Under president Xi Jinping, China has entered a new era of political censorship, said Victoria University adjunct teaching fellow Duncan Campbell.

The Chinese Communist Party is giving millions of dollars to our universities for a programme that compromises academic freedom, critics say.

Confucius Institutes (CIs) are Chinese language and culture schools established at Auckland, Canterbury and Victoria universities.

Figures released under the Official Information Act show they received more than $840,000 from the Chinese Government last year, while the universities contributed a combined $1.3 million.

In the past three years, the universities received $2.3 million from China.

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There are hundreds of CIs around the world, jointly funded by their Chinese government sponsor, Hanban, and their host universities.

To supporters, CIs are benign vehicles for much-needed Mandarin language programmes. But they've come under scrutiny in recent years, accused of teaching a white-washed version of China and spreading propaganda.

The Pentagon was barred from funding Confucius Institutes on American campuses in August. The New South Wales Government is reviewing its relationship with the institutes amid concerns about potential foreign influence.

New Zealand has not seen public debate over the programme, but local academics are questioning whether universities can accept large sums of money from Beijing without strings attached.

Victoria University's CI received more than $360,000 from Hanban last year. The CI's total budget for 2017 was more than $620,000.

Duncan Campbell, adjunct teaching fellow at Victoria University's School of Language and Cultures, said "huge amounts of money" were flooding in for Confucius Institutes, "whereas the university should be putting that or more into the proper study of China".

"Six hundred-odd thousand into a university system that is strapped for cash is inappropriate," Campbell said.

He said it amounted to "outsourcing" our understanding of China to the Chinese Communist Party.

All countries were engaged in extending their "soft power" offshore to some degree, Campbell said, but no country had an equivalent programme to CIs, which were embedded in their host universities.

"Everyone does it, but it is understood to be that - L'Alliance Française, the Goethe Institute - it's removed, separate and autonomous. It doesn't interfere within the framework of an existing academic institution.

"The issues with China and CIs is that we are dealing with a party state. We're not actually dealing with a nation state."

Campbell said he was concerned about "vast taboo areas" within the CI programme: topics politically sensitive to Beijing. Under president Xi Jinping, China had entered a new era of political censorship.

"These taboo areas are exactly what a university system is meant to be overcoming. We're meant to be engaging in difficult conversations. Well, you can't in China. CIs anywhere cannot talk about Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan; all the most critical issues can't be discussed."

Tertiary Education Union national president Sandra Grey said universities need to examine whether funding from the Chinese Communist Party was preventing them from engaging in free inquiry on China.

Tertiary Education Union national president Sandra Grey said a range of factors were causing academic freedom to be "whittled away" in New Zealand, including underfunding of tertiary institutions from our own government.

Funding from external sources, including foreign governments, always brought concern there would be conditions attached, Grey said.

"It's not a bad thing for China to be investing in tertiary education, but we do need to look at whether that is going to prohibit us from critiquing the policies and actions of the Chinese Government.

"The Confucius Institutes sit within, and the gain the legitimacy, of our institutions, so they need to run according to New Zealand legislation, which says that academic freedom exists and our institutions are supposed to be society's critic and conscience."

'OVERLY CLOSE CONNECTIONS'

Economist and commentator on NZ-China links, Michael Reddell, said he believed the bulk of the institutes' work was genuinely teaching language in our schools, but "one could, and should, challenge whether the New Zealand Government should be taking foreign aid from a middle-income country".

Reddell was also concerned about the "overly close connections between the Confucius Institutes, the foreign policy establishment and other university work".

For example, the chair of Victoria University's Confucius Institute, Tony Browne, is also the chair of that university's New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre (CCRC).

Stuff understands Browne's dual roles have caused tensions within the leadership of the research centre since it was established.

"I don't suppose [Browne] actively suppresses any negative research on China, but his presence is likely to condition the sorts of people who get appointed to such roles, for example the director of the CCRC," said Reddell.

Campbell described Browne's dual roles as an "impossible situation".

"It is hard to understand how it works. Certainly I don't think it can be justified," he said.

However, Browne said he did not believe his roles were a potential conflict. His position as chair of the CCRC was a "management job, not a policy job", he said.

"There's a very fundamental and longstanding principle of academic freedom – that academics determine their areas of research.

"I don't work for China. I'm not paid a cent by China."

Browne pointed to an August report from the CCRC that presented a critical assessment of the potential benefits of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for New Zealand.

"My whole life has been guided by the promotion of New Zealand's interests, not China's interests."

GRANT MATTHEW/STUFF Education Minister Chris Hipkins said the autonomy of New Zealand's universities was "internationally respected".

Education Minister Chris Hipkins said it wasn't his role to instruct universities on whether they establish or fund particular teaching and research centres.

"The autonomy of New Zealand's universities is a prized, and internationally respected, feature of our education system," Hipkins said.

THE BELT AND ROAD

The Auckland CI received almost $330,000 from Hanban in 2017. Auckland University said it contributed "slightly more" than that amount, while contributions from other partners topped up the institute's total funding to more than $1 million.

Correspondence released under the Official Information Act shows the Auckland Confucius Institute regularly reports back to Chinese consular authorities.

Last August, the institute emailed the consulate a schedule of "important events" for the latter half of 2017. They included an October forum at the Fonterra office in Auckland, focused on BRI, the Chinese Government's initiative to create a China-centred economic bloc.

"The New Zealand Government and private sector see the 'Belt and Road' as a highly important trade opportunity," it said. "The Confucius Institute will use this as the theme, and co-organise a forum with New Zealand think-tank, the NZ China Council."

Professor Anne-Marie Brady from Canterbury University's department of political science and international relations, said the forum, attended by almost 100 representatives of Chinese and New Zealand business and academic circles, went beyond the institute's stated aims.

As public funds were also given to CIs, New Zealand was effectively assisting China in furthering its offshore agenda, Brady said.

"The New Zealand Government is subsidising the promotion of China's foreign policy agenda through the Confucius Institutes," Brady said.

"New Zealand needs to develop better China knowledge and language skills, but we should do so through New Zealand-based programmes which are free of the censorship constraints that come from Chinese-government funded programmes."

JOSEPH JOHNSON/STUFF China expert Anne-Marie Brady said New Zealand needs uncensored Chinese language and cultural programmes.

Brady added that staff employed by CIs may not be followers of Falun Gong, Tibetan Buddhism, or pro-Taiwan independence - movements seen as a threat to the Chinese Communist Party.

The constitution for all CIs states they shall not contravene the laws and regulations of China, where movements like Falun Gong are banned.

The Auckland CI's stated mission is to "enhance knowledge of Chinese language and culture, and extend New Zealand's engagement with China through various programmes and collaborations with partners in New Zealand and elsewhere".

An Auckland University spokeswoman said the BRI forum was "in line with promoting New Zealanders' ability to engage with China in ways that benefit New Zealand".

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy said: "The Confucius Institutes in New Zealand are guided by their advisory boards, dedicated to promoting Chinese language training and enhancing mutual understanding and friendship between China and New Zealand, through various programs with academia, business, community and education sectors."

New Zealand signed a memorandum of understanding on BRI with China in March 2017, the first developed Western country to do so.