Criticism of Confucius Institutes

Confucius Institutes are frequently compared to cultural associations such as the UK's British Council,[48] Germany's Goethe-Institut,[4] France's Alliance Française, Italy's Società Dante Alighieri, and Spain's Instituto Cervantes.[49][50] For instance, an editorial in the state-owned China Daily newspaper accused CI opponents of double standards for not calling "Goethe-Institut, Alliance Française or Cervantes Institutes propaganda vehicles or tools of cultural invasion". The editorial noted that "China is not the first to set up such institutes nor does it have a monopoly over overseas cultural promotion."[51]

However, unlike the aforementioned organizations, the CI model is attachment to universities or other educational institutions, thus leading to suspicions the institutes are "aimed less at fostering interest in China and Chinese culture itself, and more at ensuring that such interest is guided along lines approved of by the Chinese party-state."[52] Steven Mosher notes: "Unlike Alliance Francaise, the Confucius Institutes are not independent from their government; unlike the Goethe-Institut establishments, they do not occupy their own premises. Instead, participating universities agree to provide office space in exchange for funding, and to cede academic control to the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party."[53] Martin Davidson, chief executive of the British Council, criticized comparisons between his institution and CIs. "We are a stand-alone organization operating out of our own premises. They are being embedded in university campuses. The real question has to be one of independence." Davidson said while the Chinese are very clear about wanting to combat negative propaganda with positive propaganda, "The danger is more of self-censorship – which is a very subtle thing."[54]

Jocelyn Chey, a former diplomat and expert in Australia-China relations, stated the Confucius Institutes are more closely managed by its government compared with its French counterpart.[50] She believes the institute's program is most valuable where it supports culture and outreach into the community.[55] Chey however states CI is "a propaganda vehicle for the Chinese communist party, and not a counterpart to the Goethe Institute or Alliance Française",[56][57] and speculates the close links between the institutes and the Chinese Communist Party "could lead at best to a 'dumbing down' of research and at worst could produce propaganda."[55] On the other hand, The Sydney Morning Herald cites a Queensland University of Technology student that "It would be best to understand [Confucius institutes] not as 'propaganda tools' but as 'one instrument of China's cultural diplomacy to wield and bolster Chinese soft power globally'".[4]

Confucius Institutes also bear similarities to the Chinese Students and Scholars Association which has come under criticism for interference by the Chinese government on American university campuses.[58]

Columbia University received $1 million in Hanban funds over five years, to begin a CI. Professor Robert Barnett, the director of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program, described a "strange silence about Tibet and other sensitive issues when it comes to Columbia, academics, and talks of China." Barnett said, "The issue is not China wants to promote itself and pay for Chinese to be taught. The issue is it wants to have a presence in the campus and much more than that. It wants to have a presence in the faculty and in teaching departments."[113] Lening Liu, director of the Confucius Institute at Columbia, said that it was "committed to academic integrity and that it would reject any attempt by Hanban to censor its research."[113] Other academics have questioned how universities should respond when foreign governments limit academic freedom abroad. Since the 2001 publication of Columbia University professor Andrew J. Nathan's Tiananmen Papers, he and several other faculty members have been denied visas to China, and the Chinese government shut down the Modern Tibetan Studies Program's study abroad program in Tibet.[113]

Over 170 University of Chicago faculty members petitioned president Robert Zimmer against the establishment, without Faculty Senate approval, of a CI as well as a Milton Friedman Institute for Research in Economics.[114] The petition called Confucius Institutes "an academically and politically ambiguous initiative" sponsored by the PRC, and said the university risked having its own reputation used to "legitimate the spread" of CIs in the United States and around the world.[100]

In late October 2013, Marshall Sahlins, a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, published the article "China U: Confucius Institutes censor political discussions and restrain the free exchange of ideas. Why, then, do American universities sponsor them?" arguing that universities like the University of Chicago should take the lead in canceling the arrangement.[115] Writing in Forbes, the Irish journalist Eamonn Fingleton says, "In one of the most scandalous sell-outs in intellectual history, more and more universities now accept funding from the Beijing Ministry of Education".[116] He calls the CI program a "Chinese mega-blooper", and says that largely thanks to Sahlins' leadership, "academic staff at many universities have begun agitating to rid campuses of the phenomenon."[117]

