The University of Hamburg has decided to cut ties with its Confucius Institute (more than 500 institutes have been established by communist China around the world to teach Chinese language and culture) over fears that Beijing could use it as “propaganda instrument”, in the latest sign of a more wary stance in Germany towards Chinese government influence on campuses. Compared with the US, German institutions have until now taken a more relaxed approach, but a number of scandals involving perceived threats to academic freedom seems to have changed the debate.

Hamburg would have been “blind” not to notice “the quite critical view of Confucius Institutes in other countries and the fear — perceived or real — that the institutes are used or misused as propaganda instruments”, Courtney Peltzer-Honicke, head of the university’s department of international affairs, told Times Higher Education. “Obviously that’s something that has no place at a university,” she says. “We do not want any government organisation influencing what our researchers and students work on.”

Although the rationale of Confucius Institutes is that they teach Chinese language and culture, they have been dogged by accusations of meddling in academic freedom and several universities have cut ties in recent years, chiefly in the US. Sweden shut the last of its institutes earlier this year.

The risk of Confucius Institutes is that they limit — or are put under pressure to limit — free discussion of topics such as the Tiananmen Square protests, Taiwanese independence or Tibet, argues Peltzer-Honicke. Hamburg’s decision to withdraw from the association underpinning the institute, which will come into effect next year, is not related to any specific recent incident, she explains. “It’s more of a general pre-emptive measure, looking at other countries.” However, six years ago the institute’s Chinese co-director was unexpectedly recalled to China after the institute hosted an event on the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests, she recalls.

Carsten Krause, director of the Hamburg Confucius Institute, did not address this incident when contacted by THE. “We absolutely regret the ‘concern’ by the University of Hamburg, and we especially regret… its lack of conversation about such a concern,” he said.

As tensions between China and the West have risen this year over concerns ranging from Hong Kong’s new security law to the use of Huawei technology in digital infrastructure, Germany’s government had struck a relatively muted tone, emphasising continued economic ties with its largest trading partner. But there are signs the issue is now rising up the agenda among German universities. In February, it emerged that the Free University of Berlin had accepted hundreds of thousands of euros from the Chinese government to set up a professorship and had signed a contract binding it to Chinese law, risking its academic independence, in the eyes of critics.

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