…for every five Confucius Institutes ever established, three still have an active online presence while the other two have either closed down or are inactive online…
Over the last 20 years, over 600 Confucius Institutes (CIs) have been established in over 150 countries and regions. As of 31 December 2023, approximately 40% had either been disestablished or were inactive online.
Where did they close down?
Why did they close?
How many are still active?
Have more been established?
What is the future direction of CIs going forward?
Over the last few years, the author of this article has dug through decades of archived screenshots, scrolled through thousands of social media posts and news articles, visited over 1,200 university websites, and navigated more than 50 languages (with the help of some translation tools) to answer those questions.
Why read this article?
CIs have received a fair bit of attention since emerging on the global scene. To give you a sense, if you search “Confucius Institutes” on the academic database Springer Link, you’ll get over 8,000 English language results. Across the top 25 English language news websites you’ll also find over 7,000 articles mentioning Confucius Institutes.1
Looking at the Chinese language sphere, these numbers are even higher. Searching 孔子学院 (Kǒngzǐ xuéyuàn) on CNKI (China’s largest academic database), you’ll see close to 10,000 hits, and across China’s top 10 Chinese language news websites there are over 170,000 articles mentioning 孔子学院.2
Much of this literature has been written from a single country or regional perspective. In cases where a global perspective has been taken, the scale and opacity of the CI network often generates contextual gaps. This article, based on longitudinal quantitative research, seeks to fill some of those gaps.
Confucius Institutes devote themselves to satisfying the demands of people from different countries and regions in the world who learn the Chinese language, to enhancing understanding of the Chinese language and culture by these peoples, to strengthening educational and cultural exchange and cooperation between China and other countries, to deepening friendly relationships with other nations, to promoting the development of multi-culturalism, and to construct a harmonious world.
But what do they really do? If you peel back the rhetoric, CIs undertake a range of activities, such as:
Managing Mandarin Language Teachers (汉语教师) and Assistants (汉语助教) who have been posted from China
Administering the HSK Chinese Proficiency Test (汉语水平考试)
Organising and promoting Chinese Bridge Competitions (汉语桥)
Administering and promoting scholarships to study in China
Providing training, resources and study trips for local Chinese language teachers
Organising trips for local school principals to visit China.
In saying that, not all CIs are created equal. There are a few key factors that determine the level of involvement a CI may have in a local education system, namely:
The resources, capacity and capabilities already available in the host country
The level of demand for Chinese language and associated educational services
How the education sector is regulated in the host country.
In areas where demand is high but resources are few and regulations are relatively loose, CIs may play a leading role in the development and delivery of curricula. On the other hand, if demand is high but resources are already available and regulations are relatively tight, CIs may play more of a supporting role by assisting locally qualified educators to deliver existing curricula.
Another key function is stakeholder engagement and relationship building. CIs engage with a range of local actors, including primary and secondary schools, local governments, non-governmental organisations, societies and associations, chambers of commerce, local Chinese language newspapers, and local Chinese embassies and consulates.
How does a Confucius Institute get established?
According to China’s Ministry of Education, the very first CI was established in October 2004 in Seoul, South Korea. But what does it mean to establish a CI?
Let’s start by looking at a few key terms:
设立 (shèlì) to set up/put in place
成立 (chénglì) to establish/found
揭牌 (jiēpái) to unveil/open
启动运行 (qǐdòng yùnxíng) to begin operating.
For the most part, the process for establishing a CI has typically involved a tripartite agreement between a foreign host (usually a tertiary education institution) a Chinese partner (also usually a tertiary education institution) and Hanban (汉办), also known as the Confucius Institute Headquarters (孔子学院总部).3
At a high-level, once an agreement has been signed (设立), a committee forms to work through the details of establishing the CI (成立), such as location, staffing, funding and work programme. A formal unveiling ceremony (揭牌) would then be held, often with guests including diplomatic staff, senior university staff, and even politicians. The date at which CIs actually begin operating (启动运行) has varied, with some CIs beginning activities before the institute had formally been unveiled.
