‘Fund China studies’ to remove need for Confucius Institutes

US efforts to rid universities of Chinese influence risk stifling legitimate study of the Eastern giant, critics fear.

Last week the Pentagon officially designated China-backed Confucius Institutes a national security threat.

Secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, said that over the past two months his department had “systematically dismantled” Confucius Institutes, cultural centres funded by the Chinese government, on campuses.

The institutes have long been a subject of controversy in the US and elsewhere, often accused of influencing what US nationals learn about China and providing a foothold in academia for the Chinese state.

The cultural centres were phased out across US university campuses during the first Trump administration. But in a video on X, Hegseth said: “It turns out that 80 new propaganda cells across 30 universities had popped up using different names and different charters.

“These Chinese government-backed propaganda ‘cultural programmes’ had infiltrated our nation’s universities in almost every state,” he added.

Hegseth told universities to “stay vigilant” and not allow “these influences” to return.

Lizzi Lee, fellow on the Chinese Economy at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, said that Confucius Institutes have been “politically fraught for years”, given concerns “about Chinese government influence and academic freedom”.

“Confucius Institutes probably never did all that much for China’s soft power but the politicisation of academic exchanges on both sides could do real damage to what little space is left for engagement,” she explained.

“There were around 100 on US campuses at the peak but most had already closed long before this latest crackdown.”

According to Lee, the bigger concern is “the cumulative chilling effect” on academic reach and intercultural exchanges, “which are already under a lot of pressure”.

The crackdown on Confucius Institutes follows a security audit issued by the Department of War in August that ordered 30 top research universities in the US to sever ties with Chinese institutions.

Steve Tsang, director of SOAS China Institute, said that Western democracies have undermined themselves by relying on Confucius Institutes “to promote Chinese language and culture teaching”.

“China is too important to us for us to allow learning its language and culture and society to be part of the influence operations superintended by the Chinese Communist Party, which is devoted to advance the CCP’s interests.”

Instead, Tsang argued that investment should be concentrated among universities and schools “to teach the study of China and its language”.

“The study and teaching of China and Chinese matter to us. We should fund them properly.

“We should eliminate the space in our campus for Confucius Institutes to exist. If we provide sufficient provisions for the study and teaching of China and Chinese, Confucius Institutes have no case to exist.”

rosalind.skillen@timeshighereducation.com