Volume 12 | Issue 46 | Number 1 | Article ID 4220 | Nov 16, 2014 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus

Confucius Institutes: Academic Malware 孔子学院 学術的マル ウェア

Marshall Sahlins

The Confucius Institute is an appealing brand Chicago has enlisted in the program, putting 43 for extending our culture abroad. It has made Confucius Classrooms in primary and an important contribution toward improving secondary schools with an enrollment of nearly our soft power. The “Confucius” brand has a 12,000 students. An obvious reason for this natural attractiveness. Using the excuse of success is the great demand for Chinese teaching Chinese language, everything looks language instruction the world over, which in reasonable and logical. turn suggests a “follow the money” meme, as the demand clearly reflects the global prowess So runs the report of a speech in November and glowing promise of the Chinese economy. 2011 by Li Changchun, then a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, the highest body of the Chinese Communist Party, at the Beijing Headquarters of the Confucius Institute in November 2011. Officially known as The Office of the Chinese Language Council International and commonly as “Hanban,” the Confucius Institute is a Chinese government agency inserted into an increasing number of universities and lower schools the world around, ostensibly with the reasonable and logical mission of teaching Chinese language and culture—and veritably with the practical mission of promoting the real-political influence Less obviously, Confucius Institutes are often of the People’s Republic. hostages to university fortunes, insofar as they are deemed desirable and renewable at the risk Since their inception in 2004, Confucius of jeopardizing the flow of tuition-paying Institutes (CIs) have been a great success. students from China. Totaling more than Presently there are approximately 450235,000 in 2013-14, these students comprised Confucius Institutes operating in 120 countries, the largest national contingent of foreign including about 100 in the US, and some 650 enrollees in American colleges and universities. “Confucius Classrooms” offering instruction in Still following the money, one should not ignore K-12 schools. Among the American host the various perquisites provided by Hanban to institutions are the prestigious privatethis or that host institution: ranging from tours universities of Chicago, Stanford, and Columbia to China for students in CI courses; to funding and the exemplary state universities ofresearch on China by graduate students and Michigan, Iowa, and UCLA. For afaculty (pending approval of the project by comprehensive list of college and university Hanban); to wining and dining of university Confucius Institutes in the US and globally, see presidents and their families on visits to China, here. The entire public school district of featuring first class air travel, five star hotels,

1 12 | 46 | 1 APJ | JF and celebrity tourism—an up-to-date version of approved. the imperial guest ritual of the T’ang dynasty. But none of this has ever happened, say a Moreover, there is the immediate payoff for the chorus of Confucius Institute Directors. Hanban universities concerned: $100,000 and up in has never told us what to do or not to do, they start-up costs provided by Hanban, with annual say. No plans of CI events, no research payments of the like over a five-year period, proposals have ever been turned down by and instruction subsidized as well, including Beijing. And most telling, it is claimed that the air fares and salaries of the teachers despite the great number of CIs the world provided from China. After a period of training around, there have been very few incidents of by Hanban, the Chinese teachers are in many academic malpractice. Perhaps so when the cases integrated in the university’s degree matter is a public scandal, but something is to programs, in charge of regular credit courses. be said for what is considered a violation of Hanban also agrees to send textbooks, videos, academic integrity, and what therefore passes and other classroom materials for thesefor an “incident.” courses—materials that are often welcome in institutions without an important China studies What usually passes for an incident of this kind program of their own. In other words,is the oft-cited charge of discriminatory hiring American universities and others areagainst McMaster University in 2012 by an subcontracting teaching to a foreignerstwhile Confucius Institute teacher from government. China, Ms Sonia Zhao, who was unable to maintain her position when she revealed her The teaching component of the local Confucius adherence to Falun Gong. Brought before the Institute is often complemented by academic Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, the incident programs such as guest lectures and scholarly did become a scandal to the extent that conferences on China. Considering that the McMaster was moved to terminate its political constraints in effect on publicConfucius Institute. Yet there are numerous discussions of certain topics in China are similar events of similar implication that, usually followed in Confucius Institutes—no because they are too parochial or seemingly talking of Tibetan independence, the status of insignificant, never reach public attention. Taiwan, the fourth of June 1989 at Tiananmen Indeed, when the “incident” consists of self- Square, Falun Gong, universal human rights, censorship on the part of a secondary school etc.—these academic events are largelyteacher in a Confucius Classroom in Ashtabula consistent with the “cultural activities” of CIs, with regard to topics that are politically taboo insofar as they likewise present a positive in China, the matter is not likely to come to picture of a peaceful, harmonious, andanyone’s attention. Nor would it be necessary attractive People’s Republic. From classes on to go so far as preventing the Dalai Lama from making dumplings to film showings,speaking on campus to make an offense of that celebrations of Chinese festivals, andnature against academic freedom. I am told on “traditional” folk dances, the CIs put on various good authority that while it is perfectly possible “culturetainments” (as Lionel M. Jensento hang a portrait of the Dalai Lama in the dubbed them) for the community at large. Center for East Asian Studies at the University According to the Constitution and By Laws of of Chicago, it would be impossible in the Confucius Institutes, the annual plans of local Confucius Institute. The quotient of iconicity CIs must be submitted to Beijing for approval, (ikonicity) in the image is enough to make the and Hanban reserves the right to take any CI to point—even though ceci n’est pas un Dalai court for sponsoring an event it has not first Lama.

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Incidents of academic malpractice in Confucius management of foreign journalists; we should Institutes, from the virtually unnoticeable to guide them to report China objectively and the publicly notorious, are in fact disturbingly friendly. With regard to key issues that common. In what follows I describe a good influence our sovereignty and safety, we should number of them, based on reports in public actively carry out international propaganda media and communications from persons in the battles against issues such as Tibet, Xinjiang, institutions involved. A prefactory notice of the Taiwan, Human Rights, and Falun Gong. Our views of Chinese officialdom on the politics of strategy is to proactively take our culture culture and Confucius Institutes, together with abroad… We should do well in establishing and some reference to the shadow governance of operating overseas cultural centers and Hanban by the CCP apparatus, will help make Confucius Institutes. these incidents intelligible. —Liu Yunshan, Minister of Propaganda, But before going any further, I should make clear the reasons for my temerity in thus January 2010, Yongning Government Website. entering a debate about Confucius Institutes. This pamphlet has everything to do with the Take the year 2010 as an example, we sent 940 challenges CIs pose to academic freedom and art and cultural groups to perform in foreign integrity in the US and elsewhere; andcountries, totaling 93,700 performances… although it is necessarily concerned with Compared to 2009, the number of Chinese government policy, it nothing to do performances in foreign countries increased by with animus to the PRC as such, the Chinese 25.4 percent. If we organize government- people, or with some sort of deranged anti- sponsored activities, foreigners might be on communism. Then, there is the reticence of high alert… Many of our cultural products have China scholars with ongoing research interests an intense ideological overtone… The in China to become engaged in criticism of the Confucius Institute is semi-official… It will be CI project. Regrettably, it becomes necessary useful to expand China’s influence abroad. for people like me to take up these essentially domestic, US issues of academic integrity. —Xu Shipi, a scholar close to officialdom, March 2012, China.com. Official Chinese Views on the Politics of Culture and Confucius Institutes Amidst the ever more frequent confrontation and blending of different ideas and cultures Make sure that all cultural battlegrounds, worldwide, whoever occupies the highest point cultural products, and cultural activities reflect of cultural development will have in possession and conform to the socialist core values and strong cultural soft power, and will be a requirement. proactive player in the intense international —Liu Yunshan, Minister of Propaganda, competition... The hostile forces in the international community are hastening their 7 September 2010, People’s Daily. steps to westernize and separate our country. The ideology and culture fronts have been their Coordinate the efforts of overseas and domestic key areas of infiltration. We must deeply propaganda, further create a favorableunderstand the seriousness and complexity of international environment for us. Overseas ideological struggles, and take powerful propaganda should be “comprehensive, multi- measures to cope with them. level and wide-ranging.”… We should do well in providing services and exercising control and —Hu Jintao, CCP General Secretary,

