MCLC: China's beachhead in US schools

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Magnus Fiskesjo <magnus.fiskesjo at cornell.edu>
Subject: China's beachhead in US schools
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Not bad, but there seem to be a few points about Chicago that seem to have
been lifted without attribution from Marshall Sahlins article "China U,"

http://www.thenation.com/article/176888/china-u

Magnus Fiskesjö

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Source: WSJ (5/26/14):
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230348030457957783103293
1804

China's Beachhead in U.S. Schools: The Confucius education network shows
the promise and peril of doing academic business with Beijing.
By David Feith

The College Board has earned headlines recently for revising the SAT exam
and supporting Common Core state education standards. But that's not all
the organization does with its outsize influence on American education.
This month it announced plans to teach Chinese language and culture in 20
school districts across the U.S.—in partnership with China's state-run
Confucius Institutes, which are known to mix cultural exchange with
Communist Party propaganda.

The College Board website doesn't mention that Confucius Institutes are
Chinese government programs. Nor does it admit to any concerns that
Hanban—the Chinese state agency that supervises, funds and provides staff
to Confucius Institutes—may bully teachers or censor lessons within
American classrooms.

Instead, College Board President David Coleman waxes poetic about the
venture: "Hanban is just like the sun. It lights the path to develop
Chinese teaching in the U.S.," he said at a conference in Los Angeles on
May 8. "The College Board is the moon. I am so honored to reflect the
light that we've gotten from Hanban." These remarks, so far reported only
by Chinese state media, were confirmed by the College Board.

Americans may be interested in a fuller picture of Hanban and its
Confucius network, which demonstrates the promise and the peril of doing
academic business with Beijing.

In a mere 10 years Hanban has established nearly 1,100 Confucius
Institutes and Confucius Classrooms in 120 countries, with more than 450
at U.S. grade schools and colleges. Chinese media boast that these
programs today reach more than 220,000 American students, a reflection of
the booming demand for Chinese-language training as China rises in
economic and strategic importance. With U.S. education dollars so often
wasted, it's no surprise that administrators appreciate Beijing's offer of
money (often $150,000 per year), plus instructors and teaching materials.

In return, Beijing wants a PR boost. Confucius Institutes "are an
important part of China's overseas propaganda setup," said Politburo
Standing Committee ideology czar Li Changchun in 2009. Hence the online
materials (since deleted from the Hanban website) that blamed America for
drawing China into the Korean War by bombing Chinese villages, or the
account still there that identifies Taiwan as "China's largest island."

Hence also the self-censorship by educators attuned to the sensitivities
of their funders in Beijing. "Look, there are topics that are best not to
engage in," Australian Education Department official Phil Lambert admitted
during a 2011 controversy over K-12 Confucius Institutes in New South
Wales. Obvious sore spots include the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, the
Dalai Lama and Taiwan. Then there are the "seven taboos" that Beijing last
year warned its domestic university professors to shun, including freedom
of speech, universal values, judicial independence and the mistakes of the
Communist Party.

After North Carolina State University rescinded an invitation to the Dalai
Lama in 2009, officially citing logistical difficulties, Provost Warwick
Arden cited pressure from the campus's Confucius Institute director: "I
don't want to say we didn't think about whether there were implications.
Of course you do. China is a major trading partner for North Carolina."

The University of Chicago's Theodore Foss said last year that he could
post a Dalai Lama portrait in his personal office but never in the
campus's Confucius Institute, which he directs. At the University of
Maryland's Confucius Institute in 2009, a Chinese diplomat opened an
exhibit of Tibetan photography with remarks condemning the Dalai Lama.

In Beijing the Confucius network reports to a council headed by Vice
Premier Liu Yandong —appropriately enough, a former leader of the United
Front Work Department responsible for keeping China's nominally
independent organizations loyal to the ruling Communist Party. The council
makes sure that Confucius programs honor their contracts, typically
including requirements that employees obey the laws not only of their host
country but of authoritarian China.

In 2012 Confucius Institute instructor Sonia Zhao charged that Canada's
McMaster College was "giving legitimation to discrimination" because her
contract barred her from identifying with Falun Gong, a spiritual movement
criminalized and persecuted by Beijing since 1999. McMaster agreed and
last year refused to renew its Confucius contract. Ms. Zhao, a Chinese
national, has received asylum in Canada.

Confucius Institutes are "managed by people operating out of [China's]
embassy or consulates," charged the head of Canada's intelligence agency,
Richard Fadden, in 2010. Instructors sent to Canada by Beijing, he added,
have even "organized demonstrations against the Canadian government with
respect to some of our policies concerning . . . what are called the five
poisons: Taiwan, Falun Gong and others." Today Mr. Fadden is Canada's
deputy defense minister.

Beyond McMaster, though, pushback against Confucius programs has been
limited. The Canadian Association for University Teachers last year called
on all schools to cut Confucius ties, as did Tibetan and Uighur rights
groups. The University of Manitoba and the University of British Columbia
both recently rejected Confucius proposals, and more than 100 University
of Chicago faculty have petitioned to close their institute. But otherwise
no revolt seems to be brewing at Canadian or U.S. schools.

The College Board's new programs may be an occasion to reconsider. When I
asked, the College Board declined to say whether the content of contracts
between American schools and the Chinese government would be publicly
available. This might not sit well with parents and lawmakers in New York,
Ohio, Florida and the other states expecting new Confucius Institutes or
Confucius Classrooms. Neither would lessons that whitewash China's record
on free speech or religious liberty. Asked about Chinese government
pressure on U.S. classrooms, College Board spokeswoman Katherine Levin
replied only that, "There is no mandated curriculum, lesson plan, or
course material required to participate in the program."

Studying Chinese is an invaluable economic and cultural opportunity.
Instead of promising the sun, moon and stars, the College Board and other
policy makers might demonstrate how they plan to expand Chinese education
without propagandizing for Beijing or discriminating against victims of
Chinese repression.

Mr. Feith is a Journal editorial writer based in Hong Kong.