The CCP Is Building A “Pro-China Force” Inside Chicago Public Schools Chicago Public School principals are signing deals to “foster support for China.”

Beijing is openly cultivating what one of its diplomats called a new “pro-China force” inside Chicago’s public schools. Chinese state media highlighted one Chicago student saying Xi’s initiative lets students “experience China and fall in love with China,” while a K–12 book promoted through American schools is marketed as a way for children to “tell China’s story” and “foster support for China.” Behind those slogans is a network of consulate events, China trips, alumni groups and formal school agreements reaching directly into Chicago Public Schools.

If work like this matters to you, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In February, principals and students from three Chicago public schools—Taft High School, Lincoln Park High School and George Westinghouse College Prep—gathered inside China’s Chicago consulate for a “YES Friends” event. According to a Chinese-language report, the diplomat urged the schools to make the cooperation list “longer and longer,” especially in K–12 STEM.


This was not diplomatic small talk. It was the latest step in a program that recruits American children, sends them to China, organizes them through a consulate-run alumni club and converts the relationships into formal school partnerships.

Two months earlier, Taft principal Ryan Glowacz and a Taft teacher signed a “School Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding” with Shandong Jinan No. 9 High School—inside the Chinese consulate. More than 400 Taft students study Mandarin, and the school now hopes to send roughly 20 students to China in 2027.

Taft’s social media called it “Strengthening Global Learning.” The Chinese side disclosed far more.





Jinan No. 9’s official report says the agreement created an institutional platform for joint curriculum development, teacher training, reciprocal student and teacher visits, and cultural programming. The principal who signed it is also deputy secretary of his school’s CCP committee.

The partner school’s own annual plan says it is guided by “Xi Jinping Thought,” makes strengthening Party leadership its first priority, expands its “ideological-political classroom,” monitors public opinion and treats ideological control as an institutional responsibility.



This is the school now positioned to help shape curriculum and train teachers with a Chicago public high school.

The signing ceremony itself was even more blatant. China’s consulate says more than 100 American children, parents, teachers and school leaders attended. Before at least 16 Chinese and American schools signed agreements, Consul General Wang Baodong briefed the room on the “major achievements” of the Fourth Plenary Session of the CCP’s 20th Central Committee and recruited students for Xi Jinping’s plan to bring 50,000 young Americans to China.



Chinese-language reporting names additional pairings involving Sidney Sawyer Elementary, Jones College Prep, Evanston Township High School, Barrington Station Middle School and Intercultural Montessori. Taft’s agreement is independently confirmed; the others should release their signed documents.



At the same event, Chinese officials unveiled West Meets East: 100 American Secondary School Students’ Tales About China. Its Chicago publisher markets the K–12 book as American children “telling China’s story” to “foster support for China.” The publisher also turned it into a campus roadshow across multiple American school districts.



Chinese state media supplied the intended result. One Chicago student said Xi’s initiative allowed students to “experience China and fall in love with China.” A participating school leader called Xi’s 50,000 students “the multipliers,” predicting their influence would “triple and quadruple.”

The pipeline began earlier. At a 2024 Chinese cultural festival organized by Chicago Public Schools, more than 1,000 attendees from over 20 CPS schools heard Wang promote Xi’s Global Civilization Initiative and recruit students for the same travel program. In 2025, the consulate created the permanent “YES Friends Club” to keep returning students engaged through essays, videos and events as “messengers” for U.S.–China friendship.

Chicago public schools are allowing Beijing to turn classrooms, taxpayer-funded institutions and American children into an influence network. Parents deserve every MOU, funding record, curriculum agreement and China-trip itinerary—before the “pro-China force” grows any larger.

https://nataliegwinters.substack.com/p/exclusive-the-ccp-is-building-a-pro