In 2014, Professor Sahlins wrote Confucius Institutes: Academic Malware because incidents of academic malpractice in CIs, "from the virtually unnoticeable to the publicly notorious, are disturbingly common".[118] Sahlins told the Times Higher Education that his book did not represent some sort of "rabid anti-communism of a McCarthyite or Cold War sort – as defenders of Confucius Institutes have claimed", but rather, the issue is the preservation of the "values of academic freedom and intellectual autonomy upon which universities in the US and most of the world are founded."[119]

According to a Chronicle of Higher Education article, since the first Confucius Institute in the United States was established at the University of Maryland in 2004, "there have been no complaints of the institutes' getting in the way of academic freedom on American campuses"; the same article goes on to say that the Institutes are "distinct in the degree to which they were financed and managed by a foreign government."[120]

Stanford University was initially offered $4 million to host a CI and endow a Confucius Institute Professorship in Sinology, but Hanban requested that the professor not discuss "delicate issues". After Stanford refused based on academic freedom grounds, Hanban accepted making an unrestricted gift, and the university plans to use the money for a professorship in classical Chinese poetry.[93] Dean Richard Saller, who is also the CI director, explained the Hanban prizes the Stanford relationship too much to jeopardize it by interfering with academic freedom.

In 2009, North Carolina State University canceled a planned appearance by the Dalai Lama to speak on its Raleigh campus, citing concerns about a Chinese backlash and a shortage of time and resources. Provost Warwick Arden said "China is a major trading partner for North Carolina," and a CI presents an "opportunity for subtle pressure and conflict."[121] However, in 2010, the Dalai Lama spoke at Stanford University and Miami University (Ohio) – both institutions have Confucius Institutes.[93]

On 28 March 2012, the United States House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing on "The Price of Public Diplomacy with China," focusing upon Chinese propaganda efforts in the U.S., including Confucius Institutes on university campuses.[122] Representative Dana Rohrabacher said, "The two pillars of America's status as an open society are freedom of the press and academic freedom. Communist China, which does not believe in or allows the practice of either type of freedom, is exploiting the opportunities offered by America to penetrate both private media and public education to spread its state propaganda."[123] Steven W. Mosher testified, "there have been allegations of Confucius Institutes undermining academic freedom at host universities, engaging in industrial and military espionage, monitoring the activities of Chinese students abroad, and attempting to advance the Chinese Party-State's political agenda on such issues as the Dalai Lama and Tibet, Taiwan independence, the pro-democracy movement abroad, and dissent within China itself."[32] Responding to Mosher's testimony, Rohrabacher argued, "It appears as though Beijing is able to expand its campaign against academic freedom from China to America when U.S. universities value Chinese favors and money more than truth and integrity."[124]

The US Department of State issued a 17 May 2012 directive stating that the Chinese professors at university-based CIs were violating their J-1 visas by teaching in schools at the precollege level and would have to return to China by 30 June to apply for a new visa. In addition, the institutes would be required to obtain US academic accreditation.[125][126] Chinese officials reportedly applied pressure on Washington in response.[127][128] On 24 May, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said there was "a mess-up in the processing in general" and called the original directive "sloppy and incomplete." The State Department said it would arrange the appropriate visa categories for Chinese teachers, without them needing to leave the country and re-apply.[129] Chinese state media reacted strongly to the initial announcement, with state-run tabloid Global Times editorializing that, "the promotion of Chinese language and culture by Confucius Institutes makes some Americans uneasy."[130] Xu Lin, head of the Hanban, told a CI conference in Edinburgh, "The US government hurt our feelings, but Confucius Institutes across Europe have done a great job, especially with cultural promotion, which is not surprising given Europe's rich history and culture."[131][132]

In April 2014, over 100 professors at the University of Chicago signed a petition calling for a University Senate Council vote against renewing the university's CI contract, saying that the Hanban's control of hiring and training teachers "subjects the university's academic program to the political constraints on free speech and belief that are specific to the People's Republic of China." The CI director Dali Yang denied these charges and said, "Our Confucius Institute does not offer classes of its own; the teachers participate in the University of Chicago Chinese language program." Marshall Sahlins said that if the U. of C. withdrew from the Confucius Institutes, other universities "will think twice about joining or renewing their contracts."[133]

