Approval of MEA is required for any MoU/Agreement that such Centres might wish to enter into with an Indian organisation

Open to the general public, Confucius Institutes promote Chinese language but also run classes in culture, from calligraphy and cooking to tai chi. They sponsor educational exchanges and hold public events and lectures.

The first CI opened in 2004 in South Korea, and according to official data, there were 548 Confucius Institutes around the world by the end of last year, as well as 1,193 Confucius classrooms based in primary and secondary schools. In India, the CIs get students from all sorts of backgrounds including the IT industry, business, college students and retirees. The students come to learn Chinese language in order to boost their professional skills.

The CIs are joint ventures between the host university or school, a partner university in China, and Hanban, a controversial agency under China’s education ministry. It oversees CI operations and provides partial funding, staff and other support. Backed by significant government funding, China aims to have 1,000 such institutes by 2020 in what it calls a “Confucius revolution” to tap into the growing overseas demand to learn Chinese.

The institutes have been accused of pressuring host universities to silence or censor talks on topics considered controversial by Beijing. For example, at a conference in Portugal in 2014, the head of Hanban, Xu Lin, told her staff to remove references to Taiwan from the conference programme before it was distributed to participants. According to reports, Indian intelligence agencies found that discussion on three Ts is taboo in the CIs operating in India – Tibet, Taiwan and Tiananmen.

China, on the other hand, argues that CIs are no different from the cultural centres operated by other countries, such as the British Council and Spain’s Cervantes Institute.

Australia seems to have borne the brunt of the controversy over CIs. In July last year, Australian media reported that local universities hosting CIs had signed agreements which gave China decision-making authority over teaching at the facilities. Then in late August, New South Wales announced it was scrapping programmes run by the CI in its schools altogether.