MCLC: more on Confucius Institutes

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: more on Confucius Institutes
***********************************************************

Source: Inside Higher Ed (1/4/12):
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/01/04/debate-over-chinese-funded-in
stitutes-american-universities

Confucius Says ...
By Elizabeth Redden

More than 300 colleges in more than 90 countries -- including about 70
institutions in the United States -- host Confucius Institutes, centers of
Chinese language and culture education and research funded by China¹s
government. The infusion of Chinese government funding into international
universities has enabled significant expansions in language teaching,
cultural programming, and China-related conferences and symposia, but it
has also raised fears regarding academic freedom and independence of
teaching and research. Critics have questioned why colleges would provide
their imprimatur to institutes that have been described by Li Changchun,
China¹s propaganda chief, as "an important part of China¹s overseas
propaganda setup."

"If we had a U.S. government agency that was stating that it was a tool
for U.S. government propaganda, my colleagues would be up in arms about
having a center like that on campus," said Anne-Marie Brady, associate
professor of political science at the University of Canterbury, in New
Zealand. Brady, the editor of the recent volume, China¹s Thought
Management <http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415616737/>
(Routledge, 2011), said the space for criticism and inquiry at overseas
Confucius Institutes is similar to that which Chinese citizens navigate:
"They¹ve got a lot of space, but the same kind of space that people have
in China, which is that there are always no-go zones, and the no-go zones
are obvious: Tibet, Taiwan, Falun Gong. And academia does not have no-go
zones."

Other scholars, however, describe the fears regarding Confucius Institutes
as, in their experiences, unfounded. "We¹ve not ever had the experience of
anybody telling us, 'Oh, don¹t talk about that,' or, 'This is a sensitive
topic, avoid that,' and our position all along has been the minute that
anybody does, we¹re done," said Ken Hammond, a professor of history and
co-director of the Confucius Institute at New Mexico State University ­
which has hosted speakers who have addressed such topics as the history of
Tibet and the Nationalist evacuation to Taiwan in 1949.  "I wouldn¹t carry
on a program where those constraints were placed upon me. That¹s not what
I do. That¹s not why I got into this."

Outreach and Language

The first Confucius Institute in the United States was founded in 2004 at
the University of Maryland at College Park. The expansion since then has
been rapid: Columbia and Stanford Universities have Confucius Institutes,
as do the Universities of Chicago and Michigan. Among the public
universities with Confucius Institutes are the Universities of Alaska at
Anchorage, Delaware, Hawaii at Manoa, Kansas, Massachusetts at Boston,
Minnesota, New Hampshire, Texas at Dallas, Toledo, and Utah, as well as
Middle Tennessee, Portland, Kennesaw, San Francisco, and Wayne State
Universities. The State University of New York at Binghamton has a
Confucius Institute dedicated to promoting Chinese opera. Some of the
institutes are at universities with extensive programs and academic
strength in Chinese studies, while others are not.

The Confucius Institutes are run in cooperation with Chinese partner
universities and overseen by Hanban, a Chinese Ministry of Education
subsidiary. Typically, host universities receive a yearly appropriation
from Hanban -- in the range of $100,000 to $150,000 -- and Hanban also
pays the salaries and travel costs for visiting Chinese instructors who
staff the institutes. Hanban creates its own teaching materials.

The majority of Confucius Institutes focus primarily on language teaching
and public outreach and programming. At New Mexico State, for example, the
Confucius Institute is involved with outreach to local K-12 schools. The
institute serves as a hub for 15 Chinese instructors ­ all of whom are
funded by Hanban ­ who are teaching at nearby elementary, middle and high
schools. The institute has also hosted conferences on the China-Mexico
relationship and China in Africa.  "New Mexico¹s a poor state," said
Hammond. "There¹s not a lot of spare cash sloshing around here but we¹ve
been able to do things academically in terms of programming and
involvement with the public schools that we never would have been able to
do without this."

At North Carolina State University, the Confucius Institute offers
non-credit language and cooking classes for local residents, as well as a
one-credit Chinese conversation course, intended to supplement the foreign
language department¹s offerings. The institute oversees three language
teaching outposts, "Confucius Classrooms," at Central Carolina Community
College, Saint Augustine¹s College, and Enloe High School, in Raleigh.
Additionally, the Confucius Institute organized a professional association
for North Carolina Chinese teachers and has worked with the College of
Education at North Carolina State to develop a licensure program for
teaching Chinese.

In a way, it¹s a one-stop China shop. "We¹re known as a mini China center
here in the region, so if corporations want somebody to talk to about
doing business in China, they contact us," said Bailian Li, vice provost
for international affairs and director of the Confucius Institute. "If the
public school wants to have an Asia day or a Chinese culture day, they
contact us, so we send a teacher or a student to do show and tell."

