The West’s fascination with China and China’s soft power diplomacy has spawned Confucius Institutes blossoming around the world. But after only 10 years, the Confucius Institutes have become a symbol of negative energy. Even if they are not seen as pawns or even fighter spies for China’s conquest of the world, leaping to intervene to influence Western education and public opinion, at least, the most moderate advocates admit that in the Confucius Institutes, they must be self-cautious and self-disciplined, not touching sensitive content. What is sensitive is what the Chinese authorities prohibit, what the French call the 3t: namely Taiwan, Tibet and Tiananmen, and now, of course, Hong Kong and Uyghur. As a result, Westerners are beginning to ask whether Confucius Institutes, which regard freedom and democracy as more precious than life, are really Trojan horses when they naturally accept the self-censorship and self-censorship of Confucius Institutes!
Since the first Confucius Institute was opened in Korea, the Confucius Institutes in China have quickly spread all over the world. Especially the fastest in Europe and America. Confucius Institute’s earliest soft power Chinese diplomacy banner, is to promote Chinese culture as the main content, including the introduction of China’s most traditional cultural epithets, recognize words and write, take chopsticks and wrap dumplings, etc., put some Chinese slides and Chinese allowed propaganda film, attracted a lot of foreigners rejoice.
Earlier Confucius Institutes, mostly subordinate institutions of association nature, were mainly funded by the Hanban Office under the Chinese government. The strong financial support reflected the ambition of foreign propaganda, after all, up to tens of billions of dollars, which no country would dare to imagine. It also shows aggressiveness because of the powerful and big foreign propaganda. Confucius Institutes have also accelerated their entry into deeper areas of education in various countries. Textbook content, singing content, movie content, symposium talk content, seminar content, more and more show monitoring and forbidden areas.
Although the advocates of Confucius Institutes, who have long been friendly with China, argue that Confucius Institutes are, after all, only cultural in nature and there is no need to get involved in politics, they admit that even if they only talk about superficial cultural phenomena in China, they have to be careful in what they say, and the forbidden zones officially defined by China are certainly not to be crossed.
The Confucius Institute’s strategic layout may initially follow the example of the Goethe-Institut in Germany or the Alliance Française in France, but the Confucius Institute has never had the freedom and independence of the Goethe-Institut and the Alliance Française, and although the Goethe-Institut and the Alliance Française promote culture and language, they have never had the slightest political mission of foreign propaganda. The Confucius Institute is now at the center of a widespread controversy.
According to AFP, from North America to Australia to Europe, a soft power propaganda and diplomatic alliance against China is emerging.
Today there are still more than 500 Confucius Institutes around the world. Many of them, to varying degrees, cooperate with universities in various countries. Because of China’s rise and even expansion, Confucius Institutes are increasingly coming under the spotlight of critical commentary. Public opinion against them accuses them of being a tool of China’s great foreign propaganda, a weapon that threatens the independence of foreign universities and education, and others accuse them of harboring spies.
AFP said that no one in charge of the Confucius Institute side of the controversy has come forward to give interviews and answer questions about it.
According to the report, Belgium is the first country to ban Song Xinning, the director of the Confucius Institute in the country, from setting foot in Belgium as well as the Schengen Agreement countries in 2019 over spying allegations. According to one of the country’s morning newspapers, Song Xinning has long been the subject of a national security investigation in Belgium, where he has been classified as a danger to Belgian national security. However, the Belgian state security services declined to comment on the incident.
According to François-Yves Damon, a sinologist and head of the French Center for Intelligence Studies, the accusation of espionage also makes logical sense, as Article 7 of the Chinese law 2017 on the content of espionage intelligence obliges all Chinese people as well as companies to provide intelligence information to the state.
However, not all of them will be spies, according to experts. The Confucius Institute is more about monitoring, in ensuring that what is said and done should be in full compliance with the Chinese state and party requirements.
An educator from a European country believes that the Confucius Institute exercises more influence and not in the commerce strategy, and that the spy thing is more focused on the economy for China today.
According to AFP, these suspicions have hit the Confucius Institute. News of the closures keeps coming. If the world welcomed them with open arms at first, the closures are now somewhat dusty. Sweden was the first country in Europe to accept the Confucius Institute. Now Stockholm has stopped all cooperation with Confucius Institutes in 2015 because of the loss of trust. Swedish radio reported that by last June, seven Swedish cities had stopped Confucius Institute activities.
