Icon: enlarge
Stralsund 2016: Chancellor Angela Merkel opens a Confucius Institute together with Xu Lin, Director Hanban and Managing Director of the headquarters of the Confucius Institutes, and Shi Mingde, the then ambassador of the People's Republic of China in Germany
Photo: Stefan Sauer / picture alliance / dpa
Despite massive criticism, many German universities are still working with the Chinese Confucius Institute (KI).
According to SPIEGEL information, the “Human Rights for China” association asked 17 German universities to end their collaboration with the Chinese Confucius Institute at the end of December.
"Anyone who cooperates with the AI supports the criminal regime of the Chinese Communist Party," the letter says.
The USA, Canada and Sweden ended the cooperation, as did universities in France, Belgium and even Russia.
In Germany, Hamburg and Düsseldorf have already withdrawn.
According to the official interpretation, the institutions should make Chinese culture and language accessible abroad.
But the Chinese institutions abroad cannot be compared with the German Goethe Institutes.
"Open Communist Propaganda"
"The AI spread communist propaganda more or less openly in their teaching materials and spy on Chinese students and German universities," says the letter from the human rights activist.
"Discussions on topics that do not correspond to the official Chinese representation are not allowed." The association has also written to three high schools that operate so-called Confucius classrooms.
The answers from schools and universities are still pending.
In response to a request from the FDP, the federal government recently announced that it is “continuing to monitor developments closely”.
For Frank Müller-Rosentritt, foreign politician of the FDP, this does not go far enough.
"The federal government itself responded very clearly to a request from my group that it has knowledge of the Chinese regime's political influence on courses, teaching materials and the staff at the Confucius Institutes in Germany," said Müller-Rosentritt to SPIEGEL.
more on the subject
Confucius Institute at German Universities: Culture from Beijing - under the supervision of the party by Heike Klovert
Independent alternatives of cooperation
The Confucius Institutes have not been subject to the Hanban cultural authority, which is part of the Chinese Ministry of Education, for some time.
According to the FDP member of the Bundestag, the reason for this is that the Chinese government wanted to pull the institutes out of the focus of criticism.
The Confucius Institutes would now be subject to a foundation based at the Beijing Foreign Language University.
"But it would be foolish to assume that this is not subject to the influence of the CP," says Müller-Rosentritt.
"The Chinese Communist Party is an authoritarian state party that tramples on human rights and international agreements."
The FDP therefore calls for the collaboration with the Confucius Institutes to be ended.
"Instead, we propose independent alternatives in the form of chairs and institutes on Chinese culture that work independently of political influence and can increasingly involve scientists, artists and human rights activists persecuted in China."
Icon: The mirror