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1 January 2012, China.com. The Confucius Institute opened up a new channel for China’s foreign relations. It has Every year since 2004, Li Changchun gave made significant contributions to improve numerous important instructions to theChina’s soft power. Confucius Institute and visited Confucius Institutes in 15 countries when traveling —Special Topic Conference of National Political abroad. He has established a favorable image Consultative Conference, 26 August 2011, as a Chinese leader in the international society. China News. The series of important instructions by Li We require from you, Chinese residents, staff Changchun on the Confucius Institute are at Chinese enterprises, faculty of Confucius theoretical treasures of the Confucius Institute Institutes, and Chinese students in Kirghizstan, undertaking. We studied them in the past, and that no matter what work you do in a foreign we must continue to study them now and in the country, keep China’s peaceful unification in future. your mind.

—Xu Lin, Director of Hanban —Association for China’s Peaceful Unification, Kyrgyzstan, 25 January 2012,State Council (Headquarters of the Confucius Institutes), Website. November 2011, Confucius Institute Online. Note the presence of members of the Standing (excerpt from the report on Li Changchun’s Committee of the Politburo, the supreme ruling visit, cited above) body at once of the Communist Party and the State, among those giving guidance to The international spreading of culture must Confucius Institutes. This is some contrast to shoulder the tasks of improving our nation’s the way Hanban commonly identifies soft power and creating a better image... The itself—and is commonly known abroad—as a cross-media spreading model for our culture “non-profit organization affiliated with the has not only increased our influenceMinistry of Education.” Some such benign internationally, but also broadened ourdescription can be found on the website of strategic interests... We should quietly plant virtually every university Confucius Institute, the seeds of our ideology in foreign countries, thus giving it a semblance of academic we must make good use of our traditional legitimacy. Indeed in more elaborate culture to package our socialist ideology. formulations the CI adds a certain moral authority in describing itself as “an —Wang Gengnian, Director of China Radio independent, non-profit organization affiliated International, 2011, People’s Daily. with the Ministry of Education devoted to fostering instruction in Chinese language and Culture is one important component of our culture in the aim of promoting a harmonious nation’s soft power. It plays an important role multicultural world order.” What is generally in strengthening our nation’s comprehensive not said either in Beijing, Ann Arbor, or Palo power, and thus has an influence on the overall Alto is that Hanban itself is ruled by a development of our Party and the country. “Governing Council” of high Party-State officials—although both the make up of that —Jia Qinglin, member of the CCP Politburo Council as specified in the Constitution and Standing Committee and Chairman of the Bylaws of Confucius Institutes and its actual National Political Consultative Conference, 24 membership can be found on Hanban websites July 2007, 163 News. here and here.

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However, what cannot be publically found, at whose policies come down from the higher least not easily, is the shadow Partyreaches of the Chinese Party-State. organization that sits above Hanban and its Governing Council, setting its policies, funding Moreover, these policies come rather from the its operations, and otherwise supervising it. Party than the State. For through its own Hanban functions within and as part of the ranking Party Members, the Governing Council Chinese Communist Party’s Propaganda and of Hanban is in turn subject to the Chinese Education system. Until recently theCommunist Party Propaganda system. As is propaganda czar in charge of the system was well known, the CCP is “the state of the state,” Vice-Premier Li Changchun—the one who said although exactly what this entails is not well in a speech at the Confucius Institutesknown, because the Party tends to conceal the Headquarters that “using the excuse ofextent and manner of its influence. teaching Chinese language, everything looks As investigated by David Shambaugh in 2007 reasonable and logical.” and Stephen J. Hoare-Vance in 2009, the The Governing Council of high officials is the imbrication of the Confucius Institutes in the bureaucratic body that controls Hanban. Its CCP apparatus consists primarily in the own chair, Madam Liu Yandong, is a Vice membership of ranking members of the Hanban Premier of State and member of the Politburo. Governing Council in the so-called “Small Under Madam Liu are four Vice-Chairs: the Leading Groups” of the overarching Propaganda and Education system. Consisting Ministers of Education and Overseas Chinese of eight or so Party (cum State) officials, the Affairs, the Deputy Secretary General of the important Leading Groups are headed by a State Council, and the Vice Minister of Finance. member of the Politburo Standing Committee. A third tier of Executive Council Members It is through their participation in a Leading includes Vice Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Group that these officials convey CCP policies National Development and Reform, Education, into the functioning of the bureaucracies in Commerce, Culture, State Council Information, which they hold important positions. As of last and Overseas Chinese Affairs, among others. notice, Party policies are transmitted to the Occupying a relative modest place in the Confucius Institutes largely by virtue of the hierarchy as the thirteenth and last mentioned double appurtenance of officials of the Hanban of these Executive Council Members is Vice Governing Council in the External Propaganda Minister Xu Lin, the Director General of Leading Group or the Propaganda and Thought Hanban (its CEO, in effect). There is a fourth Work Leading Group. The mission of the tier of ordinary “Members,” including a External Propaganda Leading Group, according decorative collection of foreign Directors of to Shambaugh, is: university CIs. The Governing Council, Madam Liu Yandong and the higher officials in charge, (1) to tell China’s story to the world, publicize controls the annual agenda and receives the Chinese government policies, and promote reports of the Hanban Headquarters inChinese culture abroad; (2) to counter what is Beijing—even as the Headquarters receives and perceived to be hostile foreign propaganda approves the annual reports of Confucius (such as the so-called “China Threat” Theory); Institutes in schools the world over. It follows (3) countering Taiwan independence that in submitting these reports of their proclivities; and (4) propagating China’s Confucius Institutes to the Beijingforeign policy. Headquarters, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago et al put themselves in the position of dependent Such are the kinds of policies to which peripheral branches of a bureaucratic network members of the Hanban bureaucracy are

5 12 | 46 | 1 APJ | JF beholden and for which they are accountable (David Shambaugh, 2007, “China’s Propaganda System: Institutions, Processes and Efficacy,” The China Journal 57: 25-58, see pp.48-49; see also Stephen T. Hoare-Vance, 2009,“The Confucius Institutes and China’s Evolving Foreign Policy ,” M.A. Thesis, University of Canterbury, NZ).

