Six Australian universities have quietly closed Chinese government-linked Confucius Institutes (CI) on their campuses.
The Australian government has ramped up scrutiny on the education centres in recent years over concerns that Beijing is using them to spread propaganda and spy on Chinese international students.
China says its Confucius Institutes, which offer Chinese language and cultural classes overseas, are a “bridge reinforcing friendship” with the world.
There have been growing global concerns about the Chinese government’s reach overseas through such education centres, with universities in America and Europe also choosing to close some of their branches.
These closures mean nearly half of all the Confucius institutes at Australia’s universities have been shuttered. Seven others remain open, according to a report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
Confucius centres have now been removed from the campuses of the University of Melbourne, the University of Queensland (UQ), the University of Western Australia (UWA) and the University of New South Wales (UNSW), and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT).
Several universities cited disruptions caused by the Covid pandemic as the reason for not renewing their CI contracts.
A spokesperson for UNSW said the university was developing its own programme in Chinese studies and is committed to “encouraging open dialogue in the China-Australia bilateral relationship”.
In recent years, Australia’s federal government had indicated it would not allow more of the centres – which are linked to the Chinese Communist Party – to open in the country.
It also required universities to provide more transparency about the institutes’ teachings and in some cases registering them on the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme.
A UQ spokesperson said its Confucius Institute closed when the contract expired in December 2024, and it had “not been given any direction by the government”.
The University of Melbourne closed their CI in August 2024 after it was established through a partnership with Nanjing University in 2007.
The institution already offers a variety of Chinese language and Asia programmes and had “no additional need to renew” the agreement, a spokesperson said.
A University of Adelaide spokesperson did not confirm their CI had been shuttered, but said it continues to foster “connections with other countries, including China” through partnerships and education collaboration.
Human Rights Watch said in a 2019 report that Confucius Institutes were “extensions of the Chinese government” that censored discussions of politically sensitive issues to Beijing.
In Australia, the ABC reported in 2019 that applicants for volunteer teaching positions at the institutes were required to demonstrate political loyalty to the Chinese government.
Dr Jeffrey Gill from Flinders University, who studies Confucius Institutes, said he “wasn’t surprised” by the latest closures and that concerns around foreign interference were “likely to be one factor”, he told the ABC.
However, Dr Gill said he was not convinced that CIs were promoting “Chinese government propaganda” and had “very little influence on perceptions of China in Australia and the Western world more broadly”.