Media widely reported on this protest by U. of C. faculty. Historian Bruce Cumings, who signed the petition, noted that China had recently fired prominent faculty members for their political views, and warned, "American universities should not be taking money or institute funds from governments that are jailing professors and that do not provide academic freedom in their own country."[134] Anthony C. Yu, a professor emeritus of Chinese, recalled speaking at a large gathering of CI teachers employed on American campuses, and finding most weren't trained language instructors and only a few were fluent in English.[135] When George Washington University announced the establishment of a CI in 2013, a dean supported the program because the University of Chicago had also started one, but following the recent petition there, GW is changing the Faculty Code to protect academic freedom, particularly for professors studying Chinese policy, who could have cause to fear censorship by the Confucius Institute.[136]

On 25 September 2014, the University of Chicago stated that they had suspended negotiations to renew its CI contract because "recently published comments about UChicago in an article about the director-general of Hanban are incompatible with a continued equal partnership."[137] This referred to Xu Lin's interview with the Jiefang Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party in Shanghai.[138] The article states that following the UChicago faculty petition, Xu Lin wrote a letter to Chicago's president and called the university representative in Beijing (where Chicago has a research center), "with only one line: 'If your school decides to withdraw, I will agree to it.' Her attitude made the other side anxious. The school quickly responded that it will continue to properly manage the Confucius Institute."[139] Hanban Vice Director Hu Zhiping responded to Chicago's decision with a written statement: "Hanban thinks it's a pity that the University of Chicago has made the public statement before finding out the truth. Since Confucius Institute is a collaboration program, both sides can make a choice." Dali Yang, the Chicago CI director, said the institute would continue to support existing projects after the current five-year agreement expired on 29 September.

Several UChicago faculty members commented on the CI closure. Bruce Lincoln, Professor of the History of Religions at Chicago, summarized the lengthy negotiations; the university administrators "accurately represented the institution's core values" when they argued against having a CI on campus, while the Chinese officials were "heavy-handed, condescending, and difficult."[139] Marshall Sahlins, an emeritus professor who helped lead the fight against the CI, said the newspaper article "fulsomely" praised Xu Lin,[140] and told The Wall Street Journal, "They knew that this was a dubious operation to begin with. They knew that there was a large opposition from an important segment of the faculty. And then, given that, the newspaper report simply triggered or changed the balance definitively."[141]

Gary Rawnsley, a British expert on international communication, said that Xu Lin could not have picked a worse time "to assert her imaginary authority", and the Business Spectator concluded this hardline behavior highlights one of the biggest problems for Beijing's charm offensive. "It still relies on officials like Xu, who still think and act like party ideologues who like to assert their authority and bully people into submission."[142]

The Economist called Xu Lin's statement "a boastful challenge" and said opponents of Confucius Institutes will claim this as a victory for academic freedom.[143] The Diplomat said that the current CI program of 465 institutes is heavily weighted toward the West, with 97 located in the U.S. but only 95 institutes in all of Asia. However, if backlash in the West continues to grow, the number of CIs "may plateau in the West while there remains immense potential for growth in other regions", including Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America.[144][145] The official newspaper of the Communist party, the People's Daily responded to the University of Chicago's closure of its Confucius Institute.[146]

On 1 October 2014, Pennsylvania State University confirmed that it would close its Confucius Institute on 13 December 2014 when the contract expires, with its dean saying through a written statement that several of the university's goals are "not consistent with those of the Office of Chinese Languages Council International, known as the Hanban, which provides support to Confucius Institutes throughout the world."[147]

In an interview, a former director of the Penn State Confucius Institute, Eric Hayot, said he suspected that the Confucius Institute may not have been providing enough of a return on its investment. "I will say that in my experience as CI director one of the major frustrations with the relationship was that we consistently had more ambitious ideas for the ways CI funding could be used", such as research projects proposed by Penn State professors on topics concerning the environment, science, and politics. He said the Hanban regularly rejected such proposals "too far outside the official CI ambit (which they would tell us was mainly 'cultural'),"[148] "A lot of what the Hanban wanted us to do didn't make sense given our institution, faculty population, and student population," said Professor Hayot, who was not involved in the CI contract negotiations this summer. "Had they been flexible, it would have helped Confucius Institute succeed here."[149]

The Telegraph said China's effort to project soft power "has suffered another serious setback", and the UChicago and Penn State closures represent a major blow to China's attempt at using the government-funded institutes to improve its image around the world.[150]

Henry Reichman, a vice president of the AAUP and chairman of the committee that issued a statement condemning Confucius Institutes, said, "There is clearly a growing sense that these academic centers need to be looked at a little more carefully ... I suspect U Chicago and Penn State won't be the only ones to come to the conclusion that a relationship with these institutes is not really worth it."[151]