A working definition of ‘established’
The (since-decommissioned) Hanban website has been a key data source for this research. While the website did contain some dates for some stages of establishment, it did not publish every date and every stage (as outlined above). There are also some instances where the verbs used in conjunction with the dates (and the dates themselves) were amended several times on the website over the years.
Take Thailand’s CI at Suan Dusit University as an example:
To address these temporal variations, the author of this article has taken a relatively liberal approach to defining the establishment date of a CI as the earliest available date across the various stages of establishment. The CI’s online presence is then used as a proxy to determine its existence and operational status.
The downside of this approach is that there is a blurring of the initial stages of establishment.
The upside of this approach is that all CIs are accounted for, enabling a more comprehensive assessment of the current state of play.
By adopting this approach, Thailand actually becomes the first CI to be established, followed by Uzbekistan, Kenya, South Africa and then South Korea (sorry South Korea, it’s purely methodological).
Now that we’ve established what we mean when we say established, let’s look at how many CIs have been established.
The establishment of Confucius Institutes globally
N.B.: This is the total number of CIs established in a given year, not the total number of CIs operating.
2002 to 2007: Exponential growth
The first few years of the CI programme were characterised by exponential growth, jumping from four established in 2004, to 32 in 2005, 64 in 2006 and 94 in 2007.
Of the 195 CIs established between 2002 and 2007: Europe had the largest share with 36%, followed by Asia with 28% and Northern America with 21%; Latin America & the Caribbean and Africa both had 6%; and Oceania had 3%.
2008 to 2013: Steady growth
The years between 2008 and 2013 saw relatively consistent growth, with just over 40 CIs on average established annually over this period.
Of the 250 CIs established during this period: Europe remained the largest shareholder at 34% (↓2%); Northern America’s share increased to 28% (↑7%) overtaking Asia at 16% (↓12%); Africa’s share increased to 10% (↑2%); Latin America & the Caribbean also saw an increase to 8% (↑2%), and Oceania saw a minor increase to 4% (↑1%).
2014 to 2019: Slowing growth
Between 2014 and 2019 we start to see a steady decline in the number of CIs being established annually, followed by a push in 2018 and 2019.
Of the 148 CIs established over this period: Europe continued to be the largest shareholder at 31% (↓3%); Asia reclaimed its 28% (↑12%) while Northern America dropped down to just 13% (↓15%); Africa’s share increased to 17% (↑7%); Latin America & the Caribbean saw an increase to 8% (↑3%), and Oceania maintained its 4%.
2020 to 2023: Negligible growth
A total of 18 CIs were established between 2020 and 2023: five in Asia, four in Africa, four in Europe, two in Latin America & the Caribbean, two in Northern America and one in Oceania.
There is some nuance behind this number worth noting. Among the 18 established during this period:
four involved an agreement to (re)establish a CI with an alternative partnership arrangement (i.e., transferred to a different local host)
four involved an agreement to establish a new CI but as of 31 Dec 2023 had yet to be unveiled or start operating
two involved agreements to upgrade existing Confucius Classrooms4
one was established after a pre-existing agreement to establish a CI in that country remained unactioned for over three years.
The limits of growth
There are a few key factors that contributed to the decline in the number of CIs being established over the last decade:
Market saturation
By the end of 2016, around 130 markets (countries) had been penetrated and many key markets were highly saturated:
Just under half had established two or more CIs
All of the top 12 had established ten or more CIs
All of the top five had established 18 or more CIs
The top market had established over 100 CIs.
Covid-19
From early 2020, governments around the world began implementing restrictions on the movement of people across their borders. As a result, many potential CI partners were unable to meet face-to-face to discuss, negotiate or progress arrangements.
During this time, the education sector (both in China and abroad) had to quickly pivot to a drastically different operating environment. For many, this would have required the deprioritisation of some longer-term work streams (like international partnerships).
