Chinese staff at so-called Confucius Institutes across the UK are recruited to enforce Chinese Communist Party (CCP) discipline and values in the country, new research has found.
The state-sponsored Confucius Institute program, named after the ancient Chinese philosopher, was established 20 years ago to promote Chinese language and culture abroad and support Chinese language teaching. There are over 530 university-based institutes around the world, 30 of them are in the UK.
‘Are Confucius Institutes legal?’, a new report by the organization UK-China Transparency (UKCT), analyzed the process of hiring Chinese personnel who would later be sent to work in Great Britain.
All Confucius Institutes are based at British universities in the form of partnerships between the local universities with their Chinese counterparts and the Center for Language Exchange and Cooperation (CLEC), an agency of the Chinese central government.
UKCT studied documents and data from all involved British universities and found that “British universities are operating Confucius Institutes illegally and enabling transnational repression in the UK.”
Most of the language teachers come from China, and the report says that “they are being recruited based on their ability to enforce ‘CCP discipline’ in the UK and are required to undermine free speech and harass for order”.
The Chinese government requires applicants for positions with Confucius Institutes to fill out a special form, UKCT said, which requires applicants to provide details of their “political characteristics” and “ethnic origin”; promise not to have a child while working abroad; have your current employer evaluate your “political attitude”; and be evaluated by a CCP Committee.
“These practices are illegal under UK law,” the report says.
The application form also requires applicants to commit to complying with Chinese laws while abroad, something British host universities are not aware of.
“There is…a systematic risk of Confucius Institute staff engaging in transnational repression by subjecting vulnerable people in the UK to harassment or intimidation and undermining freedom of expression on campus,” the UKCT report says.
Hard on China?
It also alleged that the UK Home Office “is systematically enabling this by way of an illegal dedicated visa route that makes the employment status of Confucius Institute staff unclear.”
In 2014, it launched a new type of visa route called the ‘Government Overseas Language Program’ visa scheme which, to date, applies only to Mandarin language teachers.
The sponsor of the scheme is a limited company based in London but controlled by the Chinese government.
The purpose of the Confucius Institute program is to “advance the interests of the CCP,” the report says.
Last July, when running for the Conservative Party leadership, current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised he would “shut down all 30 China Confucius Institutes in the UK.”
“Nearly all UK government spending on Mandarin language teaching in schools is channeled through university-based Confucius Institutes, furthering Chinese soft power.” sunak tweeted on July 25, 2022.
So far none of the institutes have been closed.
Rishi Sunak, before becoming prime minister, also stated that “China and the Chinese Communist Party pose the greatest threat to Britain and the security and prosperity of the world in this century.”
However, in the last annual keynote address on April 25, ‘Our position on China’his foreign secretary argued that isolating China “would be a betrayal of our national interest and a deliberate misreading of the modern world.”
James Cleverly said British officials “have an obligation to future generations to engage” firmly and also constructively with Beijing, as “we must face the inescapable reality that no significant global problem…can be solved without China.”
However, he said, the UK government “will strengthen our national security protections wherever Beijing’s actions pose a threat to our people or our prosperity.”
“We are not going to be silent about interference in our political system, nor about the theft of technology, nor about industrial sabotage. We will do more to safeguard academic freedom and research.”
“And when there are tensions with other objectives, we will always put our national security first,” the foreign minister promised.
In September 2022, Non-governmental organization based in Madrid safeguard advocates reported that China is carrying out “illegal transnational police operations” through 54 police service stations in 30 countries, including three stations in the UK.
A UK Home Office minister confirmed in Parliament last week that law enforcement agencies are still investigating the allegations.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Foreign Ministry insisted that “there are simply no so-called overseas police stations.” TO said the spokesman the claims were “baseless accusations against China” and “clearly political manipulation”.
Edited by Mike Firn.
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