It follows that the Confucius Institutes are not simple non-profit organizations affiliated with the Ministry of Education and devoted to promoting a harmonious multicultural world. Indeed, although host CIs are told they are Xu Lin speaks funded by the Ministry of Education, the MOE is just a laundering front for the CCP’s External This being the organization and functions of the Propaganda Group. Shambaugh writes: Confucius Institutes, the comparison too often Another prominent example of externalmade to institutions such as the British Council, propaganda work is the substantial effort to or the Goethe Institut is, dare one say, a red establish a range of “Confucius Institutes” herring. Not only are the CIs unlike these other around the world…. [F]oreign universities are cultural exports by their existence within and typically approached by the Educationas elements of host universities, they are also Counselor of the local Chinese embassydistinct for functioning there as elements of a foreign government. Hence the contradictions offering “no strings attached” funds to to academic norms exemplified in the following establish a Confucius Institute. The recipient is pages. told that the funding comes from the Ministry of Education, but it is in fact laundered through Censorship in University Activities: the MOE from the CCPPD’s External Propaganda Department [CCPPD = Chinese Self- and Other Communist Party’s Propaganda Department]. —A scheduled 2009 visit of the Dalai Lama was Analogously and more generally, the Confucius cancelled by the interim Chancellor of North Institutes implement policy directives of the Carolina State University, Jim Woodward, Party. Consider the encomium accorded by Xu ostensibly because there had been insufficient Lin, the Director of Hanban, to Li Changchun, time to prepare for such an august guest. The the Head of the CCP’s Propaganda and director of the NC State Confucius Institute, Education network, as cited above: “The series Bailian Li, a forestry professor, got of important instructions by Li Changchun on involved—after the cancellation, he said, as a the Confucius Institute,” said Madam Xu, “are warning for the future—telling the provost that theoretical treasures of the Confucius Institute a visit by the Dalai Lama could disrupt “some undertaking. We studied them in the past, and strong relationships we were developing with we must continue to study them now and in the China.” In this connection, the provost, future.” In sum, Hanban takes its marching Warwick Arden, observed that a Confucius orders from the Party’s propagandaInstitute presents an “opportunity for subtle apparatus—as issued from the Standingpressure and conflict.” Bloomberg.com( : 1 Committee of the Politburo. November 2011)

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—In April 2013, Sydney University officials these contemporary themes are normally not cancelled a scheduled June visit of the Dalai often debated in Confucius Institutes…more Lama and required it be moved off campus and often than not CIs don’t talk too much about show no sign of the University’s affiliation. It topics that are considered “sensitive” by was widely reported, including statements of Hanban and they focus more on topics that Australian politicians, that the University are—at least at first glance—more apolitical. wished to avoid “damaging its ties to China, Generally speaking there is nothing wrong with including funding for its Confucius Institute.” this focus, although one may argue that this (The Guardian: 18 April 2013). Bowing to a approach does not really help to show and large protest, the University administration introduce the “real China” to the world. eventually reversed itself, and the Dalai Lama Secondly the selection of topics indicates that spoke on campus as scheduled. Hanban wants to present Beijing’s official point of view to its foreign directors. When asked —The previous August the Confucius Institute about what he was told in the session on at Sydney had sponsored a lecture by a Chinese Chinese territory and culture, one foreign academic known for criticizing the Dalai Lama director told me that the lecture of course as the leading proponent of the ancient “feudal noted that Taiwan and Tibet are part of China. serfdom system;” whereas China, which “had always governed Tibet,” had under the PRC The reporter was not concerned that this would regime finally delivered it from “a dictatorship be grist for critics of CIs because, ”it is one of monks and aristocrats.” The CI, however, thing to tell foreign directors that Taiwan is asked the professor to concentrate his remarks part of China, while it’s another story to on the history of Tibetan Buddhism and the actually express this point of view.” And traditional, pre-Chinese selection of the Dalai although this happens occasionally, “more Lama (theaustralian.com: 13 Aug 2012). often than not CIs try to stay away from these —According to Ted Foss, the Deputy Director of topics and do more apolitical stuff like paper the Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS), cutting.” Still the reporter concludes: “what all University of Chicago, a picture of the Dalai this illustrates, however, is the fact that CIs are Lama could be hung in the CEAS, but not in the not apolitical organizations as some CI s are precincts of the University’s Confucius Institute claiming.” See here. (CIUC) (The Nation: 13 Nov 2013). —Observes Daniel A. Bell, professor of political —Between July and October 2013 at Fudan, philosophy at Tsinghua University, Beijing, Nankai and Xiamen universities, Hanban there is nothing sinister about Confucius sponsored a series of workshops for foreign Institutes: “Of course, if they wanted to use the directors of Confucius Institutes—over 200 money to organize a symposium on Tibetan directors from 188 CIs. A generally sympathetic independence they might run into trouble.” report on the Fudan workshop published by the (The Diplomat: 7 March 2011) USC Center on Public Diplomacy notes that the lectures included some unprecedented topics, —Falk Hartig of the Queensland University of including “A New Outlook on ChineseTechnology (Brisbane) published an online Diplomacy,” “How to Understandversion of a paper presented at the 2010 Asian Contemporary China,” and “History of Chinese Studies Association of Australia titled, Culture and Territory.” “The selection of “Confusion about Confucius Institutes: Soft topics,” observed the report, Power or Conspiracy? A Case Study of Confucius Institutes in Germany”. The paper is interesting for at least two reasons: first, included reports of interviews with the

7 12 | 46 | 1 APJ | JF directors of eight German CIs. All of them know about China [in determining] what we echoed the kind of statement that can be can do and what we cannot do. (Director C) duplicated from many CI directors in the US and elsewhere, to the effect that Hanban does Hartig explicitly refrains from a “final not tell them what to do or interfere in their judgment” on self-censorship, activities. (They are contractually obliged to submit their annual plan of activities, including but it can be argued that staff members of academic lectures and conferences, to Hanban Confucius Institutes or members of Confucius for approval.) It put Hartig in mind of the old Institute councils—mostly recognised Chinese saying, “the sky is high and the scholars—wouldn’t risk their reputations doing emperor is far away;” in any case, as he also active propaganda for the Chinese government. says, “the crucial point is not so much what is But on the other hand it is also obvious they happening at Confucius Institutes [teaching is wouldn’t risk losing the money coming from barely considered in the study] but much more Hanban by covering anti-Chinese topics [sic]. what is not happening.” The following are —The Director of Confucius Institute, statements by Confucius Institute University of Chicago, Dali Yang, is not worried directors—names withheld by Hartig—about about propaganda [at CUIC] because: the limits of what can be discussed at CI ”Students taking classes offered by the events: Institute are unlikely to be victims of The independence is limited regardingpropaganda, he said. ‘Is it possible that precarious topics. If topics like Tibet or Taiwan University of Chicago students are going to be would be approached too critical [sic], this brainwashed?’” (Chicago Tribune: 4 May 2014) could be difficult. (Director A) Comment: The implication is that censorship is Even though it is true China is now more open permissible in courses taught by CI instructors in the cultural sphere, the Confucius Institute because the students are too bright to be fooled staff knows “of course in which context we by it. Would this be true of the 12,000 students operate.” (Director B) of K-12 levels in the 43 Confucius Classrooms in Chicago Public Schools? According to another study of CIs in Berlin, Hamburg, and Hanover, at the Third Confucius —In an interview, Ted Foss, the Deputy Institute Conference in 2008, while there were Director of the Center for East Asian Studies, “no direct content-related percepts” it came up at the University of Chicago, observed, with “that the following topics are not veryregard to possible discussions of Tibetan welcomed: Tibet, Falun Gong and Taiwan.” independence, the Tiananmen massacre, or Hartig confirmed this statement with one of the Falun Gong at the Chicago Confucius Institute, (unnamed) directors in his study. “I think there is a certain amount of self censorship.” Instead, he allowed, there is Confucius Institutes are not an institute for money for that kind of discussion at the CEAS. anti-Chinese [sic] organizations, like dissident groups or Falun Gong. It would be dewy-eyed Comment: This is again permissible censorship, to affirm this. We know where we stand and I here in a form something like being just a little think we make use of the space we have. But bit pregnant: censorship can be permitted that Falun Gong appears here, that’s a physical anywhere in the university, so long as there is impossibility. (Director B) somewhere it is not, where anything can be said. The same sort of statement—“you can I square it with my conscience or with what I always do elsewhere what we can’t do