A Bloomberg News editorial mentioned the three CI closures within two weeks and says, "If the institutes are meant to be insidious vehicles of Chinese soft-power indoctrination, they're doing a terrible job. In fact, they appear to be causing more damage than good to China's image abroad."[152]

On 4 December 2014, the United States House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations held a hearing entitled "Is Academic Freedom Threatened by China's Influence on U.S. Universities?".[153] Chairman Chris Smith said, "U.S. colleges and universities should not be outsourcing academic control, faculty and student oversight or curriculum to a foreign government", and called for a Government Accountability Office study into academic agreements between American universities and China.[154] The testimony of Perry Link, a Chinese studies professor at UC Riverside, made three policy recommendations: American university administrators should adopt a policy of "consciously staking out the broadest of fields" in their programs with China, the U.S. government should fund Chinese-language programs in the U.S., and should withhold visas for CI instructors as long as China continues to withhold visas for American scholars on political grounds.[155][156] On the day after the House hearing, PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying responded, "All Confucius Institutes in the U.S. are there because they were applied for by U.S. universities of their own will. We have assisted with supplying teachers and textbooks at the request of the U.S. side but have never interfered with academic freedom."[157][158]

In August 2020, the United States Department of State designated the headquarters of the Confucius Institutes in the U.S. as a "foreign mission" of China.[159][160][161]

In Britain, there are at least 29 Confucius Institutes, the second largest number in the world after the United States, attached to major universities such as Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Cardiff and University College London. There are also 148 Confucius 'classrooms' in schools around the United Kingdom, according to the Hanban website. As part of its wider and ongoing work on China, the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission held an inquiry into China's Confucius Institutes in February 2019. "This inquiry asked the fundamental question: Are Confucius Institutes a benign and even positive presence, enhancing better understanding and cooperation with China, or a negative influence, threatening and restricting freedom of expression and academic freedom? Our conclusion is that on balance, given the evidence we have received, and while the teaching of Chinese language and culture should be welcomed and encouraged, Confucius Institutes as they are currently constituted threaten academic freedom and freedom of expression in universities around the world and represent an endeavour by the Chinese Communist Party to spread its propaganda and suppress its critics beyond its borders."[162]

In 2008, Tel Aviv University officials shut down a student art exhibition depicting the "oppression of Falun Gong" in China. A Tel Aviv District Court judge subsequently ruled the university "violated freedom of expression and succumbed to pressure from the Chinese Embassy."[163][164] The judge noted the dean of students "feared that the art exhibit would jeopardize Chinese support for its Confucius Institute and other educational activities."[120]

New South Wales Greens MP John Kaye said that although teaching Chinese language and culture is important, "Students are being denied a balanced curriculum which explores controversial issues, such as human rights violations and Taiwan, because critical examination might upset the Chinese government." Fellow Greens MP Jamie Parker organized a petition with more than 10,000 signatures, calling for removing the Confucius Classroom Program from local schools.[165] NSW Minister for Education Adrian Piccoli defended the classes, and noted the Chinese language syllabuses did not include the study of political content.[166] Shuangyuan Shi, director of Confucius Institute in Sydney, noted the institute primarily focuses on language, and teachers are not there to draw conclusions for students in regards to controversial subjects.[165] Senior Department of Education officials acknowledge the institutes play an important role in fostering greater literacy in Asian languages, they admit to concerns about China's influence over the program's content. They say that the treatment of "sensitive topics" such as human rights is usually well handled by teachers. Furthermore, the staff at the Sydney institutes noted Beijing never threatened their academic freedom.[167]

After the University of Sydney's Institute for Democracy and Human Rights organized a 2013 talk by the Dalai Lama, the university warned that they could not use its logo, allow media coverage, or permit entry to the event by Tibet activists—forcing organizers to move the event off campus. University officials decided, "there was a better way of doing it. A small group, a small section of the student body, was really not the best thing." Sarah Hanson-Young, an Australian Greens senator, said "As a democratic country, we should be encouraging more open and frank discussion about the current situation in Tibet, not banning the country's spiritual leader from addressing students and staff at universities." A spokesperson for the activist Australia Tibet Council said the university had given in to China. "They have compromised their academic freedom and integrity, and it also sends a disheartening message to the Tibetan people," more than 100 of whom have died in recent self-immolation protests.[168] June Teufel Dreyer, a University of Miami (Florida) professor of political science, claims that Confucius Institutes have distorted history, citing universities in Australia inviting speakers "to shill for the government and talk about how happy all the Tibetans were".[37] A Joint Conference of Australia's 13 Confucius Institutes was held in Sydney on 4 September 2014, intending to increase the CI network's "visibility in Australia's industry and public policy making communities".[169]