The language teaching and outreach model is most common, but as more
prestigious universities have signed on with Hanban, research-oriented
Confucius Institutes have also developed. Stanford University, which
established its Confucius Institute in 2009, received a $4 million gift
from Hanban -- matched by Stanford ­ to fund an endowed professorship in
Sinology, graduate student fellowships, and collaborative programming with
Peking University. Richard Saller, dean of the School of Humanities and
Sciences, said that during discussions of the gift a Hanban official
expressed concern that the endowed professor might discuss "politically
sensitive things, such as Tibet."
"This is something that comes up in other discussions with other donors of
endowed chairs, and I said what I always say, which is we don¹t restrict
the freedom of speech of our faculty, and that was the end of the
discussion. I¹ve had domestic donors walk away because of that, and in
this case Hanban did not walk away."

"Given my experience, I don¹t see any kind of insidious or subversive tone
to this," Saller said. "I think there is a genuine interest in trying to
reach the best American universities." He added that when he was provost
at the University of Chicago the French government established the France
Chicago Center with a million dollar gift. "The consulate in Chicago was
far more involved in trying to influence the nature of the programming for
the purposes the French wanted to see, than Hanban has been for our
program."

Academic Freedom and Soft Power

Objections to particular Confucius Institutes have emerged. For example,
in 2010, 174 University of Chicago faculty members signed a letter
<http://uchicago-cores.org/petition/>  that, among other things, objected
to the establishment of a Confucius Institute in absence of Faculty Senate
approval. The letter described the institute as "an academically and
politically ambiguous initiative sponsored by the government of the
People¹s Republic of China," and asserted  that, "Proceeding without due
care to ensure the institute¹s academic integrity, [the administration]
has risked having the university¹s reputation legitimate the spread of
such Confucius Institutes in this country and beyond."

This past spring, the faculty union at the University of Manitoba raised
objections to a proposed Confucius Institute for academic freedom reasons.
"Materials and instructors for CIs are selected and controlled by a branch
of the government of the People's Republic of China," said Cameron
Morrill, president of the University of Manitoba Faculty Association. "It
is inappropriate to allow any government, either foreign or domestic,
control over a university classroom regardless of how much money they
offer."

The Canadian press 
<http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/canada/canadian-schools-unaware-of-beijing
s-discrimination-in-confucius-institute-hires-59995.html> also recently
called attention to a provision
<http://www.chinese.cn/hanban_en/node_9806.htm> in Hanban¹s hiring
practices that discriminates against teaching candidates with a "record of
participation in Falun Gong and other illegal organizations." The bylaws
<http://english.hanban.org/node_7880.htm> of the Confucius Institutes
stipulate that "they shall not contravene concerning the laws and
regulations of China."

Officials at Hanban did not respond to multiple interview requests.

Lionel M. Jensen, an associate professor of East Asian languages and
cultures and a fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies
at the University of Notre Dame, writes critically of the Confucius
Institutes in the forthcoming book, China In and Beyond the Headlines
<https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442209053> (Rowman and Littlefield, 2012):
"[S]o far there have not been any events in which the academic freedom of
the host university was explicitly threatened by authorities of Hanban.
Most directors have gone on record in this regard to affirm the
independence of their institutes. This, though, does not mean that U.S.
Confucius Institute directors do not take special care in arranging
programming that is uncontroversial in the eyes of their benefactor. By
this I mean that their mindfulness of the funding source has affected
consideration of what is appropriate programming. At its worst, this
amounts to a persistent self-censorship, a practice common to the
political survival experience of Chinese citizens today."
In an interview Jensen said his concerns about Confucius Institutes stem
from the fact that, unlike other cultural institutes charged with
promoting the study of language and culture of their countries, such as
the Alliance Française, British Council,  and the Goethe-Institut,
Confucius Institutes are distinct for being located within institutions of
higher education. "That in itself is astonishing," he said.

Jensen also has concerns about the quality of culture and language
education offered through the Confucius Institutes. As he writes, the
diversity of China¹s cultures has been reduced by Hanban to a "uniform,
quaint commodity," characterized by Chinese opera and dance performances:
"The term most appropriate for CI programming is 'culturetainment.' The
concept gets at the abridgment of Chinese civilization in the name of
digestible forms of cultural appeal that can be readily shipped overseas.
To that extent, it is possible the Chinese-language education provided by
CI will fall short of standard proficiency."

Scholars have characterized the Confucius Institutes as instruments of
soft power, defined by the Harvard University political scientist Joseph
Nye as "the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than
coercion or payments. It arises from the attractiveness of a country¹s
culture, political ideals and policies." As James F. Paradise, a newly
minted political science Ph.D. from the University of California at Los
Angeles who has published an article on Confucius Institutes and soft
power explained, "The Chinese government has a broader agenda, which is to
project a benign image of China in the international community, and a
convenient way to do this is to establish these Confucius Institutes."

"It¹s not a bad thing to expose students to Chinese culture, but is it
leading to an intrusion into American academic affairs?" Paradise asked.
"I don¹t know if I would put it in such crude terms. I think the exercise
of influence happens in a much subtler way. This is an example of public
diplomacy, which the U.S. has used for years. During the Cold War, there
were American centers around the world."