The situation is even more sensitive in the United States, where according to the U.S. Organization for the Defense of Higher Education Freedom, there were 103 Confucius Institutes in 2017, and in February of this year, 55 remained, with three announcing their closure this year. When former Secretary of State Pompeo was in office, he asked U.S. universities to stop working with Confucius Institutes altogether.
In France, a controversy erupted between the Confucius Institute and the University of Lyon over the content of its teaching materials, with the Chinese dean and the French head at great odds. The Confucius Institute was accused of interfering to infiltrate the university and influence the school’s education. The Confucius Institute’s insistence is believed to have come from instructions from the Chinese government.
AFP quotes Italian sinologist Mauricio Scarpari as arguing that the Confucius Institute is the only one in the world with such deep access to foreign universities, and that the West knows full well that the Confucius Institute is especially trampling on freedom of expression and is completely subservient to the Chinese Communist Party on the issue of the principle of educational independence.
According to AFP, of course, Confucius Institute control does not affect foreign universities across the board, it also depends on where and who is in charge. In Germany, for example, Falk Hartig, a researcher who has studied and written about the Confucius Institutes, denies any suspicion of a big outreach to the Confucius Institutes, saying that the textbooks used by the Confucius Institutes in Germany are written by Germans, not compiled by the Chinese.
The report said that the situation of Confucius Institutes in France also varies, with some having a more traditional Chinese flavor and others being a bit more cultural. It cannot be ruled out that the Confucius Institutes also organize some level-headed seminars, where the people invited are perhaps critical of the authorities and not the ones officially favored by China. According to a former Confucius Institute employee, the topics suggested for the seminars can be wide-ranging, and she never felt how much it was blowing up the Communist Party.
Luisa Prudentino, an Italian film expert, said she has never had any problems organizing film weeks to screen selected films, especially those held at La Rochelle in western France, and has had no problems working with local Confucius Institutes. She also admitted, “Of course I didn’t intentionally find fault with the stimulus, especially with the opening films. Some of the sensitive films, I put them in the middle time to show, these films don’t have a consistent position, involving Hong Kong or Tibet. I know that this may not be possible elsewhere, for example in Italy it is not possible at all.”
According to AFP, quite a bit of information informs the Confucius Institute that the no-go areas can be described as the 3Ts, namely Taiwan, Tibet and Tiananmen Square. Now add Hong Kong and Uyghur to the list. Victor Bernard, the French director of the Confucius Institute in Angers, France, said, “I never had to fight for negotiations for my topics, would I go into a topic of discussion like whether Taiwan is a territory of China or not? No, I won’t. It’s not self-censorship. Besides, we only talk about cultural issues. It’s not a political issue. There’s no place for political issues here.”
However, Brigitte Guiraud, a member of the Association of Citizens’ Will, which has taken a stand against the Confucius Institute, said sarcastically that it is sad that these people are self-censoring and don’t know it, and that it is the equivalent of receiving the devil at home. In France, there was the Lyon affair, where the Confucius Institute interfered with the education of the university.
According to Mr. Scarpari, an Italian sinologist, self-censorship is a necessary condition for a cooperative relationship with the Chinese side. It is a provision that is not written down but exists and is accepted by both sides.
For François-Yves Damon, and a former head of French intelligence, there is “a kind of schizophrenia” and “naivete” about China, says AFP. naive” posture, a fascination with a threatening and intrusive China, and a desire for friendly relations”.
According to Damon, France is also paradoxical, sending warships to the South China Sea in the Asia-Pacific region while appointing former Prime Minister Francois Raffarin to represent France. Raffarin, who was awarded a medal by Xi Jinping not long ago, praised Xi’s strong leadership on a Chinese international TV channel.
According to the report, the most critical of the Confucius Institute are the “Five Eyes” countries, namely the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. According to the former French intelligence chief, the criticism of the Confucius Institutes has been fueled by the U.S. urging its allies to take sides in the competition with China against the backdrop of a trade war between the two countries. Canada and Australia accepted a lot of Chinese students 10 years ago, but these countries found that now there are problems, including sovereignty, such as serious interference in the technical field.
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