Confucius Institute

History

The first Confucius Institute opened in 2004 in Seoul, South Korea, after establishing a pilot institute in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in June 2004. The CI in South Korea is no longer active. The second Confucius Institute was opened on the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park, also in November 2004. In 2006, the goal of 1,000 Confucius Institutes by 2020 was being discussed.

Hundreds more have opened since in dozens of countries around the world. All countries in the Cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European (China-CEE) host at least one Confucius Institute, and some (Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, and Romania) host multiple of them. In 2001, the first Confucius Institute in Africa opened as a collaboration between University of Nairobi in Kenya and Tianjin Normal University in China.

In April 2007, the first research-based Confucius Institute opened in Waseda University in Japan. In partnership with Peking University, the program promotes research activities of graduate students studying Chinese. In 2007, China's Ministry of Education estimated that 100 million people overseas would be learning Chinese by 2010.

In 2010, the highest concentration of institutes was in the United States, Japan, and South Korea.

From 2006 to 2019, the Chinese government spent more than $150 million on institutes in the U.S. The number of institutes in the U.S. peaked in 2018, at around 100, with the total around the world being about 550. As of 2019, there were 530 Confucius Institutes in dozens of countries on six continents.

In 2022, the Confucius Institute at the University of Karachi was attacked in a suicide bombing.

At the end of 2023, there were 498 Confucius Institutes and 773 Confucius Classrooms established over 160 countries and regions.

Name

The Confucius Institute is named after the noted Chinese philosopher Confucius (551–479 BC). Throughout the 20th century, CCP leaders criticized and denounced Confucius as the personification of China's "feudal" traditions, with anti-Confucianism ranging from the 1912 New Culture Movement to the 1973 Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius campaign during the Cultural Revolution. However, in recent decades, interest in pre-modern Chinese culture has grown in the country, and Confucius in particular has seen a resurgence in popularity. Outside of China, Confucius is a generally recognizable symbol of Chinese culture, removed from the negative associations of other prominent Chinese figures such as chairman Mao Zedong.

"Confucius Institute" is a trademarked brand name, which according to a spokesman for the organisation, "Those who enjoy more brand names will enjoy higher popularity, reputation, more social influence, and will therefore be able to generate more support from local communities." A 2011 crackdown protected "Confucius Institute" from preregistration infringement in Costa Rica.

A China Post article reported in 2014 that "Certainly, China would have made little headway if it had named these Mao Institutes, or even Deng Xiaoping Institutes. But by borrowing the name Confucius, it created a brand that was instantly recognized as a symbol of Chinese culture, radically different from the image of the Communist Party."

Purpose

The stated purpose of Confucius Institutes (CIs) is to promote and teach Chinese culture and language around the world. The director of the CI program, Xu Lin, stated that CIs were started to cater to the sudden uptick in interest of the Chinese language around the world. They also provide Chinese language teaching staff from mainland China. As of 2011, there were 200 such teachers working in the United States. In the Middle East 14 institute, and the main purpose for the local population to participate in the institute activities are learning Chinese to find a job in the local market or to find a job in the growing Chinese market.

Confucius Institutes are also intended by China as cultural diplomacy to use language and culture to promote China's image overseas and create a positive international environment for China. People's Daily has described Confucius Institutes as a form of public diplomacy.

Organization

Confucius Institutes were previously under Hanban, a non-profit government organization affiliated with the Ministry of Education and operated by a committee of party-state officials. The Confucius Institute headquarters in Beijing establishes the guidelines which the separate Confucius Institutes worldwide follows. The headquarters is governed by a council with fifteen members, ten of whom are directors of overseas institutes. The institutes themselves are individually managed under the leadership of their own board of directors, which should include members of the host institution. The current chair of the Confucius Institute Headquarters council is Liu Yandong, a Chinese vice premier and member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party who formerly headed the United Front Work Department. Other leaders of the council are similarly drawn from the CCP and central government agencies, such as the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Education, and the State Council Information Office (also known as the Office of Overseas Propaganda). The council sets the agenda for the Confucius Institutes and makes changes to the bylaws while other tasks and ongoing management of the Confucius Institute Headquarters are handled by the professional executive leadership headed by the director-general.

The Chinese Government shares the burden of funding Confucius Institutes with host universities, and takes a hands-off approach to management. The institutes function independently within the guidelines established by Hanban and the Confucius Institute Headquarters. Each institute is responsible for drawing up and managing their own budget, which is subject to approval by the headquarters. The Confucius Institute Headquarters provides various restrictions on how their funds may be used, including earmarking funds for specific purposes. Institutes in the United States were generally provided with $100,000 annually from Hanban, with the local university required to match funding.

In addition to their local-partner university, Confucius Institutes operate in co-operation with a Chinese partner university. The Chinese partner university supplies teaching materials, a co-director/dean, and instructors. Many institutes are governed by a board which is composed of several members from the Chinese partner school, with the remaining members affiliated with the local-partner university. Most of the Confucius Institutes in Central Asian countries are partnered with universities in Xinjiang. At most institutes, the director is appointed by the local partner university.

