Updated May 15, 2020. This list, originally published in March 2018, will be updated periodically. If you know of additional Confucius Institutes that have opened or closed, please let us know at [email protected]
Since 2004, the Chinese government has sponsored Confucius Institutes on college and university campuses around the world. An agency of the Chinese Ministry of Education, called the Hanban, provides teachers, textbooks, and operating funds.
In April 2017, the National Association of Scholars released Outsourced to China: Confucius Institutes and Soft Power in American Higher Education, a comprehensive report on the way the Chinese government infiltrates American colleges and universities to enhance its own image. At that time, we counted 103 Confucius Institutes in the United States.
As of May 15, 2020, NAS counts a total of 81 Confucius Institutes in the United States. This includes seven that are scheduled to close in summer 2020: the University of Maryland, New Mexico State University, the University of Missouri, the University of Arizona, Miami University of Ohio, the University of California-Davis, and the University of Pittsburgh. We identify 72 Confucius Institutes at American colleges and universities. We also identify one Confucius Institute at a private educational organization, the China Institute; one, the Confucius Institute of Washington State, that currently has no institutional affiliation, and 7 Confucius Institutes at K-12 public school districts.*
We also list separately 42 Confucius Institutes in the United States that have closed or are in the process of closing, along with the stated reason for the closure.
Download our PDF chart of the current Confucius Institutes in the United States.
Download an Excel chart of the current Confucius Institutes in the United States.
Download our PDF chart of US-based Confucius Institutes that closed.
Download an Excel chart of US-based Confucius Institutes that closed.
*Most K-12 schools that partner with the Hanban have “Confucius Classrooms,” of which there are about 500 in the United States. However, the Hanban does designate these six school districts as home to Confucius Institutes as part of a collaboration between the Hanban and the College Board.
Image Credit: Kreeder13 CC BY-SA 4.0
