Confucius Institute

See also: Chinese school and Chinese as a foreign language

Confucius Institute

Founded	2004
Type	Educational Organization
Focus	Chinese culture, Chinese language
Location	129 Deshengmenwai Street, Xicheng District, Beijing, P.C. 100088, China
Area served	Worldwide
Method	Education
Owner	The Office of Chinese Language Council International (also known as "Hanban")
Website	www.chinesecio.com

Confucius Institute
Traditional Chinese	孔子學院
Simplified Chinese	孔子学院
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin kǒngzǐ xuéyuàn

A Confucius Institute in Canada

Confucius Institute (Chinese: 孔子学院; pinyin: Kǒngzǐ Xuéyuàn) is a non-profit public educational organization affiliated with the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, whose aim is to promote Chinese language and culture, support local Chinese teaching internationally, and facilitate cultural exchanges.

The Confucius Institute is sometimes compared to language and culture promotion organizations such as Britain's British Council, France's Alliance Française, Spain's Instituto Cervantes and Germany's Goethe-Institut. Unlike these organizations, however, Confucius Institutes operate within established universities, colleges, and secondary schools around the world, providing funding, teachers and educational materials. This has raised concerns over their influence on academic freedom, the possibility of industrial espionage, and concerns that the institutes present a selective and politicized view of China as a means of advancing the country's soft power internationally.

The Confucius Institute program began in 2004 and is overseen by Hanban (officially the Office of Chinese Language Council International). The program is governed by a council whose top-level members are drawn from the Communist Party of China leadership and various state ministries. The institutes operate in co-operation with local affiliate colleges and universities around the world, and financing is shared between Hanban and the host institutions. The related Confucius Classroom program partners with local secondary schools or school districts to provide teachers and instructional materials.

History

The first Confucius Institute opened on 21 November 2004 in Seoul, South Korea, after establishing a pilot institute in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in June 2004. Hundreds more have opened since in dozens of countries around the world, with the highest concentration of Institutes in the United States, Japan, and South Korea. In April 2007, the first research-based Confucius Institute opened in Waseda University in Japan. In partnership with Peking University, the program promotes research activities of graduate students studying Chinese. As of 2014, there were over 480 Confucius Institutes in dozens of countries in six continents. The Ministry of Education estimates that 100 million people overseas may be learning Chinese by 2010 and the program is expanding rapidly in order to keep up. Hanban aims to establish 1,000 Confucius Institutes by 2020. The rapid expansion of Confucius Institutes has led to a backlash, especially in the United States and other Western countries.

Name

Confucius Institute is named after the noted Chinese philosopher Confucius (551–479 BC). Throughout the 20th century, Communist Party of China (CPC) leaders criticized and denounced Confucius as the personification of China's "feudal" traditions, with anti-Confucianism ranging from the 1912 New Culture Movement to the 1973 Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius campaign during the Cultural Revolution. However, in recent decades, interest in pre-modern Chinese culture has grown in the country, and Confucius in particular has seen a resurgence in popularity. Outside of China, Confucius is a universally recognizable symbol of Chinese culture, free from the controversies surrounding other prominent Chinese figures such as Mao Zedong. Kerry Brown, Professor of Chinese Politics at the University of Sydney, notes the irony that the CPC now lionizing Confucius had vilified him just four decades previously for his association with patriarchal, hierarchical, and conservative values.

"Confucius Institute" is a trademarked brand name, which according to a spokesman for the organisation, "Those who enjoy more brand names will enjoy higher popularity, reputation, more social influence, and will therefore be able to generate more support from local communities." A 2011 crackdown protected "Confucius Institute" from preregistration infringement in Costa Rica.

A China Post article reported in 2014 that "Certainly, China would have made little headway if it had named these Mao Institutes, or even Deng Xiaoping Institutes. But by borrowing the name Confucius, it created a brand that was instantly recognized as a symbol of Chinese culture, radically different from the image of the Communist Party.