8 12 | 46 | 1 APJ | JF here”—is a common refrain among CI directors. professor of Chinese politics and history at the University of Montana, wrote to over 200 —Dali Yang, Director of the Chicago CI, Confucius Institute directors on behalf of an likewise dismisses concerns about censorship international group of China scholars and by saying that conferences on politically others, to ask that their Institutes mark the sensitive topics can be sponsored instead by 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen events of 4 the Center for East Asian Studies. June 1989 with a public activity such as a lecture, a teach-in, or a round table discussion —The Dean of the School of Arts and “that addresses the relevant historical and Humanities at the University of Texas-Dallas, contemporary issues.” The request continued: Dennis Krantz, when asked if he would seek “In the Analects (2:24) Confucius himself said, Hanban funding for a conference on Tibet, said, ‘Not to act when justice commands is “If I would do a conference on something like cowardice.’ We appeal to your conscience and that, I have multiple places where I’d look for sense of justice to act with courage.” With the funding.” (Bloomberg.com: 1 Nov 2011) exception of one positive message, Professor —Deputy Director of the Confucius Institute at Levine received no other response from his two Erlangen-Nurenberg, Michael Lackner, says, hundred plus correspondents. Seehere and “Confucius Institutes are not necessarily the here. right place for debates on topics pertaining to Comment: with the one possible exception, touchy subjects like Tibet.” Better to leave such these Confucius Institutes found it expedient to subjects to Sinology departments. (Deutsche ignore the events of 1989 at Tiananmen. Welle: 25 January 2012) —Meiru Liu, Director of the CI at Portland —A report in The Australian cited several CI State University, in response to a critical press directors’ claims of complete freedom from report on Confucius Institutes, said that her Hanban direction. Apparently the reporter did Institute has sponsored lectures on Tibet not ask about the political discretion that might be observed by of the directors themselves. with an emphasis on the beautiful scenery, However, Mobo Gao, the Director of the customs and tourist interest…. We’ve also Confucius Institute at the University of invited speakers to give lectures that cover Adelaide did offer such topics as China’s economic development, that he would be unlikely to invite someone to currency, US China relations that includes his centre to give a talk about Tibetantopics related to China’s military, independence. But in his opinion, such political environmental and sustainability relations activity would also be out of place within the [although she didn’t say what the emphases scholarly context of a Chinese studieswere in these lectures]….We try not to organize department at a university, whether or not it and host lectures on certain issues related to hosts a Confucius Institute. See here. Falun Gong, dissidents and 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. —Human rights are not discussed at the Confucius Institute of the British Columbia For one thing, she said these are not topics the Institute of Technology, according to BCIT Confucius Institutes headquarters would like to officials, because “it is not part of oursee organized by the institutes. For another, mandate.” (Vancouver Sun: 2 April 2008). “‘they are not [of] major interest and concerns now by general public at large here in the —In the Fall of 2013, Steven Levine, emeritus US.’” See here.

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—Durham University Professor Don Starr former diplomat and visiting Professor at the states Confucius Institutes have no ideological University of Sydney, Dr. Jocelyn Chey, was agenda because they don’t even talk about such more forthcoming about her concerns. Chey things as human rights. He says, said that while China needs to expand its program of cultural exchanges, she’s worried another point undermining the notion that that the Confucius Institute’s funding ventures there’s an ideological agenda at play is that the in universities damage its legitimacy. “It can programme just doesn’t touch on some key prejudice the independent work of issues. The Chinese are going to avoidresearchers…It’s nothing specific about China, contentious areas such as human rights and it’s just a matter of academic independence.” democracies and those kind of things. The Director of the UNSW Confucius Institute (The Diplomat: 7 March 2011) responded that the only function of the CI was to promote Chinese language and culture and Comment: duh. nothing else; but the Tharunka journalist pointed out that one of the CI board members —In an interview, the Deputy Director of was president and co-founder of the Australian Center for East Asian Studies at the University Council for the Promotion of Peaceful of Chicago, Ted Foss, said of research projects Reunification of China and Chairman of the submitted by the Chicago CI to Hanban for Oceanic Council for the Promotion of the funding, “there hasn’t been any directPeaceful Reunification of China. (19 February interference…but there is a certain amount of 2012) See here. self censorship.” However, he also said there has been a certain amount of “push back” from —In a directive issued by the CCP to local party Hanban about research projects submitted by committees in May 2013, China’s top the CI that are not concerned withpropaganda officials banned the discussion of contemporary Chinese development. seven topics on the grounds that they were “dangerous Western influences,” urging the —When the dean of students at Tel Aviv local cadres to enforce the ban in universities University closed down a student art exhibit and the media. The seven dangerous topics depicting PRC oppression of Falun Gong, a were: universal values, freedom of speech, civil District Court judge ruled the school had society, civil rights, the historical errors of the “violated freedom of expression” due to the Chinese Communist Party, crony capitalism, dean’s fear that the exhibit would jeopardize and judicial independence. The ban was Chinese support for the University’s Confucius immediately protested as the “7 speak-nots” by Institute and other campus activities. The a political scientist at East China University of student plaintiffs were awarded court costs. Political Science and Law on his website—as (Jerusalem Post: 1 October 2009; Chronicle of several of these topics had been openly Higher Education: 22 October 2010) discussed in universities for years—but his post was just as quickly deleted, and thereupon the —A University of New South Wales academic censors in effect made discussions of the “7 (who wished to remain anonymous) told speak-nots” an “8th-speak-not.” It not only Tharunka [the UNSW student newspaper] that stands to reason that these topics would be staff have been instructed not to speak to the unwelcome in Confucius Institutes too, it is well media about charges of CI censorship of nigh inevitable, since the directive was issued politically fraught issues, and that doing so through the same propaganda apparatus of the might damage their careers. However, CCP that controls Confucius Institutes. See

10 12 | 46 | 1 APJ | JF here and here. meticulously revised by Chairman Mao. When informed of the meaning of the song and opera, Comment: there are considerably more than 7 Glenn allowed that put him in am awkward or 8 “speak-nots.” As Perry Link writes: position. “To be perfectly honest,” he said, “I’m largely ignorant of the social context in which I will not be persuaded by an objection that this comes into play. Know that I have a very says the June Fourth example is an extreme, deep fondness for the Chinese people.” and therefore negligible, case, and that there Comment: this is a rare glimpse into what can are plenty of other things to talk about in pass as “cultural” activities in Confucius bustling Big China. I will not be persuaded Institutes. (A video of Glenn practicing one of because, if we rule out not just June Fourth but the songs is available on YouTube. Seehere all the other “sensitive” issues—Xinjiang, Tibet, also.) Taiwan, Falun Gong, Occupy Central, the Nobel Peace Prize, the spectacular private wealth of —In March 2011, the Association of Asian leaders’ families, the cynical arrests of rights Studies—representing some 8000 Asia advocates and sometimes their deaths in scholars—refused support from Hanban, “due prisons, and more—we are left with a picture of to the lack of a firewall separating China’s China that is not only smaller than the whole government from funding decisions.” but crucially different in nature. See here. (Bloomberg News: 1 November 2011) Direct Chinese Political Influences —Among the “General Principles” stated in the —In the 2013 version of an annual variety show Constitution and Bylaws of Confucius Institutes staged on China Central Television to mark the is the mandatory requirement that CI language Chinese Spring Festival, a Canadian opera courses shall be in Mandarin only: “The virtuoso, Thomas Glenn, joined a Chinese opera Confucius Institutes conduct Chinese language star in a duet from an old “red opera”—whose instructions in Mandarin using Standard meaning was unknown to him, as he had never Chinese Characters.” What is here misleadingly been informed of it since he learned the song in called “Standard Chinese Characters” refers to 2011 in a program called “I Sing Beijing” the simplified script officially promulgated by sponsored by Hanban. “I gather CCTV got the Chinese government as a more easily ahold of my performance through “I Sing learned alternative to the traditional characters Beijing,” Glenn said, “and the Confucius in which everything had been written for Institute asked me to do the performance for millennia—and much that is not to the liking of the [Spring Festival] Gala; it was the Confucius the regime continues to be written in Taiwan, Institute that was the liaison.” The irony is that Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Toronto, and the performance in question came from one of the other communities of the Chinese diaspora. the Eight Model Operas promoted by Madame The simplified characters have made it possible Mao during the Cultural Revolution that, to greatly increase literacy in the People’s among other functions, were used to attack Republic. In a detailed critique of the politics of Confucius himself—who was then and for long the mandatory language rule for CI students, vilified by the PRC regime. Including such however, Michael Churchman observes that it lyrics as “the Party gives me wisdom, gives me would create a global distribution of scholars courage,” the song tells of the infiltration of an only semi-literate in Chinese, restricted by and encampment of “bandits,” aka Nationalist large to what has been printed in the PRC. soldiers, by a revolutionary hero leading to the Native speakers of Chinese, knowing the final destruction of the Nationalists and their relevant context and idioms and having some leader. The original libretto is said to have been exposure to traditional characters, may not