Reputation
As an undercurrent to the aforementioned factors, beginning in the late 2000s, concerns began emerging in a number of countries regarding the hosting of CIs on university grounds. In particular, concerns were raised around the risk of:
academic integrity and freedom of speech being eroded
curricula developed by CIs omitting or mis-characterising information considered as established facts in the host country.
In 2017, these concerns found a wider audience through a documentary called In the Name of Confucius (假孔子之名). In the years that followed, this documentary was screened in over 15 countries, including in parliaments in the United Kingdom, Denmark and Australia, highlighting further concerns around CI employment practices, potential human rights violations and foreign influence activities.
Rectification of Names
As countries turned their attention inward to respond to COVID-19, Hanban did something interesting. It quietly disappeared.
In July 2020, it was announced that the newly established Chinese International Education Foundation (CIEF/中国国际中文教育基金会) would have “full responsibility for operating the global Confucius Institute brand”. (i.e., part of Hanban’s role). At the same time, the Center for Language Education and Cooperation (CLEC/中外语言交流合作中心) was also established to “undertake other international Chinese education initiatives outside of the operating and managing of Confucius Institutes”, such as the Chinese Bridge Competition (i.e., the other part of Hanban’s job).5
Why close Hanban? Was it the outcome of reform following decades of growth? Was it because the CI funding model had become unsustainable? Was it because the promotion of Chinese language and culture globally was being de-prioritised to make space for other priorities? Was it to create distance (or the perception of distance) between CIs and the Chinese Government?
There are cases to be made for each of those interpretations. What is certain is that in the decade leading up to the closure of Hanban there was a marked shift in the operating environment for CIs globally - particularly in Northern America and Europe - that resulted in the formal closure of between 140-160 CIs (and potentially more).
An overview of Confucius Institute closures
In an attempt to account for the complex political and economic dynamics in which CIs operate, the author puts forward three approaches to measure CI closures:
formal disestablishment (high confidence)
implicit disestablishment (medium confidence)
possible disestablishment (low confidence)
Formally disestablished
For the purposes of this article, a CI can be considered formally disestablished once a publicly accessible statement or report from a reputable source has been identified confirming the local host’s decision to cease participating in the CI arrangement.
Under this definition, 141 CIs are considered formally disestablished. Of these, approximately 80% were in Northern America, 16.5% were in Europe, 2% were in Asia and 1.5% were in Oceania.6 As of 31 Dec 2023, no CIs have been formally disestablished in Africa or Latin America & the Caribbean.
There are various circumstances under which CIs have been formally disestablished over the years. At a high level, this can occur due to one or more of the following reasons:
changes to the host institution (e.g., disestablished, restructured, rebranded or absorbed by another institution).
a decision by the host institution to cease the agreement or let it expire (e.g., in response to financial constraints, insufficient demand, community protests, critical media coverage, targeted think tank reports or government reviews).
the government of the host institute intervenes by passing legislation affecting the feasibility of the CI arrangement (e.g., amending eligibility criteria for government funding, or imposing reporting requirements).
The threshold for a formal and public closure of a CI is high. As noted earlier, it is not uncommon for the unveiling ceremony of a CI to be attended by diplomatic officials, senior university staff and politicians.
The establishment of a CI is also often tied to broader bilateral negotiations, such as Free Trade Agreements, the Belt and Road Initiative, or Comprehensive Strategic Partnerships. People-to-people ties are an important pillar of bilateral relations, and CIs have been promoted as a key enabler for that pillar. As such, the formal and public closure of a CI can have significant political and economic implications.
Implicitly disestablished
For the purposes of this article, a CI can be considered implicitly disestablished when:
evidence of its establishment has been identified; and
it was omitted from the CIEF’s official list of CIs as of 31 Dec 2023; and
no evidence of formal disestablishment had been identified as of 31 Dec 2023.
