Rishi Sunak’s Confucius Institute muddle

Rishi Sunak’s promise to close down the Confucius Institutes in UK universities when he pitched for the Tory leadership sounded like a good idea. Sadly it was also ill thought out. In a liberal democracy it’s difficult just to close down organisations you don’t like by governmental order. His backtracking on that promise this week was therefore both predictable and understandable.

Unfortunately the way he has chosen to do this has been a terrible exercise in bad judgment. To this extent the right of the Tory party are absolutely right to call him out.

Confucius Institutes, to remind you, are institutions set up within universities in the UK under agreements between the college concerned and a central Chinese governmental education body (referred to in many agreements, slightly chillingly, as ‘Headquarters’). There are about 30 of them; typically they are funded by Beijing and the university, and receive office space and secretarial support from the latter.