11 12 | 46 | 1 APJ | JF have great difficulty deciphering the traditional examples from around the world, are attempts characters, but not foreign students, especially by Chinese officials to condition intellectual life not those who learn the language at college in the host institutions—be it by discouraging a age. Unable to read the classics except in the visit by the Dalai Lama or Rebiya Kadeer, or, as versions translated and interpreted in the happened in one case, vetting the invitation list People’s Republic, cut off from the dissident to a conference on the sage himself—through and popular literature of other Chinesethreats to discourage future Chinese students communities, students operating under Hanban from enrolling in the university. Such cases are rules, Churchman writes, cannot even access not answered by CI MOUs [Memoranda of “the large and growing corpus of material on Understanding], since the dependency is real. Communist party history, infighting, and See here. factionalism written by mainlanders but published exclusively in Hong Kong and Hilton also writes of her own experience with a Taiwan.” He concludes: “The control through CI: Confucius Institutes of what can and cannot be I contributed to a short book for 6th Formers taught as Chinese is equally rooted in the (12th graders) on China, without knowing that control of what can and cannot be discussed in it was sponsored by a CI. The chapter was to China.” See here. the length requested, and it was not until I saw Commenting on Churchman’s work, the China a copy at the launch event that I discovered that an entire passage about the work and Heritage Quarterly editor, Geremie R. Barme, subsequent arrest of the Lake Tai campaigner wrote: “Of course, for those educated solely in Wu Lihong had been excised. I wish I could simplified characters, and therefore believe that it was just coincidence. ‘unlettered’ in the grand corpus of pre-1960s Chinese literature, history and prior culture —A number of incidents of classroom can prove to be challenging if not unreadable.” censorship are reported in an ethnographic More generally, Professor Jocelyn Chey of study by Jennifer Hubbert of Confucius Sydney University notes that, “learningClassrooms (nine Chinese teachers) in a language is not just a technical skill…Language secondary school on the West Coast of the US. is the vehicle of culture.” And of politics, in Whenever “politically laden questions” ways that might surprise: Professor Chey gives emerged in classroom discussions, the teachers as an example the tension between therefocused on language issues or cultural simplified characters of mainland Chinese and activities: the old characters which others, Taiwan included, insist represent the true Chinese Hubbert explicitly reports that Hanban tradition. “‘It’s not simple to say you’re going to teachers were trained to ignore or divert teach Chinese. It’s what sort of Chinese you’re discussion of such issues (see McMaster going to teach, what textbooks are you going to incident below). use. It’s political,’ she says.” See here. Hubbert tells of instances of that description —Writing in June 2014, the Sinologist and concerning the status of Taiwan and Tibet. journalist Isabel Hilton noted that British When students were assigned to write reports universities are now heavily dependent on on Chinese provinces, those who chose Tibet overseas students of whom Chinese students were told to focus exclusively on cultural are a large cohort. They are welcome, she says: practices.

What are not welcome, and there are many The reported interest of many students in the

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1989 crackdown at Tiananmen Square was hidden her adherence to Falun Gong from the likewise frustrated by teachers’ responses in Chinese authorities. In interviews connected anodyne cultural terms—characterized by one with her case, she also revealed how the student as “look at the funny bunnies.”Chinese authorities hide the Falun Gong from (Apparently the students had had too many classrooms of the Confucius Institutes. pandas for answers.) (Jennifer Hubbert, “Ambiguous States: Confucius Institutes and If my students asked me about Tibet or about Chinese Soft Power in the American Classroom: other sensitive topics, I should have the right to In press, Political and Legal Anthropology express my opinion—I was not allowed to talk Review) freely. During my training in Beijing they do tell us: “Don’t talk about that. If the student —A North Carolina man whose wife isinsists, you just try to change the topic or say Taiwanese relates the experience of hissomething the Chinese Communist Party would daughter in a Confucius Classroom: prefer.”

The first day in class the teacher asked all the Ms Zhao’s case against McMaster went to students with obvious Asian heritage to say mediation. Yet note the implication: a Canadian where their families were from. When my university had to take legal responsibility for daughter said her mother was from Taiwan, the promulgating the political agenda of the teacher said, “Taiwan is part of China.” Months People’s Republic of China. later, during some free minutes in class, my daughter was looking at a map, which showed Made aware by the Zhao case of the CI hiring Taiwan and all of the South China Sea as practices—although the Falun Gong belonging to China (naturally, since all of the proscription had been on the Hanban website teaching materials come from China). The for some time—McMaster terminated its CI teacher approached, bent down, and whispered agreement. In explanation, the assistant vice- in her ear: “Taiwan is part of China.” president of public and governmental relations said: “we have a very clear direction on (Facts and Details, 2008, updated April 2012) building an inclusive community, respect for diversity, respect for individual views, and —McMaster University withdrew from the ability to speak about those.” In an update on international Confucius Institutes in 2012 its website in 2013, the University noted that following a complaint of discriminatory hiring the Confucius Institute’s hiring practice brought against the school in the Human “excluded certain classes of applicants, which Rights Tribunal of Ontario. The complaint was is not consistent with the university’s values of filed by a former CI teacher at the McMaster equality and inclusivity, nor with McMaster’s CI, Sonia Zhao, who said that the University anti-discrimination policy.” (The Globe and was “giving legitimation to discrimination” Mail: 7 February 2013; China Digital Times: 22 because her contract forced her to hide her June 2012; Times Higher Education 4 April belief in Falun Gong. A copy of Ms Zhao’s 2013; The New York Times: 17 June 2014; contract signed in China and obtained by The Bloomberg.com: 1 November 2011). Globe and Mail included the provision that teachers “are not allowed to join illegalComment: The McMaster case would only be a organizations such as Falun Gong”—anewsworthy effect of a pervasive defect in the proscription that could have been found also on standard agreements between Hanban and US the Hanban website, but was removed after the or Canadian universities, since the agreement McMaster affair. In 2012, a year after coming specifies that the laws and regulations of both to Canada, Ms Zhao recounted that she had China and the host country are in force. The

