Australian universities face the prospect of possibly closing their Confucius Institutes in the coming months, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on May 10. The Australian Federal Parliament, in December 2020, voted to pass the new Foreign Relations Act, which gives the federal government the right to veto agreements between state and territory governments, local councils, public universities and foreign governments. It is reported that the University of Sydney is among the first universities that will submit agreements with Confucius Institutes to the Australian federal government for review under the law.
The report said it is known that at least the Confucius Institute of Chinese Medicine at RMIT University will be closed this year. The university said the Confucius Institute on campus will cease operations due to budgetary pressures caused by the new crown epidemic. The 13 Confucius Institutes in Australia, which are hosted by local universities in partnership with Chinese universities, have come under intense scrutiny from the Australian federal government in recent years over concerns they are part of Beijing’s foreign propaganda efforts.
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne warned last month that she was about to make “further decisions” as she exercised her new veto power to end Victoria’s Belt and Road agreement with China, as well as the state government’s partnership with Iran and Syria. and two other education agreements the state government has signed with Iran and Syria. Under the law, the foreign minister can cancel any agreement reached by a local body if it “adversely affects Australia’s foreign relations” or is “inconsistent with Australia’s foreign policy” and has the power to call it off in the middle of the process.
A spokeswoman for the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Minister Payne would decide whether to cancel Confucius Institute contracts on a “case-by-case basis,” but that all 13 Australian universities were expected to register their contracts with the Chinese side for review by the June 10 deadline. The spokesman said, “(Australian) universities need to notify all existing arrangements with foreign governments that fall under the scope of the law, including those relating to the Confucius Institutes.”
The report said at least four universities: the University of Sydney, the University of Victoria, the University of Queensland and the University of Western Australia have submitted their contracts with the Confucius Institute to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs for review. Other universities, including the University of Melbourne, the University of Latrobe and the University of New South Wales, said they intended to submit the corresponding arrangements by the June deadline. The University of Adelaide said it was still discussing with the federal government whether the Confucius Institute on its campus would be covered by the law.
The report mentioned that some Australian universities had recently renegotiated contractual content with the Chinese side after the newspaper and The Age revealed in 2019 that some had agreed to share or cede decision-making power over teaching content with the Confucius Institute headquarters in Beijing. But it is unclear whether this will be enough to pass the Australian federal government’s scrutiny. The University of Sydney has said it will not speculate on the future of the Confucius Institute on its campus. But a spokeswoman for the university noted that the attorney general’s office announced in March that the Confucius Institute at the University of Sydney was not an “entity associated with a foreign government” for the purposes of the Foreign Influence Transparency Program, which was established in 2019. The department found that the revised agreement between the University of Sydney and Fudan University “significantly” changed the governance arrangements for its Confucius Institute, addressing concerns.
The University of Melbourne, which renegotiated a related contract with the Chinese last year, said the Confucius Institute on campus is partly funded by Nanjing University, but the university defended the “independence and autonomy” of its operations. Liberal Senator James Paterson, chairman of the Australian Federal Parliament’s security and intelligence committee, said Australian universities needed to reflect on their role in hosting the Confucius Institute, saying “however these arrangements are dressed up now. He added that “universities should carefully consider whether hosting an entity funded by a foreign authoritarian government that commits serious human rights abuses in order to promote their soft power is consistent with their values.
Natasha Kassam, director of the foreign policy program at the Lowy Institute, said the renegotiated agreement is unlikely to guarantee Australian students a propaganda-free education on topics such as Taiwan or China’s human rights record. But exercising a veto to shut down those agreements would be “excessive,” she said. Elaine Pearson, director of Human Rights Watch Australia, said the presence of Confucius Institutes on Australian campuses was “extremely problematic” and supported the federal government’s termination power.
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