How dare they come here and fund language learning!

It's deep. I hate it. One fear was that China was exercising soft power, I think. If people would become sinophiles just by learning a bit about China, what does that say about the image the west paints it the validity of the western worldview? It's not a ringing endorsement but they know libs don't ask questions. They also know that setting up universities and institutes is one of the ways the CIA gets it's claws in through the NED, etc. They probably thought China would do the same. Which is probably kinda true.