13 12 | 46 | 1 APJ | JF effect is an endemic contradiction thatTibetan writers) what we received were books condemns the host universities to complicity in and DVDs giving the Chinese narrative on Tibet discriminatory hiring, inasmuch as beliefs and published by China Intercontinental Press, practices deemed illegal in China and thus which is described by a Chinesegovernment- disqualifying otherwise competentrun website as operating “under the authority teachers—such as membership in Falun Gong, of the State Council Information Office…whose advocacy of universal human rights ormain function is to produce propaganda democratic reform—are protected by law in the products.” US and Canada. More generally, consider the applicability of the Chinese law of higher —“We don’t know anything about the contract education to American or Canadian academia, they [Hanban] force their teachers to sign,” insofar as that law is explicitly designed to said Glenn Cartwright, Principal of Waterloo’s serve the Chinese Communist Party byRenison University College, which houses the promoting “socialist material and spiritual Institute. “I’m sure they have some conditions, civilization” and upholding the ideological but whether we can dictate what those orthodoxy of “Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong conditions can be is another story.” (The Globe Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory.” See and Mail, 7 February 2013, “McMaster closing Zhonghua renmin gongheguo jiaoyufa (Higher Confucius Institute over hiring issues,”) Education Law of the PRC) Ministry of Education of the PRC (1999). —In 2008, the academic director of the CI at Waterloo, Yan Li—a former reporter at Xinhua, —Claims by officials of the Confucius Institute the CCP’s official news agency—took action to and the Center for East Asian Studies that the protest the local media’s coverage of a Tibetan University of Chicago fully controls the hiring uprising and successfully mobilized her process of CI teachers from China turn out to students to do the same. In an article on a be misleading. According to the Chicago faculty North American website for Chinese literature member in charge of engaging the Chinese scholars, Madam Li recounted these efforts to teachers, Hanban recommends theblock local sympathy for the “Tibetan candidates—whose eligibility is thereby limited separatists.” Rallying the CI students to “work by PRC laws and custom: no Falun Gong, together to fight with the Canadian media,” she human rights advocates, etc.—and no teachers took class time to recount her version of recommended by Hanban have been rejected Tibetan history and the current situation. by the University (The Nation: 12 November Thereupon, the students launched a campaign 2013). against the Canadian media, protesting to Comment: by this arrangement, the University newspapers, TV stations, and on the internet is complicit in discriminatory hiring. against coverage they claimed was biased in favor of Tibetans. The campaign succeeded to —Italian parliamentarian Matteo Mecacci the extent that one TV station publically writes: apologized for its presentation of the conflict. See here and here. In our own investigation, in 2011, the International Campaign for Tibet (while not —The early versions of the Memorandum of identifying our Tibet connection) requested Understanding—with reference to which all resource materials on Tibet from a Confucius institutes are founded—states that the Institute at a university in the Washington, D.C. signatories accept the One-China Policy (with region. Instead of scholarly materials published regard to the status of Taiwan). This clause was by credible American authors (not to speak of later removed.

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Internal Hanban documents, secured by faculty There is, however, an important condition in some institutions where applications were attached to such Hanban grants, namely that, underway for the establishment of an institute, “The conference is regulated by the laws and offer details of how CI representatives are to decrees of both China and the host country, report to Chinese consulates and embassies. and will not carryout any activities which are Such documents have also revealed a pattern of deemed adverse to the social order.” There’s discriminatory hiring by Hanban of their the rub (again), insofar as certain freedoms of teachers and staff. speech and belief that are protected by law in European countries—let alone necessary for (Lionel M Jensen, “Culture Industry, Power, productive scholarly interchanges and the Spectacle of China’s ‘Confuciusanywhere—are prohibited by government Institutes,’” in China in and beyond thedecree and deemed adverse to the social order Headlines, 3rd edition, 2012. Timothy B Watson in China. and Lionel M Jensen, eds., pp. 292-93) “This was the first time in the history of the —A video and a chapter in an advanced history EACS that its conference materials had been text for Confucius Classrooms on “The War to censored,” observed Professor Roger Greatrex Resist US Aggression in Korea,” among other of Lund University, the President of the lessons, tell that China entered the war when Association. During and after the conference he the US bombed Chinese villages across the publicly criticized Madam Xu’s actions, border. The video was originally in the affirming that such interference in the children’s section of the Hanban website. It proceedings of a democratically organized was taken down in 2012 after Professor academic organization is “totally Christopher Hughes of the London School of unacceptable.” Still, if it was a first for the Economics sent a link to colleagues considering EACS, it was not so for the Confucius CI teaching materials. Professor Jane Teufel Dreyer, after studying several such videos and Institutes. Yet rarely have Confucius Institutes the events they relate wrote: “they arerevealed their political aspect so manifestly as outrageous distortions of what actuallyin Vice Minister Xu’s meltdown in Braga. happened.” The sole chapter of the history text Upon inspecting the conference documents at on the PRC period within China does not the time of her arrival, Madam Xu brusquely mention the Great Leap Forward or the observed that the contents of certain abstracts Cultural Revolution. (Hanban.org; Epoch were contrary to Chinese regulations. She also Times: 27 June 2012) objected to parts of the conference program: —In late July of this year, the Director-General particularly to the favorable self- of the Confucius Institutes in Beijing, Vice representations of the co-sponsor, the Chiang Minister Xu Lin, shocked the several hundred Ching-kuo Foundation (CCKF) of Taiwan—in scholars attending the annual meeting of the contrast to the lesser notices of the Confucius European Association of Chinese Studies Institutes. Without a by-your-leave, Madam Xu (ECAS) in Braga and Coimbra, Portugal by forthwith commanded her entourage to remove ordering certain pages torn out of theall the conference programs and abstracts until conference program and the volume ofher demands for the deletion of the offensive conference abstracts. The Confucius Institutes pages were satisfied. The documents were Head Office was a co-sponsor of the EACS sequestered in the apartment of one of the conference through one of its academicChinese teachers of the Confucius Institute at projects, the Confucius China Studies Program. the University of Minho in Braga.

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Throughout the next day, while complex for Madam Xu a potent symbolic attack on the negotiations were taking place between the CI PRC’s denial of Taiwan’s independence—a and EACS authorities, some three hundred complaint soon enough echoed in the official members of the Association registering for the Chinese press. meeting were unable to obtain these necessary conference instruments—or any cogent reason Under the headline, “There’s No Shame in for their absence. When the conferenceHanban Tearing Up Overseas Conference materials did reappear the day after, one page Program,” the Global Times, an official tabloid had been torn out of the abstracts and three offshoot of the People’s Daily, lauded Madam from the program. By then widespreadXu’s acts of censorship as patriotism; and on resentment of Hanban was being expressed by the same principle of complying with official conference participants. And something like Chinese regulations, the paper demonstrated consternation among attendees from China, how foreign academics working under especially those who had registered early and Hanban’s auspices are expected to censor were required by a CI official to turn in their themselves. The European Association of Chinese Studies, the report warned, “should copies of the relevant texts because of a not lack clarity over the gravity of the Taiwan “printing error.” problem for China.” There should be no It is not known exactly which abstracts Vice confusion about this, it said: “The reference to Minister Xu deemed contrary to Chinese laws the CCK Foundation in the program should not and decrees, but apparently she was presented have appeared in the first place.” with a choice of substantially mutilating a 300- Comment: the principle here is that foreign page volume of academic papers or scholars funded by or associated with Hanban withdrawing Hanban’s association with it. should not lack clarity about the Chinese Choosing the latter, she removed the politics of their academic work, and frontispiece of the volume advertising the accordingly should refrain taking positions sponsorship of the Confucius Chinese Studies objectionable to the PRC authorities. That is Program, cancelled Hanban’s participation in too often what does go down in Confucius the conference, and demanded that its Institutes. contribution of 28,000 euros be refunded. This penalty fell on the account of Professor Sun Public opinion in China, as registered on the Lam, Director of the Minho Confucius Institute, popular internet site Weibo Sina, ranged from who had negotiated the grant and now was in support for Madam Xu to criticism of Confucius effect fined for her errors—even as Vice Institutes as a global joke—which foreigners Minister Xu covered her own. dont get because of their cupidity. In tones of dismay and anger, one participant from the The issue objectionable to the People’sPeople’s Republic at the EACS conference Republic represented in the missing pages of recounted her experience at length on the the program was the independent andinternet, complaining, as many of her honorable presence of Taiwan. Beside the self- countrymen have, of the large expenditure of description of the co-sponsor, the Chiang money to educate foreigners while so many Ching-kuo Foundation, this included references children of the rural poor go unschooled. “On to the book donations and book exhibitfinding out the truth about what happened,” organized by the Taiwan National Central she said, Library. Although the program had in fact been cleared in advance with Hanban, itsI felt speechless and out of breath. How could commendation of the Taiwan contribution was the government do its work in this way…spend

