There are currently 30 Confucius Institute branches operating across the UK. Although there have been disputes for many years, they have continued to teach the British Chinese language, culture and business etiquette. These schools are essentially joint ventures between a host university in Britain, a partner university in China and the China International Education Foundation (CIEF), an organization based in Beijing. Until recently, the Beijing-backed program was viewed favorably by the Conservative government. As Education Secretary in 2014, Liz Truss praised the network of Confucius classrooms, saying they would “create a strong infrastructure for Mandarin” in the UK. But Truss has since taken an increasingly aggressive stance toward Beijing. Recent reports suggested she was ready to declare China an “acute threat” to the UK’s national security, putting it in the same category as Russia. As bilateral relations between China and the UK continue to deteriorate, the Confucian language learning and teaching project has come under intense scrutiny. Campaigners questioned the Chinese language teaching initiative’s funding and recruitment process. They also highlighted the limit on free speech in these classrooms and called the UK’s approach to teaching Mandarin “outdated”. Almost all UK government spending on teaching Mandarin in schools is channeled through university-based Confucius Institutes, a study by the China Research Group showed in June. This amounts to at least £27m allocated from 2015 to 2024, according to estimates. Among those taking part in the talks with the Taiwanese was Tory MP Alicia Cairns. Under the new proposal seen by lawmakers, that funding could be redirected to alternative programs like those from Taiwan. Britain’s ability in foreign languages has been a major issue at Westminster in recent years as the country looks for ways to implement the ‘global Britain’ framework after Brexit. Last month it was revealed that only 14 FCDO officials are trained to speak fluent Chinese each year. The lack of proficiency in Mandarin raised concerns for British diplomacy and also brought the teaching of the language to the fore. Such concerns are also common in the US, and Taiwan has intervened. In December 2020, the Chinese-speaking island signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the US to expand language teaching. The Taipei Overseas Community Affairs Council, also a government agency, has set up Mandarin learning centers in several US cities since last year, in apparent competition with Confucius Institutes. But Andrew Methven, who started studying Chinese two decades ago and now runs a Mandarin learning newsletter, Slow Chinese, said outsourcing language teaching was “not a solution”. “There needs to be a much deeper change in how we understand China in our education system,” he said. “For example, considering how China can be included more in the existing syllabus at GCSE level and below – such as China’s role in the second world war, as well as looking at earlier parts of Asian history. At A-level and beyond, the language should be taught based on the experiences of people who have actually learned it, not outsourced to anywhere – China, Taiwan or anywhere else.”