Purpose

Confucius Institutes (CIs) promote and teach Chinese culture and language around the world. CIs develop Chinese language courses, train teachers, hold the HSK Examination (Chinese proficiency test), and provide information about contemporary China. The director of the CI program, Xu Lin, stated that CIs were started to cater to the sudden uptick in interest of the Chinese language around the world. They also provide Chinese language teaching staff from Mainland China. As of 2011, there were 200 such teachers working in the United States.

Political goals

Confucius Institute also has non-academic goals. Li Changchun, the 5th-highest-ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee, was quoted in The Economist saying that the Confucius Institutes were "an important part of China's overseas propaganda set-up". The statement has been seized upon by critics as evidence of a politicized mission. Many foreign scholars have characterized the CI program as an exercise in soft power, expanding China's economic, cultural, and diplomatic reach through the promotion of Chinese language and culture, while others have suggested a possible role in intelligence collection. The soft power goals also include assuaging concerns of a "China threat" in the context of the country's increasingly powerful economy and military.

While Chinese authorities have been cautious not to have CIs act as direct promoters of the party’s political viewpoints, while a few suggests that the Confucius Institutes function in this way, officials say that one important goal of the Institutes is to influence other countries' view of China. According to Peng Ming-min, a Taiwan independence activist and politician, he claims that colleges and universities where a Confucius Institute is established have to sign a contract in which they declare their support for Beijing’s "One China" policy. As a result, both Taiwan and Tibet become taboos at the institutes. However, this claim is in dispute. Michael Nylan, professor of Chinese history at the University of California at Berkeley, stated that CIs have become less heavy-handed in their demands, and have learnt from "early missteps", such as insisting that universities adopt a policy that Taiwan is part of China. Nylan's survey of faculty and administrators at fifteen universities with Confucius Institutes revealed two reports that institutes had exerted pressure to block guest speakers, but both events went ahead anyway.

The CI's soft power goals are seen as an attempt by the PRC to modernize away from Soviet influenced propaganda of the Maoist era. Other initiatives include Chinese contemporary art exhibitions, television programs, concerts by popular singers, translations of Chinese literature, and the expansion of state-run news channels such as Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television.

Organization

Hanban is a non-profit government organization, though it is connected with the Ministry of Education and has close ties to a number of senior Communist Party officials. The Confucius Institute headquarters in Beijing establishes the guidelines which the separate Confucius Institutes worldwide follows. The headquarters is governed by a council with fifteen members, ten of whom are directors of overseas institutes. The Institutes themselves are individually managed under the leadership of their own board of directors, which should include members of the host institution. The current chair of the Confucius Institute Headquarters council is Liu Yandong, a Politburo member who is the former head of the United Front Work Department. Other leaders of the council are similarly drawn from the Communist Party and central government agencies, such as the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Education, and the State Council Information Office (also known as the Office of Overseas Propaganda). The council sets the agenda for the Confucius Institutes and makes changes to the bylaws while other tasks and ongoing management of the Confucius Institute Headquarters are handled by the professional executive leadership headed by the director-general.

The Chinese Government shares the burden of funding Confucius Institutes with host universities, and takes a hands-off approach to management. The Institutes function independently within the guidelines established by Hanban and the Confucius Institute Headquarters. Each Institute is responsible for drawing up and managing their own budget, which is subject to approval by the headquarters. The Confucius Institute Headquarters provides various restrictions on how their funds may be used, including earmarking funds for specific purposes. Institutes in the United States are generally provided with $100,000 annually from Hanban, with the local university required to match funding.

In addition to their local partner university, Confucius Institutes operate in co-operation with a Chinese partner university. Many Institutes are governed by a board which is composed of several members from the Chinese partner school and the remaining of the members affiliated with the local partner university. At most Institutes, the director is appointed by the local partner university.

Hiring policies

The Hanban website stated that Chinese language instructors should be “Aged between 22 to 60, physical and mental healthy, no record of participation in Falun Gong and other illegal organizations, and no criminal record.” In many universities, the actual employer is the Chinese government, not the university itself.

