Introduction

Hundreds of Confucius institutes across six continents funded by the Chinese Ministry of Education. Sweden closed all of its CIs two years ago and universities in countries including the US and Japan have also shut their centres down. Some would say that they help to plug a crucial shortage of Chinese language skills in host countries, especially in the West. This is a live debate in the UK right now. In this episode I'm joined by Charles Parton, senior associate fellow at the Think Tank Ruse who worked in or around China as a diplomat for two decades.