This Open Access book, the second volume of Memoirs of a Confucius Institute Director, offers an insider account of how Confucius Institutes operate in practice and how their development is shaped by local realities. As one of China’s most controversial overseas initiatives, Confucius Institutes have attracted intense political, media, and academic attention. Existing analyses often portray them as instruments of Chinese soft power, influence, propaganda, or other state agendas, assuming that they operate primarily under directives from Beijing. Such perspectives, however, tend to overlook a critical reality: Confucius Institutes are jointly established with local partners and must adapt to the environments in which they operate.

Drawing on the author’s six years of experience as a Confucius Institute director, this second volume examines how multiple layers of local context—from national and regional dynamics to organizational, sub-organizational, and institute-level factors—shape their development and day-to-day functioning. It argues that these local contexts can be more consequential than top-down Chinese directives in determining how individual institutes operate. By unpacking these diverse influences, the book invites readers to reconsider what Confucius Institutes are, how they function, and how they are perceived. Ultimately, it tells a broader story of Global China Shaped by Local Realities—revealing not only how China engages with the world, but also how the world, in turn, shapes China’s overseas activities.

Jinghan Zeng is a Professor at City University of Hong Kong and former Director of the Lancaster University Confucius Institute (2019–2025). He has authored several books and over thirty peer-reviewed articles on Chinese politics.