Under this definition, a further 20 CIs are considered implicitly disestablished. Of these, Asia had eight, Europe had six, Northern America had five, and Africa had one. No CIs were implicitly disestablished in Latin America & the Caribbean or in Oceania.
The reason this category is designated as medium confidence is mainly because there are some discrepancies with the CIEF’s official list that bring into question the completeness and accuracy of the record it keeps. In most cases, the list was consistent with other data sources. However, there are a few cases where:
the host institution of a CI has announced its formal unveiling but there was no record of it on the official list as of 31 Dec 2023
a CI was active online in the six months to 31 Dec 2023 but had been omitted from the official list
evidence of the formal disestablishment of a CI was identified, but the CI was still listed on CIEF’s official list.
The relatively high weighting given to the CIEF’s official list (despite these inconsistencies) is based on the assumption that the CIEF has a vested interest in publicising and promoting the establishment of new CIs. If a CI is omitted from the official list and is not mentioned in any of the CIEF media releases, the default assumption is the CI is no longer operating. It is expected that revisiting this category at a later date will produce some higher-confidence results.
Possibly disestablished
Beyond traditional websites, CIs have used a variety of platforms to engage wider audiences, including Facebook, Instagram, VK (VKontakte), X (Twitter), TikTok, YouTube, Telegram and LinkedIn.
For the purposes of this article, a CI can be considered possibly disestablished when:
evidence of its establishment has been identified; and
it was included in the CIEF’s official list of CIs as of 31 Dec 2023; but
no activity was identified across (a) its website or (b) any of the social media platforms listed above in the six months to 31 Dec 2023.
Under this definition, a further 83 CIs are considered possibly disestablished. Of these, Africa had 25, Asia had 24, Europe and Northern America both had 10, and Latin America & the Caribbean and Oceania both had seven.
There are three main reasons this category is designated as low confidence:
The threshold for online inactivity (>6 months since last post) is relatively low7
The online (in)activity of a CI can be impacted by factors such as internet accessibility, cost and use in the host country8
Not all social media platforms used by CIs were included in the scope of this research.9
Over time, we can expect that the CIs in this category will either (a) update their social media, (b) drop off the CIEF’s official list, (c) have their formal closure announced, or (d) continue to operate off the grid.
Despite being low confidence, this category does provide a starting point for identifying CIs that may (for all intents and purposes) be disestablished but, due to the complex political and economic dynamics within which they operate, have not had their closure formally announced. It is expected that revisiting this category at a later date will produce some higher-confidence results.
The current state of play
As of 31 Dec 2023, for every five CIs ever established, three of them still had an active online presence10, while the other two had either been disestablished or were inactive online.
Europe
Europe continued to top the leader board for the number of CIs ever established and the highest number of CIs with an active online presence. As of 31 Dec 2023, around 80% of all CIs ever established in Europe had an active online presence.
The top nine countries in Europe by number of CIs with an active online presence are:
>25: the United Kingdom
>15: Germany and Russia
>10: France and Italy
5-10: Spain, Belarus, Poland, and Portugal.
Countries in Europe where CIs have been disestablished (both formally and implicitly) are: France, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Russia, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Switzerland and Ukraine.
Asia
Asia ranks second in terms of the number of CIs ever established and the number of CIs with an active online presence. As of 31 Dec 2023, around 73% of all CIs ever established in Asia had an active online presence.
The top 10 countries in Asia by number of CIs with an active online presence are:
>20: South Korea
>10: Japan and Thailand
5-10: Indonesia
≤ 5: Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Philippines, Mongolia, Pakistan, and Türkiye.
The eight countries in Asia where CIs have been disestablished (both formally and implicitly) are: Japan, India, Georgia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Maldives, North Korea and Saudi Arabia.
Northern America
Northern America ranks third in terms of the number of CIs ever established. It ranks last, however, in terms of CIs with an active online presence. As of 31 Dec 2023, just under 4% were still active online.
