Wu Qiaoxi | 2025-04-10

The quiet shuttering of almost half of Australia's Confucius Institutes adds to a long list of closures across the West, which has long accused the Chinese government-funded organizations of acting as propaganda arms for Beijing.

Six of the country's 13 Confucius Institutes -- including the one at the University of Melbourne -- have opted not to renew contracts, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported on April 1.

The official reasons cited for the closures include the COVID-19 pandemic and the expansion of in-house Chinese language programs. As one university put it, there was "no additional need to renew" the agreement.

However, Flinders University senior lecturer Jeffrey Gil told ABC that worsening Australia-China relations and fears of foreign interference likely influenced the decisions.

"There have been long-standing concerns about Confucius Institutes in Australia, which have intensified with the deterioration of Australia-China relations in recent years. Confucius Institutes have also closed in the USA and some European countries," said Gil, who teaches ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages).

"Together, these make Confucius Institutes less desirable and less viable in Australia," Gil said, adding that the government's concerns around foreign interference were "likely to be one factor" in university decisions not to renew contracts.

Growing criticism

Confucius Institutes, funded by the Chinese government and hosted by foreign universities to promote Chinese language and culture, have come under growing criticism in recent years.

Unlike Western cultural institutes such as the British Council, Confucius Institutes are embedded directly in university campuses, with China providing funding, teachers and teaching materials -- allowing for quick integration into local academia.

As the number of Confucius Institutes grew rapidly over the past two decades, so did concerns about their political agenda. Critics have accused the institutes of promoting Chinese Communist Party ideology, restricting open discussion and even monitoring Chinese students overseas.

In a 2014 BBC interview, Xu Lin, who had been the director general of the Confucius Institute headquarters since 2004, made the purpose of the institutes explicit.

"The purpose of the Confucius Institute is to export Chinese Communist Party [CCP] values to foreign academic institutions," she said at the time.

Human Rights Watch echoed these concerns in a 2019 report. "Confucius Institutes are extensions of the Chinese government that censor certain topics and perspectives in course materials on political grounds, and use hiring practices that take political loyalty into consideration," it said.

In 2020, China restructured the Confucius Institutes under a private charity model in an attempt to downplay their official status, though controversy has persisted.

A 2023 UK-China Transparency report found that Confucius Institute staff were being recruited "based on their ability to enforce 'CCP discipline' in the UK" and were "obliged to undermine free speech and to conduct harassment on command."

A global pullback

Many Western governments have moved to limit or eliminate Confucius Institutes in their countries.

Australia banned the establishment of new Confucius Institutes in 2022.

Senior officials had made it "crystal clear" to universities that Confucius Institutes are a "problem" that "has to be carefully managed," an Australian government source told ABC.

The United States took decisive action as well. The 2019 National Defense Authorization Act prohibits the Department of Defense from funding universities that host Confucius Institutes, prompting the closure of more than 100 such programs. Only five remain.

Canada, Sweden, Switzerland and Germany have followed suit, closing many of their own.

As of the end of 2023, 498 Confucius Institutes were operating across more than 160 countries. But as they retreat from Europe and North America, China has refocused on Southeast Asia.

There are now 42 Confucius Institutes in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, up by nine since 2021. Thailand hosts the most, with 16.

Ian Chong, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore, explained in an interview last May with Nikkei Asia why Southeast Asia has been more receptive to Confucius Institutes.

Many countries in the region, he said, are still reluctant to challenge China.

They "either remain authoritarian or have only been moving toward democratization over the past 20-odd years or so," Chong noted. "Consequently, there is less familiarity [with] and commitment to academic freedom, as well as [less awareness of] any challenges that Confucius Institutes may present to academic freedom."