In December 2013, the Canadian Association of University Teachers passed a resolution calling on all Canadian universities and colleges that currently host CIs on their campuses to cease doing so, and those contemplating such arrangements to pursue them no further. This action followed upon the Université de Sherbrooke in Quebec closing its Confucius Institute,[170] the University of Manitoba voting against hosting a CI out of concerns over political censorship, and McMaster University cancelling its CI contract following an instructor's human rights complaint.[171] CAUT executive director James Turk said Canadian universities that agree to host CIs are compromising their own integrity by allowing the Hanban to have a voice in academic matters such as curriculum, texts, and topics of class discussion, describing such interference as a "fundamental violation of academic freedom."[172] Turk described CIs as "essentially political arms of the Chinese government", which restrict the free discussion of topics Chinese authorities deem controversial, and "should have no place on our campuses."[173]

At 19 June 2014 meeting of the Toronto District School Board, Canada's largest school board, trustees voted to postpone the planned September startup of a Confucius Institute, in order to more closely examine a 2012 agreement that chair Chris Bolton unilaterally negotiated with the Hanban. On the morning of the meeting, Bolton suddenly resigned and was not available to answer questions. Many trustees complained that they had not received enough information about the partnership and were caught off guard when they received hundreds of emails and phone calls from parents protesting against CIs.[174][175] An editorial in The Globe and Mail said Bolton "showed a stunning lack of judgment", and warned that "the Confucius Institute functions as little more than a long arm of the Chinese state, pushing its political agenda under the guise of simple language instruction."[176] The deputy director-general of the Hunan Provincial Department of Education sent a letter to the TDSB that said, "If the Confucius Institute in Toronto was suspended, there would be a great damage to the relationship between the two sides, which is hard for us to accept."[177][178][179]

On 30 September 2014, the TDSB's Planning and Priorities Committee voted to terminate the Confucius Institute program, leaving the final decision to the full board meeting at the end of October. TDSB chair Mari Rutka declared she did not feel reassured that going forward would be a good move, and said, "There have been too many concerns raised, I think, again, we have the examples of a number of other institutions that have decided not to go on with this."[180] Trustees said they had heard both sides of the argument, and received pressure from both parents alarmed over China's control of the programs and from Chinese officials who warned them that dissolving the partnership would endanger the TDSB's most lucrative market for fee-paying international students.[181] The CI issue has been contentious, involving a website and petitions.[182] The committee heard from 10 speakers, half against the contract (including a former Canadian Security Intelligence Service Asia/Pacific chief who warned the institutes are a "Trojan horse"), and half in favor (a spokesperson from the Confederation of Chinese Canadian Organizations in Toronto who said the issue was not political but "about culture and language").[183] A newspaper editorial described CIs as state-supported, state-directed entities controlled by a "one-party regime that recently evolved from Marxism-Leninism into what can be best described as a novel form of non-democratic elitism with kleptocratic tendencies."[184]

At the 30 October 2014 full meeting, the TDSB voted 20–2 to cancel the CI contract. Trustee Pamela Gough said her concern was that "the Confucius Institute is directly controlled by the Communist Party of China, and there is irrefutable evidence that the party exerts its influence through [the institute]".[185][186] In response to the TDSB rejection, an op-ed from the state-run China Daily called the criticisms "unfair" and accused CI critics of having "a deep bias against China".[187] David Mulroney, a former Canadian ambassador to China, said, "We're seeing really the end of the free ride that Confucius Institutes have had, particularly in North America".[188]

In December 2014, Stockholm University, the first university in Europe to host a Confucius Institute, announced it was terminating the program. Press coverage of the Braga incident in the Swedish press was said to have influenced the decision. "Generally it is questionable to have, within the framework of the university, institutes that are financed by another country," said the university's chancellor.[189] No major university in Sweden now hosts a Confucius Institute.