The disestablishment (formally and implicitly) of nearly 90% of CIs in Northern America has occurred in the context of high levels of public scrutiny, heated debate and government interventions. This includes:
The U.S. Department of State's designation of the ‘Confucius Institute U.S. Center’ (CIUS/孔子学院美国中心) as a foreign mission;
The former Canadian Education Minister’s termination of the CI at the New Brunswick Department of Education;
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report and testimony regarding Confucius Institutes;12
The restricting of U.S. Department of Defence funding for institutions of higher education that host CIs through the National Defense Authorization Act (Fiscal Year 201913; Fiscal Year 202114);
The introduction of the Concerns Over Nations Funding University Campus Institutes in the United States(CONFUCIUS) Act in October 202315;
The introduction of the DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Entities of Concern Act in December 202316.
As of 31 Dec 2023, there were only five CIs in Northern America with an active online presence. These were located in Quebec, British Colombia (Coquitlam), Alberta (Edmonton), Saskatchewan and Washington State.
Latin America & the Caribbean
Latin America & the Caribbean is ranked fifth in terms of the number of CIs ever established, but due to the relatively high level of online activity and the fact that no CIs have been disestablished in the region, it is ranked third for the number of CIs with an active online presence. As of 31 Dec 2023, 85% of all CIs ever established in Latin America & the Caribbean were active online.
The top six countries in Latin America & the Caribbean by number of active CIs are:
5-10: Brazil and Mexico
<5: Peru, Argentina, Chile and Colombia.
There are six countries in Latin America & the Caribbean with CIs that do not have an active online presence: Brazil, Antiqua and Barbuda, Grenada, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and Trinidad and Tobago.
Africa
Africa ranks fourth in terms of the number of CIs ever established andfourth in terms of the number of CIs with an active online presence. As of 31 Dec 2023, around 58% of CIs established in Africa were active online.
The top six countries in Africa by number of active CIs are Egypt and South Africa (three each), and Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar and Morocco (two each).
There are 22 countries in Africa with CIs that do not have an active online presence. South Africa has three, Kenya has two, and the rest all have one.
There is one CI in Africa, the CI at Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST), which has been designated as implicitly disestablished based on the criteria used in this research. The unveiling of the CI was announced on BIUST’s Facebook page and reported by Xinhua news agency in November 2023. Despite this, as of 31 Dec 2023 the CIEF had not make a media release regarding this CI and had not included it in the official list of CIs.17
Oceania
Oceania ranks last in terms of the number of CIs ever established, but ranks ahead of Northern America in terms of number of CIs with an active online presence. As of 31 Dec 2023, around 55% of all CIs ever established in Oceania were active online.
Australia is responsible for 14 of the 20 CIs ever established in Oceania (around 75%). Half of those had either been disestablished or did not have an active online presence as of 31 Dec 2023.
All three of the CIs established in New Zealand were active online as of 31 Dec 2023, as was the CI in Fiji. Neither the CI in Samoa nor the CI in Papua New Guinea had an active online presence in the six months to 31 Dec 2023.
The future of Confucius Institutes
Despite some not insignificant setbacks, it appears there is still a strong intention to continue using CIs both as a brand and as a mechanism for engaging with the outside world.
The forum was attended by representatives of local host institutions, Confucius Institute directors (both local and Chinese), businesses and media, with over a thousand Chinese and non-Chinese guests.
The three topics for the forum were:
“加强联通，促进孔子学院协同发展” Strengthen connectivity and advance coordinated development of Confucius Institutes.
“孔子学院的数字化发展与资源共享” Digital development and resource sharing of Confucius Institutes
“加强特色发展，提升孔子学院品牌影响力” Strengthen the development of special characteristics and enhance the brand influence of Confucius Institutes.
I’ll leave it to you, avid China Watcher who has made it to the end of this article, to infer from these topics the direction Confucius Institutes might be heading in.
