Japan’s has become the latest country to say they will investigate the operations of Chinese Confucius Institutes on university campuses in the country.

Mike Pompeo and Betsy Devos have told educators to "take action to safeguard your educational environments" against the Chinese government.

The biggest damage in removing CIs isn’t to the Chinese government. The biggest damage is to American students who have benefited from the CI programs

The Chinese government has moved management of its overseas Confucius Institutes to an NGO to lessen the suspicion the centres have attracted over the last few years.

Universities are not adequately responding to the growing risk of China and other ‘autocracies’ influencing academic freedom in the UK, according to the foreign affairs select committee.

The University of Pittsburgh has discontinued a Chinese language program offered through its Confucius Institute for the 2019-20 academic year.

Three more Confucius Institutes attached to US universities have been closed, as a result of a law which prohibits federal funding for HEIs hosting them.

Human Rights Watch has set out a 12-point 'code of conduct' to advise education institutions on dealing with the Chinese government and what it calls "efforts to undermine academic freedom abroad," including refusing Confucius Institutes.