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The Confucius Institute (CI), as an important channel of promoting Chinese culture and language abroad, has the potential to play a crucial role in promoting also China’s external economic and trade relations. This role should have strengthened after the introduction of the Belt-Road Initiative, which appoints strategic importance to the CI. Based on a panel dataset containing Chinese enterprises’ cross-border mergers and acquisitions (CMA) in 66 Belt-Road countries and 75 non Belt-Road countries from 2006 to 2017, this paper investigates the impact of the CI on Chinese enterprises’ CMA. The findings are: (1) The establishment of CI has had a significant positive effect on the Chinese enterprises’ CMA, and on their success this effect is stronger in Non Belt-Road countries than Belt-Road countries. (2) The effect of CI on Chinese CMA activities is strengthened after the introduction of Belt Road Initiative and such effect is shown to be stronger in the Road countries than Belt countries. (3) The institutional quality and Chinese culture influence in the host countries play important roles.