China’s Confucius Institutes are disappearing from US campuses
- Only five of the centres remain, compared to 2019, when there were 96 operating in 44 states
- Amid souring ties, US lawmakers have taken aim at the institutes – created to promote Chinese language learning – as a means for Beijing to exert its influence
Almost all the China-funded Confucius Institutes in the US have closed, a new report found, highlighting how soured ties between Beijing and Washington have led US universities to abandon what was once seen as a cheap way to offer Chinese classes.
All but five of the institutes, which were created in 2004 to promote Chinese language, are now closed, the Government Accountability Office said.
That is compared with 2019, when the GAO found 96 Confucius Institutes operating in 44 states. At the time, only six states had no colleges or universities with the centres.
The decision tracks with a sharp spike in tension between the US and China dating to the Trump administration that’s seen a rise in export-controls, sanctions, tariffs and repeated diplomatic incidents.
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The two sides are only just beginning to try to get ties back on track, and US President Joe Biden is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping at an Apec summit in San Francisco later this month.
Trump administration officials initiated attacks on the Confucius Institutes. The main reason that US colleges abandoned them was language in the 2019 and 2021 defence authorisation bills that warned schools could lose federal funding if they kept the institutes, according to Kimberly Gianopoulos, the director of International Affairs and Trade at the GAO.