A censorship effort by the Confucius Institute's international director Xu Lin against Taiwan occurred in Portugal in July 2014.[190][191][192] Upon her arrival on 23 July 2014, at a European Sinology conference partly organized by the director[193] of the Confucius Institute at the University of Minho, Braga, Portugal, the international head of the Confucius Institutes, Xu Lin, ordered censorship of "important pages"[194] that included references to Taiwan institutions, one of which, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, was also funding the conference as it has for the past 20 years.[195][196]

On the first day of the annual conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies (EACS), with several hundred attendees, Xu Lin ordered the programs seized. Four pages were torn out of the program before they were re-issued to conference attendees the next day.

The president of the EACS ordered 500 copies of the deleted pages to be distributed to attendees and issued a report on the incident. The U.S. online university site Inside Higher Ed quoted Marshall Sahlins, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago and a leading critic of the Confucius Institutes, who said that this incident illustrated the Confucius Institutes provision that programming they fund must abide by Chinese laws, including those restricting speech; "Moreover they're going to enforce them the way they do in China, which is not so much by going to court... but simply by fiat."[197] Taiwan's cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council issued a reproach over the censorship incident, saying, "The mainland should deal with Taiwan's participation in activities on international occasions pragmatically. If there is no respect for each other, the development of cross-strait relations will be seriously hurt."[198]

The Christian Science Monitor reported that the censorship has made more academics in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia grow uneasy with Confucius Institutes.[199] Eamonn Fingleton suggests that perhaps the most embarrassing aspect of the whole Braga Incident is that Beijing has reversed itself on the "hot-button issue at the center of the entire controversy. After vehemently denying for years that the Confucius Institutes have any kind of censorship agenda, Beijing has now tacitly acknowledged that this was false."[200]

The Parliament Magazine said of the Braga Incident that European higher education should remain independent and not be turned into "an instrument of outright propaganda of the Chinese Communist party."[201]

In December 2014, the BBC interviewed Xu Lin in Beijing.[202] During the interview, BBC reporter John Sudworth asked about the Braga incident, but afterwards Xu Lin objected and insisted that large portions of the interview to be deleted. The BBC refused the Chinese censorship demand.[203] One of the points she made in the interview is that Taiwan belongs to China, and therefore outsiders have no business interfering. "Xu Lin not only refused to answer difficult questions, she also politicised the Confucius Institutes and reinforced the idea that they are led by dogmatists," commented Gary Rawnsley, professor of Public Diplomacy at Aberystwyth University, Wales.[204] The Wall Street Journal reported on Xu's BBC interview, and said, "Critics have argued that China's Confucius Institutes pose a threat to academic freedom in the United States, Canada, Europe and beyond. Now the Beijing official in charge of them has confirmed it."[205]

On 27 July 2015, a prosecutor filed a complaint to the city court in Blagoveshchensk Amur Oblast, Russia, asking that the court shut down the Blagoveschensk State Pedagogical University Confucius Institute on the grounds that it is violating Russian law by not being registered as a non-commercial organization, and thus, foreign teachers have no legal grounds to work at the institute. The prosecutor's statement said that instead of being a part of the university, the CI should be registered as a foreign cultural center.[206]

Campaign groups raised concerns about Confucius Classrooms in the UK in 2015. Isabel Hilton, a broadcaster and writer whose own work was censored by the Confucius Institute, said: "State control undertaking in China in the teaching of culture means contestation is not really allowed. If this is happening in our schools where people are not familiar with the Chinese buying their way into our education system, we ought to ask serious questions about whether that's a good thing."[207] Campaigning group Free Tibet claimed that lessons are limited by "terms effectively determined by a government that suppresses free speech inside its own borders and which is responsible for widespread human rights abuses."[207] The group also raised concerns that money from the Chinese government had been accepted without "proper, democratic scrutiny."[208]

In one instance, the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District Board of Education encountered strong community opposition to establishing a Confucius Classroom at Cedarlane middle school in Hacienda Heights, which is "a heavily Hispanic community with a majority-Chinese school board."[209] A San Gabriel Valley Tribune editorial compared this CI program as "tantamount of asking Hugo Chavez to send his cadres to teach little American kids economics."[210] History teacher Jane Shults described criticisms of Confucius Classrooms as "jingoistic, xenophobic, not overly rational and it's really shades of McCarthyism."[211] One member of the Hacienda La Puente school board, Norman Hsu, said it wasn't worth pushing the issue, since, without California credentials, the teacher would not have been permitted to operate as a full-fledged instructor anyway.[211] Another school board member, Jay Chen, characterized the Confucius Classroom scheme's opponents, "What they all share in common, besides not having any children in the district (many don't even live in the district), are steadfast accusations that the school board is trying to promote Communism in the classroom." Chen concluded that xenophobic "Anti-Sinoism" was causing the Hacienda La Puente disagreements.[212] University of Southern California public diplomacy professor Nicholas J. Cull said, "I'm sure this will become a standard dispute. People in America are very suspicious of ideas from the outside."[213]

