Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has backtracked on his campaign promise to ban all Confucius Institutes in the UK, Downing Street has confirmed.
The prime minister’s office said the government is “taking action to remove any government funding” from the Chinese state-sponsored institutes but decided it would be “disproportionate” to ban them.
It comes as Sunak’s predecessor Liz Truss said the institutes “should be closed down immediately” during her trip to Taiwan on Wednesday.
Former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said he’s “disappointed” by the announcement, but researcher Sam Dunning told The Epoch Times a recently passed new law is likely to “spell the end of Confucius Institutes” anyway….