Curriculum

The curriculum of Confucius Institutes is based on the institute's role as a language center. All Confucius Institutes teach Chinese language and culture, with their offerings varying across branches. For instance, one branch might focus on business Chinese while another emphasizes everyday Chinese language skills. Courses on culture may also range from cooking to Tai Chi to calligraphy.

In addition to courses (which are sometimes taught for-credit and sometimes not-for-credit), Confucius Institutes typically host extracurricular activities included Chinese New Year Festivals, Mid-Autumn Festivals, tea ceremonies, art exhibitions, musical performances, film screenings, guest lectures, and conferences.

School officials, researchers, and other people interviewed by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) offered mixed experiences in their autonomy over the curriculum. According to the GAO report, "officials from multiple case study schools noted that U.S. school faculty members make all decisions regarding conference themes, guest speakers, and topics for events at their institute." Further, some schools were able to host conferences and programs that are critical of the CCP. At other schools, officials have raised concerns that the Confucius Institute espouses a sanitized view of Chinese society that avoids contentious topics like human rights abuses and Tibet, and they also express concerns regarding whether the Hanban would sponsor events that discuss views contrary to those of the CCP. At one school, the Confucius Institute Chinese director allegedly removed literature material about Taiwan. At another school, a Hanban representative attempted to exclude information on Taiwan from the program provided to attendees at a conference.

Criticism and controversies

In the short time-frame of their rapid expansion, the institutes have been the subject of much controversy. Criticisms of the institutes have included administrative concerns about finance, academic viability, legal issues, and relations with the Chinese partner university, as well as broader concerns about improper influence over teaching and research, industrial and military espionage, surveillance of Chinese abroad, and undermining Taiwanese influence. There has also been organized opposition to the establishment of a Confucius Institute at University of Melbourne, University of Manitoba, Stockholm University, University of Chicago and many others. More significantly, some universities that hosted Confucius Institutes decided to terminate their contracts. These include Japan's Osaka Sangyo University in 2010; Canada's McMaster University and Université de Sherbrooke, and France's University of Lyon in 2013; the University of Chicago, Pennsylvania State University, and the Toronto District School Board in 2014, the German Stuttgart Media University and University of Hohenheim in 2015, and Vrije Universiteit Brussel and University of Kansas in 2019.

Controversy regarding Confucius Institutes in the US, Australian, and Canadian press includes criticism that unlike other governments' language and culture promotion organizations, the Confucius Institutes operate within established universities, colleges, and secondary schools around the world, providing funding, teachers and educational materials. This has raised concerns over their influence on academic freedom, the possibility of industrial espionage, and concerns that the institutes present a selective and politicized view of China as a means of advancing the country's soft power internationally.

Underlying such opposition is concern by professors and students that a Confucius Institute would interfere with academic freedom and be able to pressure the university to censor speech on topics the CCP objects to. An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education asserts that there is little evidence of meddling from China, although the same article did go on to say the institutes were "distinct in the degree to which they were financed and managed by a foreign government". After interviewing China scholars, journalists and CI directors, a writer for The Diplomat, a publication covering politics, society, and culture in the Indo-Pacific region, also found little support for the concern that CIs would serve as propaganda vehicles, though some of her sources did note that they would face constraints in their curriculum on matters such as Tibet and human rights. An article in The New York Times quotes Arthur Waldron, a professor of international relations at the University of Pennsylvania, saying that the key issue is academic independence. "Once you have a Confucius Institute on campus, you have a second source of opinions and authority that is ultimately answerable to the Chinese Communist Party and which is not subject to scholarly review."

Political goals

While Chinese authorities have been cautious not to have CIs act as direct promoters of the party's political viewpoints, a few critics suggest that the Confucius Institutes function in this way. Officials say that one important goal of the institutes is to influence other countries' understanding of China. Peng Ming-min, a Taiwan independence activist and politician, claims that colleges and universities where a Confucius Institute is established have to sign a contract in which they declare their support for Beijing's "One China" policy. As a result, both Taiwan and Tibet become taboos at the institutes.

The CI's soft power goals are seen as an attempt by the PRC to modernize away from Soviet-influenced propaganda of the Maoist era. Other initiatives include Chinese contemporary art exhibitions, television programs, concerts by popular singers, translations of Chinese literature, and the expansion of state-run news channels such as Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television.

Academic and economist Jun Xiang was postulating causal mechanisms within individual cases for a relatively large number of cases in a large-N analysis to examine the Confucius Institute and demonstrate that it is designed to promote China's educational, economic, and political interests altogether.

Hiring policy

The Hanban website stated that Chinese language instructors should be "aged between 22 to 60, physical and mental healthy, no record of participation in Falun Gong and other illegal organizations, and no criminal record."

Human rights lawyer Clive Ansley has argued that the part of the hiring policy that discriminates against Falun Gong believers is in contravention of anti-discrimination laws and human rights codes. Marci Hamilton, Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at Yeshiva University, called this policy "unethical and illegal in the free world".

In 2013, McMaster University in Canada closed its Confucius Institute due to hiring issues over Falun Gong. Sonia Zhang, a former Confucius Institute teacher at McMaster University who quit after one year and since become a whistleblower, said she "had to sign a contract that excluded Falun Gong practitioners and was trained to give Beijing's line if asked by students about Tibet and other sensitive topics".