The Bibb County Public School District, which includes Macon, Georgia, mandated that Mandarin Chinese would become a required subject for every student, pre-K through 12th grade. Although the superintendent described the agreement for the Confucius Classroom to supply the Chinese language teachers as "a win-win for everyone," some parents were critical. A few feared a "Communist regime enacting its geopolitical agenda on their children", but most had practical concerns, such as whether local students would benefit more from learning Spanish than Chinese as a foreign language.[214]

David Coleman (education) president of the College Board announced plans with Hanban to open Confucius Classrooms in 20 school districts across the U.S.[215]

On 7 February 2013, Canada's McMaster University terminated its CI contract owing to an instructor's human rights complaint and the university's lack of control over hiring CI employees. The Hanban replied with a letter expressing "some disappointment."[220] In the previous year, Sonia Zhao, a Chinese national, quit her teaching position at McMaster's Confucius Institute and sought political asylum in Canada based on religious discrimination. Ms. Zhao filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, stating that McMaster was "giving legitimization to discrimination" because she was forced to hide her belief in the Falun Gong spiritual movement, for which the Hanban would fire her. The university insisted that the Confucius Institute respect Canadian laws and expectations on hiring and firing practices.[217]

On 24 September 2013, France's University of Lyon closed their Confucius Institute at Lumière University Lyon 2 and Jean Moulin University Lyon 3, which had been established in 2009. Gregory B. Lee, board chair of the CI said its director was "taking his instructions directly from Beijing" and "questioned the content of our courses."[140][222]

On 31 December 2013, Canada's Université de Sherbrooke in Quebec closed their Confucius Institute after months of failed negotiations, saying that the Hanban arrangement no longer met the university's international plans.[170][223] On 17 December 2013, the Canadian Association of University Teachers passed a resolution calling on all Canadian universities and colleges that currently host CIs on their campuses to cease doing so, and those contemplating such arrangements to pursue them no further. Of the six Canadian universities that sent replies to the CAUT, only the Université de Sherbrooke said it would be severing ties with the CI.

Montreal's Dawson College, which partnered with Université de Sherbrooke in 2007 to establish the Confucius Institute in Quebec, decided to continue hosting. Agents from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service interviewed Meng Rong, director of the CI in Quebec, showed her a list of names, and asked if she could identify anyone. Meng told an interviewer that the CI had "nothing to do with politics or spying".[224]

On 25 September 2014, the University of Chicago suspended lengthy negotiations to renew its Confucius Institute contract, citing director-general Xu Lin's boastful claims in the official Communist Jiefang Daily that she made the university fear cancelling with one sentence—"If your school decides to withdraw, I will agree to it."[139]

On 1 October 2014, Pennsylvania State University announced that it will discontinue hosting a Confucius Institute at the end of the year when their contract expires. The university spokesperson said their goals are not consistent with those of the Hanban, or Office of Chinese Languages Council International.[147]

On 30 October 2014, the Toronto District School Board, which oversees public schools with 232,000 students, voted to cancel their CI contract. Trustee Pamela Gough said it was clear that "this partnership is not aligned with TDSB and community values, and its continuation is not appropriate."[186]

On 20 December 2014 Stockholm University, Sweden, announced that the Stockholm Confucius Institute will be closed by the end of June 2015.[225] According to the vice-chancellor of Stockholm University the new contracts for the Confucius Institutes are not in line with how Swedish universities are governed.[226]

In 2014, the Hanban signed a contract with the Stuttgart Media University and University of Hohenheim to open a CI in Stuttgart, Germany, but in June 2015, the universities abandoned the plan. A spokesperson blamed the decision on a failure to find the necessary support for the Confucius Institute,[227] nonetheless, a Students for a Free Tibet press release said their "Say No to Confucius Institutes" campaign's opposition to the Stuttgart plan had been successful, and declared a victory for democratic values and academic freedom worldwide.[228][229]

In 2013, Tulane entered into an agreement with East China Normal University to create a Confucius Institute. After 2018, the institute no longer exists at Tulane.[230]

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