Soft Power and the Worldwide Promotion of Chinese Language Learning

The Confucius Institute Project

Jeffrey Gil

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781783098071
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Teaching Language Arts
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

'The Confucius Institute Project' – consisting of Confucius Institutes and Classrooms, the posting of Chinese language teachers to overseasschools and universities and the Chinese Bridge language competition – represents an attempt by China to extend its influence globally through the use of soft power.Facilitated by a rapidly increasing demand for Chinese language learning, it has established a presence across the globe and made valuable contributions to the learning and teaching of Chinese. However, this has not necessarily led to an increasingly positive view of China, either at a political or a societal level. Through an analysis of official documents, interviews with those involved, a survey of Chinese-language learners and a study of academic and media sources, the author evaluates the aims of the project, and discusses whether these aims are being met.

1	Introduction: Language, Culture and China’s Rise in a Globalising World

Introduction

China’s rise, or more accurately re-emergence, is occurring in a world political system which is arguably more complex than that faced by any previous rising power (Buzan & Cox, 2013; C.R. Jin, 2013). A distinguishing feature of the contemporary world political system is the accelerating processes of globalisation, or the deepening, expanding and intensifying of interconnections across the world. These interconnections are constituted through the global flows of people, objects, images, ideas and information in almost all dimensions of life, from the public to the private (McGrew, 1992; Scholte, 2005). One of the most easily noticeable and experienced dimensions of globalisation, however, is the cultural dimension, manifested in global flows of languages, films, music, food and religions, to give just a few examples. These and other elements of culture have, of course, long flowed around the world, but this now happens on a far larger and more significant scale, facilitated by improvements in transportation and communications technology. It is possible to argue that ‘[t]here is no historical equivalent of the global reach and volume of cultural traffic’ we experience today (Held et al., 1999: 327). Global cultural flows show considerable diversity in their content, origins and directions, meaning that it is more fitting to think in terms of cultural globalisations, rather than cultural globalisation (Hopper, 2007).

This notion of many different cultural globalisations applies to China’s experience. China’s embrace of the current phase of globalisation as a means of facilitating its modernisation and development has exposed it to a range of global cultural flows originating from outside China, yet China also sees globalisation as an opportunity to advance its own influence and interests, and has set about promoting elements of Chinese culture throughout the world. This book maps and evaluates one aspect of China’s participation in cultural globalisations, its worldwide promotion of Chinese language learning through the Confucius Institute project. As the Confucius Institute project recently celebrated its 10th anniversary with World Confucius Institute Day, held on 27 September 2014, now seems an appropriate time to undertake this task. This introductory chapter charts the terrain of my investigation of the Confucius Institute project. It begins with a brief historical background to China’s participation in cultural globalisations, particularly as it applies to language. It then discusses how the promotion of Chinese language and culture connects to China’s efforts to employ soft power to facilitate its rise in the contemporary world political system. Finally, it presents the central questions this book addresses and the methods used to do so.

Chinese Language and Culture in the World: Brief Historical Background

The world political system can be thought of as ‘the broad pattern of political, economic, and other interrelationships that impact world affairs’ (Rochester, 2010: 33). As Hopper (2007) points out, global cultural flows take place within the established structures, practices and relationships of the world political system, and it is therefore necessary to consider how the nature of this system and China’s position within it have seen it oscillate between being a major centre of global cultural flows to other parts of the world, and predominantly a receiver of such flows from elsewhere.

Throughout much of history, China was one of the world’s most powerful and advanced countries. It was at the top of a hierarchical pattern of relations covering much of Asia known as the tribute system or the Chinese world order (Kang, 2007; Kim, 2008). China considered itself superior to other peoples, whom it ranked according to how closely they followed Chinese culture, and Chinese superiority was in turn recognised by the other Asian countries within the tribute system (Gregory, 2003; Westad, 2012). As Mackerras (1998: 12) explains, ‘[t]he essence of the system was that surrounding countries sent in tribute to the Chinese emperor and paid him homage as the ruler of the region’s most powerful country’. While the tribute system was stronger during some periods than others, the interactions within it were mutually beneficial and it produced remarkably stable relations with few wars between the countries involved (Kang, 2007, 2012).

Because of China’s position, the Chinese language and culture were very influential. From approximately the third century CE to the second half of the 1900s, scholars and officials in Korea, Japan and Vietnam adopted Chinese characters as the medium of scholarly and official communication, despite their spoken languages being unrelated to and very different from Chinese. Chinese characters also became the basis for the development of written scripts for these languages, and all of them adopted a substantial amount of Chinese vocabulary (Ostler, 2005; Snow, 2010). This occurred because these countries regarded China as the most advanced and civilised of all countries, and sought to emulate it.

