envoys Scholarship (YES) program, a study-abroad opportunity for American youth that Chinese President Xi Jinping established in 2024 to promote a “mutual understanding between young generations of China and the U.S.”

In reality, the program is a not-so-covert attempt to persuade American youth to support China’s totalitarian and anti-American agendas.

The YES program sounds incredible in theory. It enables American students to enjoy sponsored trips to China and expand their cultural knowledge. Since 2024, at least 83 American universities and 26 K-12 schools across 30 states have participated in the program.

So what’s the catch?

The organization that oversees YES — the China Education Association for International Exchange (CEAIE) — openly advertises that it is guided by “Marxism-Leninism” and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism on its Chinese-language website. CEAIE’s website literally says that it will “always adhere to the leadership of the [Communist] Party and integrate the Party’s work into the entire process of the association’s operation and development.”

How Orwellian. A closer look into YES’s specific programming increases suspicions that the program seeks to create a biased impression of China among American youth.

For example, in 2025, YES sponsored a Chicago high schoolers’ trip for 27 students and teachers to the Xinjiang region of China. Students learned Chinese calligraphy and Tai Chi, took dance classes, and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. Their cultural tour of the region notably left out what Xinjiang is actually known for. The U.S. government has formally designated China’s campaign against Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region as a genocide, and human rights organizations have documented mass internment camps, forced labor, and forced sterilization across the region.

Similarly, in January 2024, the Muscatine Community School District in Iowa announced that a group of 24 students and four educators would travel to China as guests of China’s minister of education. The Chinese government fully funded the trip.

Coverage by the Chinese Embassy on the trip detailed how the students had given gifts to President Xi, including a “school flag with Chinese characters ‘Grandpa Xi, Here We Are’” (Referring to President Xi Jinping). The embassy added, “After the visit, the students of the delegation wrote a letter to President Xi, sharing their joy and happiness during the visit and thanking him for inviting them to China.”

These students would have an increased sympathy for any CCP propaganda based on these testimonials about their trip. Especially if they came from “Grandpa Xi.”

In March 2024, 10 students from Tacoma Public Schools in Washington state visited China through the YES program. Chinese media reported that students said, “If I could say anything to President Xi, I’d really just want to thank him for planting the seed of relation[s] between Tacoma and China.”

The YES program has even quoted Lincoln High School students praising the Chinese government, including “President Xi Jinping’s message is very heartwarming” and “I am a China fan.”

It’s easy to see how such misconceptions could blend into support for U.S. politicians and candidates who spew socialist and communist rhetoric. Without context, American students are being taught that the man behind the genocide of Uyghur Muslims, and who runs a country that imprisons citizens for their speech or religion, is “very heartwarming.”

They aren’t seeing the human consequences of Xi Jinping’s ideology in action — like Catholic businessman and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai, who will die in a Chinese prison. They won’t see the millions of Uyghurs who have been rounded up and abused, sterilized, and tortured for their religious beliefs. They won’t recognize the similarities between the CCP’s totalitarian oppression and that of other socialist and communist countries. Their tours of China obscure the reality of Chinese oppression entirely.

There’s nothing wrong with appreciating the good parts of Chinese culture, like its art or expression. And for many Americans, a free trip to China sounds like an incredible opportunity.

However, Americans should be incredibly wary of the impetus behind these “free” trips. They should recognize that YES is using American children as propaganda tools for a communist regime that seeks to destabilize the U.S. with its atheistic, genocidal, and totalitarian ideology.

This isn’t an abstract concern. Socialist and communist candidates are already gaining power across America, buoyed by young voters. A generation raised to see Xi Jinping as “heartwarming” isn’t just misinformed about China — it’s primed to embrace the same ideologies at home.

Parents and educators need to see YES for what it is before it grows any further. Our future generations and our national security depend on it.

If these trips are not followed up with pro-democracy, pro-capitalism, and pro-Western values lessons, then America will continue reaping the consequences.

***

Paul Runko, Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives for Defending Education.

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