Human rights lawyer Clive Ansley has argued that the part of the hiring policy that discriminates against Falun Gong believers is in contravention of anti-discrimination laws and human rights codes. Bryan Edelman, a trial consultant and analyst on China's treatment of the Falun Gong, commented "I am not sure how the U.S. Courts would have jurisdiction over the hiring practices of a Chinese institution on Chinese soil hiring non-U.S. citizens.” However, Marci Hamilton, Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at Yeshiva University, called this policy "unethical and illegal in the free world."

In 2013, the McMaster University in Canada closed its Confucius Institute due to hiring issues over Falun Gong.

Curriculum

The curriculum of Confucius Institutes revolves around the institute's role as a language center. Confucius Institutes teach simplified Chinese characters, which are standard in Mainland China, rather than the traditional Chinese characters used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. University of Chicago professor emeritus Marshall Sahlins warns that CIs' exclusively teaching simplified characters denies students access to the "traditional characters in which everything was written in China for thousands of years, and in which much that is not to the liking of the regime continues to be written in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and the many other Chinese communities beyond Beijing's direct control." Canada's Globe and Mail claims that instruction solely in simplified characters "would help to advance Beijing's goal of marginalizing Taiwan in the battle for global influence".

In 2011, in response to the spread of Confucius Institutes, the Republic of China announced plans to establish the Taiwan Academy in America, Europe, and Asia as part of its own cultural diplomacy. Taiwan's program is designed to promote "Taiwanese-flavored" Mandarin, traditional Chinese characters, and Taiwanese topics.

In response to claims that the curriculum at CIs is determined by political consideration, the CI director for the Chicago Public Schools said that "Confucius Institutes have total autonomy in their course materials and teachers."

Reception

Main article: Criticisms of Confucius Institutes

In the short time-frame of their rapid expansion, the Institutes have been the subject of much controversy. Criticisms of the Institutes have included practical concerns about finance, academic viability, legal issues, and relations with the Chinese partner university, as well as ideological concerns about improper influence over teaching and research, industrial and military espionage, surveillance of Chinese abroad, and undermining Taiwanese influence. There has also been organized opposition to the establishment of a Confucius Institute at University of Melbourne, University of Manitoba, Stockholm University, University of Chicago and many others. More significantly, some universities that hosted Confucius Institutes decided to terminate their contracts. These include Japan's Osaka Sangyo University in 2010; Canada's McMaster University and Université de Sherbrooke, and France's University of Lyon in 2013; the University of Chicago, Pennsylvania State University, and the Toronto District School Board in 2014. and the German Stuttgart Media University and University of Hohenheim in 2015.

In December 2014, Stockholm University, the first university in Europe to host a Confucius Institute, announced it was terminating the program. Press coverage of the Braga incident in the Swedish press was said to have influenced the decision. "Generally it is questionable to have, within the framework of the university, institutes that are financed by another country," said the university's chancellor.

Underlying such opposition is concern by professors that a Confucius Institute would interfere with academic freedom and be able to pressure the university to censor speech on topics the Communist Party of China objects to. An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education writes that here is little evidence of meddling from China although the same article did go on to say the Institutes were "distinct in the degree to which they were financed and managed by a foreign government." After interviewing China scholars, journalists and CI directors, a writer for The Diplomat also found little support for the concern that CIs would serve as propaganda vehicles, though some of her sources did note that they would face constraints in their curriculum on matters such as Tibet and human rights. A New York Times article quotes Arthur Waldron, a professor of international relations at the University of Pennsylvania, that the key issue is academic independence. "Once you have a Confucius Institute on campus, you have a second source of opinions and authority that is ultimately answerable to the Chinese Communist Party and which is not subject to scholarly review."

In October 2013, University of Chicago professor Marshall Sahlins published an extensive investigative article criticizing the Confucius Institutes and the universities hosting them. Later, more than 100 faculty members signed a protest against the Confucius Institute at the University of Chicago. In September 2014, the University of Chicago suspended its negotiation for renewal of the agreement with Hanban.