16 12 | 46 | 1 APJ | JF large sums of taxpayer money, gathered up by guidance of the Confucius Institute.” In people saving on clothing and eating sparingly, October the faculty of Education and Arts on building up the image of the country…for a endorsed the proposal, with the proviso that negative result, taking their ways of doing the major in Chinese studies “be replaced with things at home with them abroad, and taking a minor in Chinese offered by the Confucius their way of intimidating people at home with Institute.” In a document of a month earlier them as they go abroad… See here. obtained by the paper, the convener of the existing China studies program, Xia Li, Comment: The contradictions between the objected that academic independence was at Chinese government’s “ways of doing things” stake: that the university was proposing, “to and the laws and customs of countries hosting transfer, in very certain terms, the principle of Confucius Institutes threaten to become all the university autonomy with regard to the size of more intractable with the advent of the “new the [China studies] discipline, suitability of sinology” being promoted by Hanban in the staff, qualifications of staff, research, and form of the Confucius China Study Program teaching contents and methodology to a non- (CCSP). Developed in the past few years with academic, foreign institution.” Ms Li went on to the object of extending Hanban’s reach further say that China’s own academies and into “core teaching and research” ofuniversities would not tolerate the like, citing participating universities, the CCSP sponsors a the relocation of the Goethe Institut off the variety of projects on China by foreign PhD campus of the Beijing Foreign Studies students, faculty members, and persons with University “to avoid the perception of outside BA degrees, ranging from doctoral research dependence and interference.” The takeover with joint Chinese and foreign university was also protested by students of China studies degrees, to international conferences and in a petition asking for “for truth, enhanced language training. To be eligible, accountability (and) transparency;” as several however, one must be in an institution that has felt betrayed at being “palmed off to an a Confucius Institute. Hanban will thus acquire external body.” Said one: “no one is really keen direct control over acceptable research,about the concept except the University.” The conference speakers and topics, etc.—subject China students were supported by the Chinese always to the proviso that the work conforms to Community Council of Australia and the the laws and regulations of China and is not Newcastle University Students’ Association. deemed adverse to social order. See here. The latter noted:

Installing and Rejecting Confucius Institutes: The Confucius Institute is not an academic The Conflict of the Faculties institution. It is a Chinese Government-run cultural institution. Students of the Chinese —An article in The Australian spoke of the major are students of the University of possibility that Confucius Institutes could take Newcastle, not the Confucius Institute. This over established China studiesputs autonomous Australian education in departments—something that has also been jeopardy. Seehere . attempted and sometimes has succeeded in the US (see below). In this case, a review panel at In the upshot, Newcastle downgraded its the University of Newcastle in April 2011 Chinese studies major to a minor but backed off proposed that the Newcastle CI join the regular the takeover by the Confucius Institute. China faculty “until such time that theHowever, Ms Li was offered redundancy as discipline is strengthened by a suitablyconvenor of the China program, and the CI qualified staff and that this occurs under the instructors would be teaching in the minor.

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Observed The Australian: language and culture, which should be free from government bias and control. See here. The contentious nature of Confucius Institutes has meant that universities have taken various —In December 2013, the governing council of steps to reassure wary academic staff. These the Canadian Association of University steps include the establishment of institutes Teachers (CAUT)—representing some 68,000 outside faculty structures, sometimes in a teachers in 120 colleges and building away from the main campus, and universities—called upon those colleges and assurances that institutes will not have any universities in Canada currently hosting influence over academic programs in Chinese Confucius Institutes “to cease doing so, and studies. See here. those contemplating such arrangements to pursue them no further.” James Turk, the —A petition to eliminate Confucius Classrooms Executive Director of the Association, from the New South Wales public schools with explained: “in agreeing to host Confucius some 10,000 signatures was tabled by the Institutes, Canadian universities and colleges Greens in the NSW Parliament in October are compromising their own integrity by 2011. Jamie Parker, Greens MP from Balmain, allowing the Chinese language Council explained: International to have a voice in a number of academic matters, such as curriculum texts and The NSW government has admitted that topics topics of classroom discussion. Such sensitive to the Chinese government, including interference is a fundamental violation of Taiwan, Tibet, Falun Gong, and human rights academic freedom.” (caut.ca: 17 December violations would not be included in these 2013; Anthropology Today, February 2014). classes….The Greens are concerned that the integrity of public education is being—Following the lead of CAUT, the American compromised by opportunities for a foreign Association of University Professors in June government to promote views outside of the 2014 recommended that curriculum to school students. Teachers are universities cease their involvement in recruited from China and paid by the Confucius Confucius Institutes unless the agreement Institute—an arm of the Office of Chinese between the university and Hanban is Language Council International which is renegotiated so that (1) the university has affiliated to the Chinese Ministry of Education. unilateral control over all academic matters, They must meet certain criteria, including not including recruitment of teachers, having any involvement in Falun Gong. It is determination of curriculum, and choice of clear that the teachers have been politically texts; (2) the university affords Confucius vetted and will be deeply prejudiced toward Institute teachers the same academic freedom Beijing’s orthodoxy on issues such as Tibet, rights...that it affords all other faculty in the Taiwan, human rights, and the Tiananmen university; and (3) the university-Hanban Square massacre. The Greens welcome the agreement is made available to all members of teaching of Chinese language and culture, the university community. however we must be cautious of foreign government influence within our state schools. The AAUP objected to the supervision of These classes are very different to other Confucius Institutes by an agency of the International programs such as the Alliance Chinese state, itself under a member of the Francaise. Confucius classes are directly linked politburo and vice-premier of the PRC. It also to and funded by the Chinese government. This found unacceptable the fact that, “Most is highly problematic in the teaching ofagreements establishing Confucius Institutes