The Chinese language was spread to Southeast Asia through migrations, trade and military expeditions, many of which created long-standing and even permanent Chinese communities (Ostler, 2005; van de Ven, 2002). These communities played an important role in facilitating trade and other interactions between China and Southeast Asian countries, and there is some suggestion that Chinese characters were used as the lingua franca of trade during the first half of the 15th century (van de Ven, 2002). China was connected to the wider world through trade routes such as the Silk Road, which reached as far as Europe. These connections helped Chinese language and culture become sources of fascination for people in Europe, conveyed through the stories of travellers, traders, missionaries and envoys (d’Hooghe, 2011; Nederveen Pieterse, 2009). The learning of Chinese by some European missionaries, scholars and government officials began in the 16th century, the best-known example being Matteo Ricci, the Jesuit priest who, during many years of residence in China, became proficient in Chinese, devised a Romanisation system for Chinese characters and compiled a dictionary. By the 18th century, European research on the Chinese language was quite extensive, focusing in particular on the origins of Chinese characters and compiling Chinese books (Y. He & G.H. Xu, 2000; Kane, 2006).

The tribute system, and China’s position as the major centre of global cultural flows, was, however, heavily challenged by the growing influence of Europe. Improvements in oceanic transportation enabled European countries to extend their influence around the world through exploration, trade and colonialisation from the 16th century, and in the 18th century the process of industrialisation furthered these activities by conferring significant military, economic, organisational and technological advantages (Keylor, 1992; Nadkarni, 2013).1 Importantly, these countries operated within the very different state-based system, which had developed in Europe out of a range of complex economic, religious, social, technological and military trends which favoured the state as a means of organising political communities (Buzan & Little, 2000; Ray & Kaarbo, 2005; Shimko, 2008). At first, China dealt with Europeans in the same way as it did with the peoples within the tribute system and, up until the middle of the 19th century, was able to resist their encroachments, allowing only limited contact and trade, confined to the port cities of Guangzhou and Macao (Gong, 1984; Gregory, 2003). This state of affairs changed with the Opium War of 1839–1842, in which Britain used military force to make China agree to its demands for increased and less restricted trade and diplomatic interaction, and legal protection of its citizens. At the conclusion of the Opium War, China was compelled to sign the Treaty of Nanjing, the first of a number of unequal treaties with European countries (and later the USA and Japan). Such treaties granted various rights and privileges to European countries, and also required China to recognise the legal equality of China and other countries, and allow the stationing of foreign diplomats in Beijing on a permanent basis (Gregory, 2003; Roberts, 2006; Wright, 2011). The tributary countries also needed to deal with European countries. They were similarly compelled to open to trade and diplomacy, and in some cases became formal colonies. With the collapse of the tribute system, China went from being ‘a world unto itself’ to merely one part of the state-based system (S.S. Zhao, 1997: 30).

The Chinese language and culture consequently lost much of their previous prestige and attraction, both within China and the former tributary countries. In fact, many Chinese intellectuals and officials of the late 19th and early 20th centuries believed that the Chinese language had to be reformed, and argued for the creation of a national standard language, based on the everyday spoken form of Chinese, to facilitate education, administration, literacy and national unity (P. Chen, 1999; Gao, 2000; Norman, 1988). Some, such as the prominent writers Lu Xun and Chen Duxiu, advocated replacing Chinese characters with an alphabetic script, while Qian Xuantong, a philologist and professor of literature, went as far as to suggest that Chinese should be replaced by Esperanto (Gao, 2000; Moser, 2016; Ramsey, 1987). At the same time, the languages of European countries, particularly English, were widely perceived as the most useful vehicles for accessing the knowledge, ideas and technology required to prosper in the world. The first Chinese government foreign languages college, known as the Tongwen Guan (同文馆 tόngwén guǎn) or College of Translators, opened in 1862 in Beijing for the purpose of preparing interpreters and translators to work in the government. Its language curriculum consisted of only English at first, but later expanded to include Russian, French, German and Japanese (Hung, 2002; Ross, 1992).

China’s struggle to transform itself into a modern state continued throughout the rest of the 19th century and much of the 20th century. This was a chaotic and tumultuous time, which included the 1911 revolution which overthrew the monarchy, and the 1949 revolution which brought to power the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Foreign languages, again most notably English, continued to be seen as essential to modernisation, and became a central part of China’s education system, although there were considerable fluctuations in policies on foreign language education and official and popular attitudes towards them (Gil & B. Adamson, 2011). Although Europe had clearly established itself as th...

Table of contents

• Cover-Page
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Tables
• Conventions for Chinese Terms and Chinese Names
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Language, Culture and China’s Rise in a Globalising World
• 2 Chinese Culture Goes Global: Soft Power and the Promotion of Chinese Language Learning
• 3 Mapping the Confucius Institute Project: High Extensity, Intensity and Velocity
• 4 Evaluating the Confucius Institute Project: Impact at the State-to-State Level
• 5 Evaluating the Confucius Institute Project: Impact at the Society-to-Society Level
• 6 Conclusions and Implications
• References
• Index