Being affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Education, CIs have received increasing skepticism over its censorship of content taught, such as topics related to individual freedoms and democracy, Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang.
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Xi Jinping in 2013 stated that the intentions are to "give a good Chinese narrative". Ĭonfucius Institutes are used as a form of "soft power" by the Chinese government in which it spends approximately $10 billion a year on CIs and related programs to exercise these initiatives. Some commentators argue, unlike these organizations, many Confucius Institutes operate directly on university campuses, thus giving rise to what they see as unique concerns related to academic freedom and political influence. Officials from China have compared Confucius Institutes to language and culture promotion organizations such as Portugal's Instituto Camões, Britain's British Council, France's Alliance Française, Italy's Società Dante Alighieri, Spain's Instituto Cervantes and Germany's Goethe-Institut-several of them named for an iconic cultural figure identified with that country, as Confucius is identified with China. The related Confucius Classroom program partners with local secondary schools or school districts to provide teachers and instructional materials. The institutes operate in co-operation with local affiliate colleges and universities around the world, and financing is shared between Hanban and the host institutions. The Confucius Institute program began in 2004 and was supported by the Chinese Ministry of Education-affiliated Hanban (officially the Office of Chinese Language Council International, which changed its name to Center for Language Education and Cooperation in 2020), overseen by individual universities.
The organization has been criticized over concerns of the Chinese government's undue overseas influence and suppression of academic freedom. The stated aim of the program is to promote Chinese language and culture, support local Chinese teaching internationally, and facilitate cultural exchanges. A Confucius Institute at Seneca College in Toronto, CanadaĬonfucius Institutes ( CI Chinese: 孔子学院 pinyin: Kǒngzǐ Xuéyuàn) are public educational and cultural promotion programs funded and arranged currently by the Chinese International Education Foundation and formerly by Hanban, an organization affiliated with the Chinese government.