Confucius Institutes: China’s benign outreach or something more sinister?
A new documentary paints the image of a non-profit organisation using the guise of education to subvert academic freedom worldwide; others see it as a benign introduction to the Middle Kingdom’s culture, from Chinese food to tai chi
Soft power or sharp power? It’s almost inevitable that such catchy phrases are being used to describe the phenomenal worldwide spread of China’s Confucius Institutes in the past two decades. At last count, they have been set up in more than 140 countries and territories around the world, raising alarm among people already critical of China’s rise and global reach.
Are those institutes benign vehicles for China’s projection of soft power to promote its language and culture, and to improve its international image; or Trojan horses sent to subvert academic freedom and autonomy of teaching institutions at their host countries, and perhaps even to spy on people and recruit agents?
Spy risk or cultural asset? The divide over China’s Confucius Institutes on US campuse s
For Doris Liu, a Chinese-Canadian journalist and filmmaker, it’s clearly the latter.
“First, there is the human rights discrimination. Second, it’s academic independence,” she said in an interview with This Week in Asia. “Our fundamental values are at risk or damaged. The institutes teach propaganda by sneaking it into our campuses.”
After an investigation over three years, Liu has produced In the Name of Confucius, a new hour-long documentary that claims to expose such threats posed by the institutes in Canada, the United States and elsewhere.
However, you cannot get a more different response from famed US sinologist David Shambaugh, hardly an apologist for China.