Confucius Institutes in the United States: Selected Issues, IN FOCUS (IF11180), CRS, May 2, 2023.
Thomas Lum, Specialist in Asian Affairs
Hannah Fischer, Senior Research Librarian
The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s or China’s)
Confucius Institutes offer instruction in Chinese language
in universities around the world. The Institutes have been
the subject of controversy since appearing on U.S.
university campuses in 2005, particularly for their
perceived effects on academic freedom and for their lack of
transparency. They have attracted further attention during
the past several years as the broader U.S.-China relationship
has deteriorated. Some Members of Congress and others
have alleged that they may play a role in China’s efforts to
influence public opinion abroad, recruit “influence agents”
on U.S. campuses, and engage in cyber espionage and
intellectual property theft. PRC officials have denied such
charges, and suggested that the Institutes have become
victims of a U.S. “Cold War mentality.” Supporters of the
Institutes have emphasized that they provide Chinese
language and cultural programs that benefit students,
universities, and surrounding communities, and that such
offerings may not otherwise be available. Many U.S.
universities have terminated their contracts with Confucius
Institutes in the past five years.
U.S. Policy
In August 2020, the Trump Administration designated the
Confucius Institute U.S. Center (CIUS), which oversees
Confucius Institutes in the United States, as a “foreign
mission” of the PRC. The designation requires CIUS to
regularly file information about its operations with the
Department of State. CIUS is a PRC-funded, 501(c)(3)
nonprofit entity based in Washington, DC. The National
Defense Authorization Act for FY2021 (P.L. 116-283,
Section 1062) restricts Department of Defense (DOD)
funding to institutions of higher education that host a
Confucius Institute.
History and Mission
The first Confucius Institute opened in 2004 in Seoul, South
Korea, followed by one at the University of Maryland
(which closed in 2020). The PRC government created the
Confucius Institutes, which have operated in over 160
countries, in part to help improve China’s international
image or reduce what PRC officials view as misconceptions
about China. The Institutes are patterned after other
national language and cultural programs, such as France’s
Alliance Francaise, Germany’s Goethe Institute, the U.K.’s
British Council, and Spain’s Instituto Cervantes. Confucius
Institutes exercise less autonomy from their home
government than their European counterparts, however, and
mostly are situated within foreign educational institutions,
while their foreign counterparts are not.
Nearly all Confucius Institutes focus on Chinese language
instruction at the introductory level. U.S. Confucius
Institutes generally offer noncredit courses to the public for
a fee. In some cases, Institute instructors offer classes to
enrolled students for academic credit, or teach credit
courses in academic departments. The Institutes often work
with university departments to cosponsor Chinese cultural
events, academic seminars, and conferences focused on
doing business in China. They also sponsor programs for
U.S. students and scholars to study Chinese language in the
PRC, and serve as platforms for academic collaboration
between U.S. and Chinese universities.
In 2020, the PRC government reportedly renamed the
parent organization of the Confucius Institutes, the Chinese
Language Council International (commonly referred to as
Hanban), as the Center for Language Education and
Cooperation (CLEC). CLEC is affiliated with China’s
Ministry of Education. As part of the change, the PRC
government also formed the Chinese International
Education Foundation, a Ministry of Education-sponsored,
nongovernmental charitable organization, to provide
funding to the Institutes.
Confucius Institutes in the United States
The number of Confucius Institutes in the United States
peaked in 2017, at around 118, according to some reports.
China spent over $158 million on Confucius Institutes in
the United States between 2006 and 2019, according to a
U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
report (see text box, above). In addition, the Institutes
sponsor Confucius Classrooms in U.S. primary and
secondary schools. The Classrooms typically are affiliated
with Institutes at nearby colleges, and their total may have
fallen with the closure of many Institutes since 2017.
The number of Confucius Institutes in the United States
was approximately seven as of December 2022, according
to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and
Medicine (NASEM), a private, nonprofit organization. U.S.
universities have cited various reasons for ending their
agreements, including (1) concerns about academic
freedom, (2) the potential for Chinese government influence
and risks to U.S. national security, (3) the desire to keep
DOD Chinese Language Flagship program and other U.S.
government funding that have been or may be restricted by
law, (4) encouragement by some Members of Congress, and
(5) difficulty operating during the Coronavirus Disease
2019 pandemic.