In December 2013, the Canadian Association of University Teachers urged Canadian universities and colleges to end ties with the Confucius Institute.

In June 2014, the American Association of University Professors issued a statement urging American universities to cease their collaboration with the Confucius Institute unless the universities can have unilateral control of the academia affairs, that the teachers in Confucius Institutes can have the same academic freedom enjoyed by other university faculty members, and that the agreements between universities and Confucius Institutes are available to the community. The AAUP statement was widely noticed by US media and prompted extensive further debate in the US.

The University of Chicago cut ties with the Confucius Institute after pressure from faculty members and the appearance of an unflattering article in Jiefang Daily, effective on 29 September 2014.

Xu Lin, Director-General of the Hanban and Chief Executive of the CIs worldwide, caused two damaging scandals in 2014. In August, Xu ordered her staff to rip pages referring to Taiwanese academic institutions from the published program for the European Association for Chinese Studies conference in Portugal, claiming the materials were "contrary to Chinese regulations". The Wall Street Journal described Xu's attempted censorship as the "bullying approach to academic freedom". In September, the University of Chicago closed their CI, blaming Xu's comments that her threatening letter and phone call forced the university to continue hosting the institute. The Business Spectator concludes that the Xu Lin's hardline behavior highlights one of the biggest problems for Beijing’s charm offensive. "It still relies on officials like Xu, who still think and act like party ideologues who like to assert their authority and bully people into submission."

On 1 October 2014, less than a week after the University of Chicago CI closure, Pennsylvania State University also cut ties with the Confucius Institute after coming to the conclusion that "its objectives were not in line with the Institute's".

On 4 December 2014, the United States House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations held a hearing entitled "Is Academic Freedom Threatened by China's Influence on U.S. Universities?". Chairman Chris Smith said, "U.S. colleges and universities should not be outsourcing academic control, faculty and student oversight or curriculum to a foreign government", and called for a GAO study into agreements between American universities and China. On 5 December 2014, PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying denied the House testimony and said "We have assisted with supplying teachers and textbooks at the request of the U.S. side but have never interfered with academic freedom."

Responses to management decisions by Chief Executive Xu Lin

Xu Lin, the Director-General (zhǔrèn 主任) of the Hanban and Chief Executive (zǒnggànshi 总干事) of the Confucius Institute Headquarters, caused two international scandals in 2014. In July, she ordered her staff to rip pages referring to Taiwanese academic institutions from the published program for the European Association for Chinese Studies conference in Portugal, claiming the materials were "contrary to Chinese regulations", which the Wall Street Journal described as the "bullying approach to academic freedom". In September, the University of Chicago closed their CI, blaming Xu's comments that her threatening letter and phone call forced the university to continue hosting the institute.

Accusations of censorship

Main article: Braga Incident

On 22 July 2014, the evening before the start of the European Association of Chinese Studies (EACS) conference in Braga, Portugal, Xu Lin removed four pages from the conference program and one page from the abstracts, which referred to Taiwan’s Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, a major sponsor of the conference for the past 20 years. The EACS protested and reprinted all the deleted materials for distribution to all conference members. Roger Greatrex, president of the EACS, subsequently issued a report on the page deletions, and an official letter of protest that concluded, "Such interference in the internal organization of the international conference of an independent and democratically organized non-profitable academic organization is totally unacceptable."

Conference registration began on 22 July 2014, and about 100 participants received complete copies of the abstracts and program, which comprised 89 pages, including the cover and front matter. However, after Xu Lin, who was a keynote speaker, arrived that evening, she proclaimed that any mention of the Confucius China Studies Program (CCSP) sponsorship be removed from the Conference Abstracts, and ordered her entourage from Confucius Institute Headquarters to remove all conference materials and take them to the apartment of a local CI teacher. When the remaining 300 participants arrived for conference registration on 23 July, they did not receive the printed abstracts or programs but only a brief summarized schedule. After last-minute negotiations between Xu Lin and conference organizers to ensure conference members received the program, a compromise was made to allow the removal of one abstract page that mentioned the CCSP support of the conference.