However, Brady, of the University of Canterbury, returned to the point
that the Confucius Institutes are located within universities ­ and even
subsidized by them, in the form of matching funds and overhead costs.
"What they¹re promoting is a positive and benign image of Chinese society
and Chinese political systems, and they are promoting Chinese language,"
she said. "They believe that if more people learn Chinese, they¹ll have
more positive feelings toward China. There¹s nothing wrong with that.
These are all similar activities as to what the British Council [for
example] does, but the difference is that they¹re in universities and
universities help to subsidize them, and why would we do that?"

Sources of Funding

Confucius Institute directors counter that Hanban provides them with the
funding necessary to pursue programming of significant educational value.
The University of Oregon has a Confucius Institute that sponsors events
and symposia about China in a transnational context. Recent events
<http://confucius.uoregon.edu/events/> include a lecture by a professor
emeritus at Harvard on Deng Xiaoping, a folk music concert featuring
musicians from the Central Music Conservancy, in Beijing, a panel
discussion on Chinese foodways, and a symposium on China¹s role in
regulating the global information economy. Hanban does not set the agenda:
The institute puts out a call for proposals for projects each year, and
the proposals are vetted by a board of faculty and administrators.
"Especially since there¹s some suspicion of China and Chinese funding we
want to make sure that everything we do is desired locally," said Bryna
Goodman, the director of Oregon¹s Confucius Institute, a professor of
history and director of Asian Studies. She said that the Confucius
Institute sends an annual budget request to Hanban outlining the proposed
projects; not once, she said, have Hanban officials raised any questions
regarding the content of the programming proposed.

Goodman said that the funding from China provides a good counter-balance
to other funding sources for China studies, including Taiwanese sources ­
such as the  Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly
Exchange -- and U.S. government sources. "In terms of academic freedom, I
would say the more sources you have the better, because you can go to
different units to fund different things," she said.

"I would like a university that had enough independent funding so that
everything could be independently funded, but that¹s not how universities
work."

The influx of Confucius Institute dollars comes at a time when U.S.
government funding. specifically National Resource Center funding for area
and language studies, has been slashed by 47 percent.
<http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/09/02/foreign_language_programs_fa
ce_deep_cuts> Paul Jacov Smith, a professor of history and East Asian
studies at Haverford College, said he worries that some of the fears
surrounding the Confucius Institutes mask frustrations about the U.S.¹s
own disinvestment in language and culture study. "While I do worry about
the strings that often seem attached to CI funding, I think some of the
more general concern is generated by the frustration that we in the U.S.
feel as our ability to fund our own academic projects is eroded by the
economic downturn," he said. "Our national power and prestige are under
pressure right now, and I worry that could fuel unproductive resentments
against China."

The University of Pennsylvania¹s Center for East Asian Studies is one of
many National Resource Centers that¹s taken the hit. "We, like everybody
else, are always looking for more funding and obviously when you lose
funding you become more concerned about it," said Jacques deLisle, the
Stephen A. Cozen professor of law and director of the center. The
University of Pennsylvania previously rejected a proposed Confucius
Institute that would have focused on K-12 outreach. "Personally, I think
that proposal was too narrow and with the wrong kind of Chinese
counterpart institution," deLisle said. Yet, deLisle said that while there
are no active negotiations at this point, he is not closed to the
possibility of pursuing a different  sort of Confucius Institute. "I don¹t
think it¹s fair to say that the reduction in federal funding triggered a
sudden interest in the Confucius Institute or has transformed the
likelihood that we will pursue one. But like every place that has not
established one, or has made a firm decision not to establish one, we¹re
looking around."

"One wants to have all the information one can about what kinds of options
there are and what strings are attached to them," deLisle said.

David Prager Branner, a Chinese lexicographer and adjunct associate
professor at Columbia University, said it is a fallacy to believe that
"taking money from the Chinese government will have no long-term
consequences."

"Of course, many of our universities are strapped for funds and the whole
economics of American higher education is in the midst of changing
drastically, so it¹s easy to look favorably on what seems to be a little
easy money. At the same time, many universities have friendly
relationships with institutions in China, so it¹s understandable that
their administrators hope to do things to please the Chinese government."

"But I think this is like taking out a sub-prime mortgage or buying
everything on credit without paying off the full debt: it may seem like a
good deal at first but it will surely have consequences we may not be able
to foresee at the outset. In order to try to anticipate those consequences
we need to ask: why would China be willing to spend so much money to set
these organizations up? Specifically why does China consider this to be in
its national interest and why would it be in America¹s national interest?"
Branner asked.

"I'm most concerned about what might happen in the long run," said Matthew
Sommer, an associate professor of Chinese history at Stanford. "The
program seems to be expanding exponentially in the United States and
around the world, and inevitably it¹s going to have an increasing
influence on the way Chinese studies is taught in the U.S. and elsewhere.
It¹s not so much what might happen right now, but what might happen 15
years from now, or 20 years from now."