Big Dragon on Campus: China's soft power-play in academia - part 2

Fri, Jul 31st 2015, 09:24 PM

Self-censorship

The administrations of many universities hosting Confucius Institutes across the globe have self-censored their activities to keep from offending China. In 2009, North Carolina State University cancelled a visit by the Dalai Lama, after the director of the school's Confucius Institute warned that hosting the Tibetan leader would disrupt "strong relationships we were developing with China."

Sydney University in Australia also cancelled a lecture by the Dalai Lama in 2013. Australian politicians and activists charged that the university withdrew its support for the event "to avoid damaging its ties with China" and to secure "funding for its cultural Confucius Institute." New South Wales MP John Kaye accused the university of selling off its "internal integrity" to "maintain close financial ties with the Chinese government." The university relented after protest and controversy.

Also, in 2009 a district court in Tel Aviv, Israel, ordered the city's university to reopen an art exhibit made by practitioners of Falun Gong, after the exhibit's organizers sued. Falun Gong is a religious sect banned in China in 1999 and whose practitioners are still actively persecuted by authorities. The court found that the university's dean closed the exhibit under orders from the Chinese Embassy. Judge Amiram Benyamini, who presided over the case, said that the evidence did not support the dean's claim that the embassy's remonstrance did not influence his decision to close the exhibit. Judge Benyamini concluded that based on the evidence provided by the plaintiffs, the dean shut down the exhibit solely for fear of losing the university's CI and the associated funding.

Russell explained that many universities see China as a "sugar daddy" and regard partnering with it and establishing CIs as a "pragmatic way of getting more funding." The United Nations identified under-funded schools as one of the major "overarching blocks" to proper education in Latin America and the Caribbean. With schools in the region in need of funding and the generous amounts of funding provided by Hanban, it should be taken into concern how much influence the CIs will have over their hosts in the region, and how likely it will be for students to receive an objective and realistic view of China and the CCP.

Hiring transparency and discrimination

There are also concerns over the institute's hiring practices and the degree of input host schools have in the institute's hiring process. Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that such concerns are unfounded. Xinhua asserts that all institutes are managed by a committee consisting of "both Chinese and foreign experts" and that hosts "have their say in decision-making."

However, reports from universities paint a different picture. Glenn Cartwright, head of the Renison University College in Ontario, Canada, said in 2013 that the host school does not "know anything about the contract they [Hanban] force their teachers to sign," and that while Hanban has its own conditions under which teachers are hired, "whether we can dictate what those conditions can be is another story."

In his article for The Nation, China U., Marshall Sahlins, anthropology professor at the University of Chicago, cites the director of his school's Chinese language program who works with Hanban's teachers. The director described the negotiation process of hiring teachers for the school's CI as simply, "We don't choose. They recommend, and we accept."

Most controversial, however, has been the conflict between Hanban's hiring practices and religious freedom. Hanban requires that all those wishing to work at CIs, in addition to having no criminal record, must have "no record of participation in Falun Gong." Opponents of the institutes' hiring practices like Sonia Zhao argue that this stipulation is tantamount to religious discrimination and that schools who work with Hanban are party to a violation of human rights and local laws.

Zhao, a Falun Gong practitioner was allowed to teach at the Confucius Institute at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada provided she refrain from practicing her religion and doing anything deemed "detrimental to China's national interest." Zhao explained that she was told she would be punished if she breached these conditions, and all teachers for the institute were made to sign similar contracts. Zhao left the Confucius Institute in 2010 and has been granted asylum in Canada on the grounds of religious persecution.

McMaster University denied any knowledge of Hanban's conditions regarding Falun Gong or of the contents of contracts signed by CI teachers. If McMaster's denials are true, this case is a testament to Hanban's lack of transparency in its hiring process. McMaster University shut down its CI in 2013, declaring Hanban's hiring practices to be discriminatory. When confronted on the issue of religious discrimination in Hanban's hiring, Xu Lin said only, "it is simply a matter of Chinese law." Chinese law, however, enforced on campuses across the world in violation of recognized fundamental human rights and the laws of most countries.

Resistance

There has been increasing resistance to the CIs by educators and governments in recent years. In 2013, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) called on colleges and universities in Canada who host Confucius Institutes to shut them down. CAUT also urged schools in negotiations with Hanban to establish institutes to "pursue them no further."

