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Confucius Institute and Confucius Classroom closures: trends, explanations and future directions

  • Jeffrey Gil EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: September 14, 2022
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Applied Linguistics Review
From the journal Applied Linguistics Review Volume 15 Issue 2

Abstract

Confucius Institutes (CIs) and Confucius Classrooms (CCs) have always been controversial, with concerns raised by politicians, academics, journalists and members of the public about their impact on the universities, schools and countries which host them. Such concerns have grown to the extent that closures of CIs and CCs have become common. This article analyses data on the closure of CIs and CCs to determine what they mean for this language and culture promotion project. It maps out the scope and scale of closures, explains the reasons behind them, outlines China’s reaction to them and finally speculates about the future of CIs and CCs. It finds that closures have been confined to North America, Australia and Europe due to deteriorating relations with China. However, closures have not occurred in South America, Africa or the Middle East, and new CIs continue to open in these regions. This is due to opinions towards China being largely positive and a need for resources for Chinese language and culture education. Overall, the number of closures is also small, with many times more CIs and CCs still in existence than those which have closed. It would take a long time for all CIs and CCs to be shut down based on current closure rates. China has also demonstrated a willingness to modify how CIs and CCs are managed to ensure their continued existence. The article concludes that the spate of closures which have taken place in recent years does not signal the end of CIs and CCs. Closures will likely keep occurring in North America, Australia and Europe, but CIs and CCs will continue in South America, Africa and the Middle East as long as China is willing and able to support them.

Keywords: China; Confucius Classroom; Confucius Institute; external language spread
Corresponding author: Jeffrey Gil, CHASS, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, SA, 5001, Australia, E-mail:

Acknowledgements

This article originally appeared in Melbourne Asia Review where it was published under Creative Commons. It has been revised and expanded for publication in this journal. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for useful comments and suggestions.

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Received: 2022-08-26
Accepted: 2022-08-26
Published Online: 2022-09-14
Published in Print: 2024-03-25

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2022-0111
Keywords for this article
China; Confucius Classroom; Confucius Institute; external language spread

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. ELF- or NES-oriented pedagogy: enhancing learners’ intercultural communicative competence using a dual teaching model
  4. “You can’t start a fire without a spark”. Enjoyment, anxiety, and the emergence of flow in foreign language classrooms
  5. “You have to repeat Chinese to mother!”: multilingual identity, emotions, and family language policy in transnational multilingual families
  6. On the influence of the first language on orthographic competences in German as a second language: a comparative analysis
  7. Validating the conceptual domains of elementary school teachers’ knowledge and needs vis-à-vis the CLIL approach in Chinese-speaking contexts
  8. Agentive engagement in intercultural communication by L2 English-speaking international faculty and their L2 English-speaking host colleagues
  9. Review Article
  10. Illuminating insights into subjectivity: Q as a methodology in applied linguistics research
  11. Research Articles
  12. Making sense of trans-translating in blogger subtitling: a netnographic approach to translanguaging on a Chinese microblogging site
  13. The shape of a word: single word characteristics’ effect on novice L2 listening comprehension
  14. Success factors for English as a second language university students’ attainment in academic English language proficiency: exploring the roles of secondary school medium-of-instruction, motivation and language learning strategies
  15. LexCH: a quick and reliable receptive vocabulary size test for Chinese Learners
  16. Examining the role of writing proficiency in students’ feedback literacy development
  17. Confucius Institute and Confucius Classroom closures: trends, explanations and future directions
  18. Translanguaging as decoloniality-informed knowledge co-construction: a nexus analysis of an English-Medium-Instruction program in China
  19. The effects of task complexity on L2 English rapport-building language use and its relationship with paired speaking test task performance
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