The US has backed down on new visa requirements for instructors at China's premier overseas cultural institution, ending a week of deportation fears and averting another row between Beijing and Washington.
Chinese teachers working for the Chinese-government-sponsored Confucius Institute (CI) in the US under J-1 visas - which are given to people participating in work- and study-based exchange programmes - had earlier been told that they were violating the rules by teaching in primary and secondary schools, rather than at university level.
They were told they must leave by the end of next month. About 51 of the 600 Chinese instructors working with the CI in the US were estimated to have been affected.
Some critics in China had complained that the directive was discriminatory against the CI, saying other countries' cultural institutions in the US were not affected.
A revision of the policy guidance issued by the US State Department now says the accreditation given to 81 CI branches in the US is sufficient.
Instructors 'are not required to depart the United States at the end of this academic year'.