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.

The University of Michigan has announced it will not renew its agreement with the Confucius Institute when its current partnership expires in 2019.

China’s language and cultural Confucius Institute is setting up a US$20 million African headquarters office block in Nairobi, Kenya.

Turkey’s international cultural and language body, the Yunus Emre Enstitüsü,  has recorded progress in its latest forays into sub-Saharan Africa.