Listening to Leaders 2025

A centerpiece of Beijing's soft power overtures globally, Confucius Institutes (CIs) are Chinese government-funded educational institutions that teach Chinese language, culture, and history in partnership with a host university in a recipient country. Beijing opened up 64 new Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms (CCs) in the SCA region from 2000 to 2018. Schools and universities must apply to the Chinese government to receive a Confucius establishment, so the presence of these institutes depends as much on demand from and preferences of SCA countries as it does on Beijing’s intentions.

However, there are two important differences in how the Chinese government appears to be operating in the SCA region compared to elsewhere. Beijing opened substantially fewer Confucius establishment in the region (58 as of 2016) than the 248 institutions in the East Asia and Pacific region during the same time period. And while there has been substantial media attention paid to CIs at the university-level in other countries, 58 percent of Confucius establishments in the SCA region were CCs at the primary or secondary level. The preponderance of these establishments were targeted towards a single country: Kyrgyzstan.

Source: Silk Road Diplomacy