Rather than indulge in a crystal ball gazing exercise, I’ll simply conclude by providing a translation of the “about us” page on the CIEF website:
“The Chinese International Education Foundation (CIEF) is a charity organisation registered with the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, established in Beijing in June 2020. The foundation was jointly initiated by 27institutions of higher learning, businesses, and social organisations. Through supporting global Chinese language initiatives, promoting people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and enhancing international understanding, it aims to give impetus to exchanges and mutual learning between diverse civilisations and jointly contribute efforts towards the joint building of a community of shared future for humankind”.
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Based on the Press Gazette’sTop 50 Biggest News Websites in the World (Dec 2023). Each website was searched using the advanced Google search function for mentions of either “Confucius Institute“ or “Confucius Institutes”.
Based on 软文世界’s list of top 10 news media websites (July 2023). Each website was searched used the advanced Google search function for mentions of 孔子学院, as of 31 Dec 2023.
Confucius Classrooms (孔子课堂) are out of scope for the purposes of this research. The main reason for this is that Confucius Classrooms are less consistent in form and structure compared to Confucius Institutes. On the one hand, a Confucius Classroom could have its own room on a school grounds dedicated to the teaching and learning of Chinese language and culture. On the other hand, a Confucius Classroom may just be a grant provided to a school to purchase resources to supplement existing curricula but no physical space is allocated for it. There are cases that, capacity permitting, would be interesting to investigate further, such as the Confucius Classroom at Cambodia’s Phnom Penh Police Brigade and the Confucius Classroom at Lao National Radio.
There have been instances, particularly during periods of significant domestic instability (e.g. COVID-19), where there have been gaps of longer than six months between social media posts. The intention behind setting the threshold low is to draw attention to CIs that may be facing a closure. This threshold could be adjusted higher (e.g., 12 months or 24 months), which would result in a higher confidence level.
As reported by the World Economic Forum in September 2023, “only 35% of people in developing nations have access to the internet compared to over 80% in the developed world”.
Generally speaking, the criteria for deciding whether a social media platform was in scope or not was (a) whether or not the CI had a link to it on their main website/social media account, (b) whether that platform was one that is used by other CIs and (c) whether that social media account could be discovered through a google search (in English, Mandarin or one of the local languages).
For the purposes of this research, a CI is considered “active online” if it has posted or updated one or more of the following in the six months to 31 Dec 2023: its website, Facebook, Instagram, VK (VKontakte), X (Twitter), TikTok, YouTube, Telegram or LinkedIn.
See report entitled China: Agreements Establishing Confucius Institutes at U.S. Universities Are Similar, but Institute Operations Vary (13 Feb 2019); See testimony entitled China: Observations on Confucius Institutes in the United States and U.S. Universities in China (28 Feb 2019).
S.3088 - CONFUCIUS Act: “Specifically, the bill establishes requirements for postsecondary educational institutions that receive federal funding and that have contracts or agreements with Confucius Institutes. The contracts or agreements must include clear provisions that (1) protect the academic freedom of the institutions; (2) prohibit the application of foreign law on the institutions' campuses; and (3) grant full managerial authority of the institutes to the institutions, including full control over teaching plans, activities, research grants, and employment decisions.”
H.R.1516 - DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Entities of Concern Act: “Specifically, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) must ensure that an institution of higher education (IHE) that has awarded a contract to, entered into an agreement with, or received an in-kind donation or gift from a Chinese entity of concern or Confucius Institute is ineligible to receive any funds from DHS, unless the IHE terminates the relationship. The IHE may regain eligibility for these funds upon termination of the relationship.”
The CIEF has published media releases announcing activities to establish new CIs, including in Djibouti, Greece, Germany and France. The fact that BIUST’s unveiling was not mentioned on the CIEF is peculiar, particularly given the broad media coverage it received across Chinese news media. As of 1 March 2024, this CI has been included in name only on the Chinese version of CIEF’s official list, but no further details have been provided.
Thanks for doing this work—interesting/alarming in the face of how few students are studying abroad in China.
Nice work Thomas!