CAUT's director, James Turk, said that the Confucius Institutes are owned, operated by the CCP and "beholden" to the politics of an "authoritarian government." Turk explained that the amount of influence CIs have over "curriculum, texts, and topics of class discussion" compromises integrity for universities and violates academic freedom. In addition to McMaster, the University of Manitoba refused to open a CI, citing concerns over human rights. Also, in 2014, the Toronto District School Board terminated negotiations to establish a Confucius Institute. CAUT's American counterpart, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), also called for U.S. schools to either end or renegotiate their contracts with Hanban to ensure transparency, unilateral control by the host university over academic matters and hiring, as well as to safeguard academic freedom.

The University of Chicago and the Pennsylvania State University both shut down their Confucius Institutes. Resistance to the Confucius Institute has expanded beyond North America. In 2010, Osaka Sangyo University in Japan shut down its Confucius Institute, calling it a "spy department." The university later apologized for the comment, but the institute remains abolished. Schools in France, Sweden and Vietnam have either closed down CIs or expressed disapproval over their behavior and links to the Chinese government.

Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, India's minister for information and broadcasting, warned that the view of China propagated by Confucius Institutes could lead the next generation of intellectuals to have a "pro-China tilt."

China's Response

China has responded viciously to criticism of its CIs. Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency published a response to criticisms of the Confucius Institute. The response asserted that accusations of the political behavior by the CIs are only attempts to "defame and smear China's goodwill."

Another Xinhua article claimed that criticism of the CIs is all rooted in "intolerance" and "biased preconceived notions." The article also accused critics of the CI of trying to "smear and isolate the [Communist Party of China]." The article concluded by describing the institute as a "unique contribution from [China] to world peace."

Global Times, another state-run media outlet, published a more vitriolic response. Its article charges that the real reason behind calls for schools to cut ties with CIs is because "China is on the rise" and that the intelligentsia in other countries lack "confidence in their culture and their system." The article further adds that critics of the Institute are "ashamed and scared" because the "pirate culture" in North America is inferior in the face of "5,000 years of Chinese culture." Xinhua did admit, however, that "without doubt, CI has its problems, in management style, hiring methods or quality of its teachers," but it added that problems are to be expected with an institution undergoing such "rapid development" and stressed that there still is no justification for calls to reject Confucius Institutes.

Support for CIs outside of China

Confucius Institutes have also received support from school faculty outside of China. State-run People's Daily interviewed university faculty members and CI directors from schools in nine countries who all expressed support for the institute, all of whom rejected the CAUT/AAUP assessment of the Confucius Institute. The dean of Suez Canal University in Egypt, for example, called the groups' comments "unfounded" and "simply ridiculous." They stressed that the institute is no threat to academic freedom. The head of the Confucius Institute at Moscow State University said that discussion of any subject of interest to students "has never been restricted." Edward McCord, associate professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University also expressed support for the CI. McCord argued that it is unfair that CIs are expected to discuss the issues of Tibet and Taiwan and are then "treated with suspicion" for simply offering "counter perspectives supporting the [People's Republic of China's] view."

The problem, however, is not necessarily that the CIs support the CCP's view of the issue, but rather that teachers are required by Hanban to recite the party's line, as Sonia Zhao explained, and the information they disseminate is not always factual, as Dreyer and Russell point out. McCord also argued that Li Changchun's comments have been misunderstood, explaining that the word "propaganda" has an innocuous meaning in Chinese. However, Chinese media often uses the same word to condemn U.S. or Western "propaganda." Also, Li's successor, Liu Yunshan called on the party to "actively carry out international propaganda battles against issues such as Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan, human rights, and Falun Gong." In Liu Yunshan's comments, the word "propaganda" has a clearly combative connotation, as he calls on the party to use it to suppress criticisms of China's political stance and human rights record internationally.

Conclusion

China's response to criticism of the CIs, though sometimes histrionic, may have a degree of truth. Reactions to the Confucius Institutes have been generally positive outside of countries not geopolitically opposed to China. However, the CIs' trend of promoting the CCP's positions on major political issues to students should also be of concern in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Despite their own claims and those of its supporters, the Confucius Institutes, headed by incumbent politicians, are not apolitical organizations. Their goal is to expand China's soft power and present a positive, sanitized image of China, or as one professor put it, one of "pandas and chopsticks." Given their history struggling with Western colonialism and coercion, it may be understandable why those in Latin America and the Caribbean want closer ties with China.

However, the nature of the CCP's rule and the censorship and political repression it practices should not be overlooked, especially in education. Thus, greater scrutiny should be applied to the institute's practices in the region.

o Andrew Lumsden is a research associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. Part 1 of this op-ed can be found at www.thenassauguardian.com/opinion/op-ed

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