China-India border conflict: communication breakdown looms amid Confucius Institute review

That was how People’s Daily, the official Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece, described a symposium in Beijing last August on deepening language education exchanges between China and India. The glowing feature was republished on the website for Hanban, the Beijing headquarters under China’s Ministry of Education that oversee Confucius Institutes. The institutes seek to promote Chinese language and culture around the world.

But one year later, the piece has quietly been removed from the Hanban website, as domestic sentiments in India sour on China.

Many among the Indian public – frustrated with China over the coronavirus pandemic – have called for greater decoupling from China, while tensions further escalated over the three-month border crisis in eastern Ladakh. Domestic anger has been particularly potent over the bloody clash in the Galwan Valley in June.

These simmering tensions, which have already seen India ban dozens of Chinese apps, have now spilled into the academic sphere. Indian media reported this week that the education ministry would review Confucius Institutes at Indian universities and cooperative agreements signed between Indian and Chinese institutions. India’s latest national education policy also dropped Chinese as one of the foreign languages offered to secondary school students.