On the morning of 24 July, the remaining 300 conference participants received their materials, which were now missing four printed pages: the frontispiece mentioning CCSP sponsorship in the conference abstract, and three pages from the conference program. These expurgated pages contained information of the book exhibition and library donation organized by the Taiwan National Central Library, and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. The director of the National Central Library stated that EACS officials and members had spoken out against Xu during the opening ceremony.

Marshall Sahlins explained that the EACS censorship brings to light the Hanban's seriousness in enforcing its contractual provisions "the way they do in China which is not so much by going to court ... but simply by fiat". The Christian Science Monitor said that the Hanban/CI censorship has made more American, European, and Australian academics grow uneasy with CIs, and reported that when Ms. Xu met privately with foreign scholars in Shanghai, who asked specifically about the missing pages, "she denied ordering them censored."

Non-renewal of contract to host the CI

On 25 September 2014, the University of Chicago stated that it had suspended negotiations to renew its CI contract because "recently published comments about UChicago in an article about the director-general of Hanban are incompatible with a continued equal partnership." This indirectly referred to Xu Lin's interview with the Jiefang Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party in Shanghai, published on 19 September 2014, in which she claimed to have intimidated the president of the University of Chicago "with a single sentence", after 100 professors signed a petition to ban the Confucius Institute. Inside Higher Ed reported: "Xu Lin wrote a letter to Chicago's president and called the university representative in Beijing (where Chicago has a research center), with only one line: 'If your school decides to withdraw, I will agree to it.' Her attitude made the other side anxious. The school quickly responded that it will continue to properly manage the Confucius Institute." Other media reports said Xu's comments were a "demeaning depiction" that "brought panic" to the university, which convinced them that an equal partnership was impossible; "could be construed as a boastful challenge"; "implied the school had kowtowed to the Chinese government"; or caused UChicago administrators to become "anxious" at the thought of shutting down the CI.

In response to the UChicago CI closure, the official Chinese People's Daily published "Rejecting Confucius Institutes not helpful to understand China" on 28 September 2014, but with two factual errors. First, closing the Confucius Institute does not mean "Chinese language study in the university would cease soon"; it means the university's Center for East Asian Studies will resume teaching Chinese. Second, without reference either to UChicago's statement, which specifically blamed Xu Lin's remarks, nor to the widespread media coverage of her Jiefang Daily interview, People's Daily said, "Though the university did not detail the reasons behind the suspension, many believed it was linked to the American Association of University Professors' boycott of CI."

Xu's PR scandals occurred during the Hanban's international celebrations for the 10th anniversary of Confucius Institutes. Commenting on both the Chicago closure and the "sinister" EACS Braga incident, Gary Rawnsley, Professor of Public Diplomacy at Aberystwyth University, wrote, "Xu Lin could not have picked a worse time to assert her imaginary authority". The Australian Business Spectator, describing the EACS incident as "highly damaging" for China's international image, said, "Xu’s hardline behavior highlights one of the biggest problems for Beijing’s charm offensive. It still relies on officials like Xu, who still think and act like party ideologues who like to assert their authority and bully people into submission... Xu Lin has been a publicity disaster."

See also

• Chinese Bridge
• Goethe-Institut
• Instituto Camões
• Instituto Cervantes
• Confucius Institute at Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic
• China's "soft power initiative"
• Panda diplomacy

External links

• Confucius Institute Online (English) (Chinese)
• China National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (Chinese)
• List of Confucius Institutes around the world
• Pella, John & Erik Ringmar, "Kongzi and his institutes," History of International Relations Open Textbook Project, Cambridge: Open Book, forthcoming.
• Sahlins on Confucius Institutes, four-part lecture by Marshall Sahlins, PricklyParadigmTV, YouTube.
• Confucius institute: The hard side of China's soft power, Xu Lin interview, BBC News, 21 December 2014.