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Confucius Institutes
One of the most controversial aspects of the whole US-China educational exchange
is the Confucius Institutes (CI), of which there are now 110 (plus 501 Confucius Classrooms in secondary schools) across the United States.* For secondary schools and colleges that have no or little other coverage of China on campus, CIs are an important resource. Sponsored by the Hanban, an organization directly under the Ministry of Education in Beijing, but also with ties to the External Propaganda Leading Group of the CCP Central Committee, the primary mission of CIs is to teach Chinese language and culture abroad. However, faculty and other watchdogs have warned that they may present risks to intellectual freedom by using American universities as vehicles through which to advance Chinese Communist Party propaganda. Accusations leveled at Cls revolve mainly around the exclusive use of PRC materials that promote PRC Chinese viewpoints, terminology, and simplified characters; the avoidance of discussion
on controversial topics such as Tibet, Tiananmen, Xinjiang, the Falun Gong, and human rights in American classrooms and programs; and potential infringement on theoretically independent studies curricula on American campuses.
Although proponents of CIs like to compare them with branches of France’s L’Alliance Francaise, Germany’s Goethe Instituts, and Spain’s Cervantes Institute, they are different in important ways. Unlike these other institutions, CIs are joint operations located inside—and co-funded by—a host university or secondary school for which the Hanban arranges a Chinese university to supply teachers, textbooks, and other materials. The teachers are paid by the Chinese university (and hence do not hold green cards or pay US taxes). Typically, the Hanban provides a $150,000 start-up grant with $100,000—$200,000 per year follow-on funding (depending on the institution) directly to the American university. Secondary schools normally receive $50,000 in initial funding and $15,000 subsequently per annum. Most troublesome are two provisions in the Hanban contracts with US host institutions: One forbids the Cls from conducting any activities that contravene Chinese law while the other requires that the enabling contract remain confidential, making oversight by the academic community difficult.
Some participating American institutions have belatedly had second thoughts about their partnerships. In 2014, the University of Chicago terminated its CI contract
with the Hanban after months of controversy among faculty, spurred by a high- profile critical article by an emeritus member.’ Since that time, at least two additional American universities have also closed their branches (Pennsylvania State University and University of West Florida),!° and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), a leading critic of alleged Chinese “influence activities,” has written letters to a number of other Florida institutions hosting CIs requesting that they also be closed.'' Representatives Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Henry Cuellar (D-TX) called for the same termination in their own
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