Framing China in Times of Permacrisis: Educational Diplomacy and the Making of the EU Self

In a moment when EU-China relations are at a crossroads, the cultural and educational dimension of the partnership has become one of the clearest – yet often overlooked – arenas in which the relationship is negotiated, contested, and reframed. Increasingly, the European Union and its member states approach education and cultural cooperation with China through dynamics of securitization. Few institutions illustrate this evolution more clearly than the Confucius Institutes (CIs), whose twenty-year trajectory in Europe reflects the shifting boundaries of engagement. Drawing on an original longitudinal dataset tracking the development of Confucius Institutes across Europe from the mid-2000s to the 2020s, the paper traces how the meaning of educational diplomacy has changed over time. What began as a relatively uncontested space of cultural cooperation has become increasingly entangled with debates on autonomy, influence, and security. Yet this shift has not unfolded uniformly: a “two-speed Europe” has emerged, with member states diverging sharply in their assessments of the risks and benefits of Chinese educational initiatives, and more broadly in the intensity and direction of their engagement with China. At the same time, Beijing has rebranded the initiative and adjusted its approach to European higher education and local socio-political realities, experimenting with new forms of engagement – including the first iterations of digital Confucius Institutes – that signal a reconfiguration rather than a withdrawal of its educational and cultural presence. Based on this longitudinal analysis and twenty interviews with CI directors across Europe, the paper argues that, in a moment defined by a wider European “permacrisis,” the EU’s framing of China as the Other reshapes how cultural and educational initiatives are interpreted and informs expectations about China’s foreign policy behaviour. The trajectory of Confucius Institutes, examined through the lens of interactionist Role Theory, illustrates how practices once regarded as cooperative increasingly intersect with security concerns and identity anxieties. In this sense, educational diplomacy becomes both a mirror of Europe’s unsettled self-perception and a catalyst for the broader recalibration of its approach to China.