The National Association of Scholars (NAS), a nonprofit
advocacy group, alleges that some universities where
Confucius Institutes closed have maintained relationships
with their former PRC university partners, and/or have
continued to cooperate with them on Chinese language
instruction. NAS also has found examples of ways in which
some Confucius Classrooms have continued by transferring
their affiliations to Confucius Institutes that remain open or
operating independently of the Institutes.
Agreements, Management, and Operation
To establish a Confucius Institute, U.S. and PRC partner
educational institutions sign an implementation agreement,
and each side also signs an agreement with CLEC. The
agreements and the Confucius Institute Constitution
together govern Institute activities. They reportedly allow
for some flexibility and variation regarding the operation of
individual Institutes. Some agreements reportedly have
been accessible online while others have been available
upon request. Some have had confidentiality clauses and, in
some cases, U.S. host schools reportedly have resisted
disclosing their agreements.
Confucius Institutes each are overseen by a Board of
Directors, usually made up of around eight people, with the
top positions filled by chancellors, deans, or scholars in
Asian or Chinese studies from the U.S. institution, along
with administrators and faculty from the Chinese partner
school. The Institutes are administered by either a U.S.
director or by U.S. and PRC co-directors. In many cases,
the U.S. director or co-director is a Chinese-speaking
school administrator or faculty member.
Some provisions of the Constitution and By-Laws of the
Confucius Institutes have raised controversy. Chapter 1,
Article 6 states that Confucius Institutes shall abide by the
laws of the countries in which they are located and respect
local educational traditions, but also that they shall not
contravene PRC laws. Some Confucius Institute directors
have responded that PRC law applies only to PRC Board
members and teachers, and in limited ways.
The Chinese side typically provides start-up funding of
$150,000 and operating costs of $100,000-$200,000 per
year for each U.S. Confucius Institute, although some
Institutes have had much larger budgets. These
expenditures cover teachers’ salaries, books, computer
hardware and software, scholarships, and other related
expenses. U.S. partners provide matching contributions,
generally in-kind, including support from private sources.
These contributions generally consist of classroom, office,
and library space; furnishings, computers; and program
staff. The Institutes maintain reading rooms containing PRC
publications
Concerns
According to some experts, the activities of Confucius
Institutes are narrow in scope, and they have an incentive to
avoid controversial activities, such as disseminating PRC
propaganda, on the one hand, and broaching topics that are
politically sensitive in China, on the other. Some academic
observers counter that Confucius Institutes exert influence
in U.S. universities through PRC board members’
interpersonal relations and the Institutes’ involvement in
China-related programs and connections to educational and
research opportunities in China. Other issues include
questions about the teaching qualifications of instructors
from China, tensions between the Institutes and existing
Chinese language programs in academic departments, and
differing priorities between school administrators and
faculty regarding the Institutes. In 2014, the American
Association of University Professors issued a statement
calling on U.S. universities to end their partnerships with
Confucius Institutes unless their arrangements met
conditions related to academic freedom, managerial control,
and transparency.
Some studies provide examples of Confucius Institute
Board members or PRC officials directly or indirectly
pressuring faculty, administrators, or invited guests at U.S.
universities that host Confucius Institutes to avoid making
public statements or holding events on topics that the PRC
government considers politically sensitive. Other examples
suggest that some PRC students at U.S. universities may be
fearful of attending or may be motivated to express
opposition to events on campus related to topics sensitive to
China, due to the presence of a Confucius Institute. Some
reports suggest that there have been few instances of
Confucius Institutes overtly attempting to interfere in
academic or extra-curricular activities and speech at U.S.
host universities. Some U.S. schools, particularly larger,
more prestigious ones, reportedly have successfully pushed
back against or prevented PRC interference in university
events, such as speaking engagements by the Dalai Lama
and other figures opposed by the PRC government. The
NASEM report’s authors were “not aware of any evidence
at the unclassified level that [Confucius Institutes] were
ever associated with espionage or intellectual property
theft."
Legislation
Legislation introduced in the 117th Congress related to the
operation of Confucius Institutes in the United States
include the Confucius Act (S. 590 [passed in the Senate]
and H.R. 2622) and the Transparency for Confucius
Institutes Act (S. 822 and H.R. 2057). In the 118th
Congress, the DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and
Chinese Entities of Concern Act has been introduced (S.
1121 and H.R. 1516).
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