18 12 | 46 | 1 APJ | JF feature nondisclosure clauses and unacceptable animus, the petition would eventually garner concessions to the political aims and practices some 2000 signatures. Apart from the volume of the government of China,” specifically noting of complaints, however, the TDSB trustees the advancement of a state agenda in the were primarily concerned with censorship and recruitment of academic staff, the choice of propaganda in the classroom, and on 11 June a curriculum, and the restriction of debate. See committee was charged with investigating such here and here. issues, the trustees to vote on their recommendations on 18 June. Mr Bolton, the —The trustees comprising the Toronto District Board Chair who had negotiated the CI with School Board (TDSB) agreed to open Confucius Hanban, precipitously resigned from the TDSB Classrooms in the district’s primary and shortly before the meeting of the 18th. At that secondary schools beginning in September meeting, it was decided not to open the CI in 2014. The Chair of the Board, Chris Bolton, September pending further investigation. The who had business relations with China, had vote was overwhelming in favor of been arranging this agreement with Hanban delay—although some called “on the board to since 2007—although the trustees would know sever its ties altogether with the Chinese little or nothing of the matter until 2014. Their government.” Indeed, according to a later lack of knowledge was a function of the covert report, the Board was investigating how it way the CI was initiated--a common pattern at could terminate the contract with Hanban. the university level as well (see below). According to a report in The Globe and Mail, The Hunan City University had been scheduled Mr. Bolton simply informed the trustees at a to provide teachers for the Toronto schools. Board meeting in May of 2012 that a formal These CI teachers would have had to pass signing ceremony with the Confucius Institutes political muster, since according to the had taken place in Ottawa the previous month. recruitment page on the university’s website, The “trustees of Canada’s largest school board the persons recommending the applicants were were never given an opportunity to vet or required to primarily evaluate their “political approve a controversial agreement with the thinking, teaching abilities, physical and mental Chinese government to offer students culture health.” programs subsidized and controlled by Comment: I am given to understand that Beijing.” (The Globe and Mail: 30 June 2014) “political thinking” or “political ideology” Specifically, the trustees “were not told about (zhengzhi sixiang) commonly refers to key aspects of the Confucius Institute, adherence to the policies and leadership of the including the fact that instructors are trained CCP. to self-censor on topics that are politically taboo in China.” (17 July 2014). “Perhaps Mr. (The Globe and Mail, 17 July 2014; seehere , Bolton thought he was getting a good deal,” the here, here, here, here, here, and here. paper editorialized, but in fact, “the agreement benefits a foreign government, and undermines —The University of Manitoba rejected the the independence of our education system” (2 Confucius Institute. Explained Terry Russell, July 2014). In May 2014, when the news broke Professor of Asian Studies: of the imminent opening of the CI in September, there was a strong protest from We didn’t see how you could reconcile inviting parents and community members, including a the Chinese government of which the Confucius petition and website initiated by a person Institute is basically an agent of to come on associated with Falun Gong. Marked by a campus and present programs that wouldn’t blanket and rather shrill anti-communist ever actually talk about human rights in China.

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Or on another occasion: Russell said, “They with Chinese teachers, which in my view would have no particular interest in what we would take away from our professional authority to call critical inquiry or academic freedom.” direct our program and monitor its quality. … It (Times Higher Education: 4 April 2013; Epoch also seemed to me intuitively obvious that Times: 21 July 2011) According to another, others would share my viewpoint, but reliable faculty source, to the extent there were amazingly many people, including good friends faculty discussions, it was reported to the in China studies here and elsewhere, have not Senate that this was under consideration felt the same way. So far the program exists through our Extended Education Faculty, not only in a separate campus of the university the core academic faculty, but this person (nearer to Kansas City) and mainly deals with heard no detailed report in the Senate.teaching Chinese via remote learning to high Although there was some interest in a CI on the schools across Kansas. I think that keeping it part of the Administration, “it was notseparate is perhaps due to the objections some welcomed more broadly, in part because it was of us had. We have continued to enjoy complete not being supported within our small Asia autonomy in our language program, and that is Studies Centre and would not have been placed extremely important. there.” (personal communication) The president of the University of Manitoba Faculty —Statement by the Chair of the Board and Association, Cameron Morrill, also noted: Director of the Confucius Institute associated with Lyon Universities 2 and 3: Materials and instructors for CIs are selected and controlled by a branch of the government The Lyon Confucius Institute (LCI) definitively of the People’s Republic of China…It isceased activities on 23rd September 2013. This inappropriate to allow any government, either situation resulted from a disagreement that had foreign or domestic, control over a university persisted since September 2012 between the classroom, regardless of how much money they Lyon-based administrators of the LCI and the offer. HQ of Confucius Institutes in Beijing (hereafter called the Hanban). The LCI was a partnership —From a China faculty member at thebetween the Lyon 2 and Lyon 3 universities, University of Kansas: and Sun Yat-sen University (Guangzhou)…. From the very establishment of the Institute in In our case, the main thing was that the deal 2009, the French side (Lyon 2/Lyon 3), while for the Confucius Institute came about without showing enthusiasm for this partnership that asking us first. I would have told the chancellor Sun Yat-sen had wanted for some time, had and others in the administration about my insisted on the Institute’s academic and reservations about such an alliance. They did institutional independence. In addition, for pass it by me and others after it was already legal and deontological reasons, the Institute agreed to, and I was taken aback and began could not be integrated in the University itself expressing objections, which were by then and was not to be implicated in its teaching and unwelcome and ineffective. I did not want an research activities. In order to assure this institute affiliated with a foreign government, essential separation between a French public especially this one, establishing itself inside an university and an entity financed and piloted by American academic institution and did not want the Chinese State, the Institute took the form of it affecting or influencing our languagean association under the law of 1901 (in other teaching program, of which I have been a part words, a not-for-profit organization)…. At the since the 1980s. I had heard of some schools moment of its constitution, this arrangement using the Confucius Institute to supply them was not contested by Beijing. Tolerated until

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2012, it seemed that our institutional and establishment of a Confucius Institute in the intellectual independence becameFaculty of Arts; as a result it was located at a unacceptable to Beijing. A new director taking distance from the main campus and mainly his instructions direct from Beijing arrived in devoted to outreach courses for the corporate September 2012 and questioned the content of sector. our courses and insisted strongly on a deeper integration of the LCI in the University itself. Comment: As noted earlier, this kind of conflict He wanted partnerships with our research with the established China program is common, centres in the domain of sinology, and held out as is the solution of physically displacing the CI the promise of PhD scholarships for our from central campus, putting it in a branch of students willing to pursue their studies in the university outside the core liberal arts such China, and suggested that the LCI participate as the education or business school, and/or in the teaching of the University degree devoting it to non-credit adult courses or programs. This interference in the University Confucius Classrooms. from an organization emanating from the —Copenhagen University rejected a Confucius Chinese state seemed to us inappropriate, since Institute in 2006. Recently, the Dean for it would put in doubt our academic freedom Academic Research at that time, who is also a and transgress the spirit and the regulations of lecturer in Chinese, explained: the French Republic’s higher education system. In hindsight, we suppose that our firm stance in We very much would like to keep the university not acceding to these demands explains why in free from that sort of political interests, and November 2012, the director general of the especially so when the initiative comes from a Hanban, Madame Xu Lin, demanded the state that is not democratic. We prefer to resignation of the Chair of the LCI Board and collaborate directly with Chinese academics at announced without warning the suspension of Chinese universities, rather than collaborate the Hanban’s annual subsidy. Over the course directly with a Chinese government organ. of the past few months, we have tried on numerous occasions to explain that it was In another, personal communication, which impossible to cede to these new andalso notes the rejection of a CI at Aarhus exponential demands. Supported by the LCI’s University, the dean elaborates: Board and the President of Lyon 3 University, we have attempted for the past year to reach It is correct that I rejected acceptance of CI at an understanding acceptable to both parties. Copenhagen U and now once again at Aarhus Unfortunately the inflexible attitude of the University. There have been various Chinese Hanban has prevented all possibility of a attempts at various Danish institutions. But compromise. It is with consternation that we regardless what country makes such an witness the LCI experiment ending in this advance my stance has been that it is impasse, all the more so since we have always unacceptable for a Danish university to open its maintained close and fruitful relations with organization for another country’s educational PRC academics and their universities. activities in the shape of a special institute on campus. It would be OK if the activities are Gregory Lee, Chair of the Board, LCI outside the universities, as with the British Council or the Goethe Institutes, with which Florent Villard, Director, LCI universities can collaborate as they please. But organizational integration cannot be regarded —In 2007 at the University of Melbourne, the as complying with the autonomy of the Chinese Studies Department objected to the universities and their duty to be independent

21 12 | 46 | 1 APJ | JF institutions of learning. We do accept lecturers China’s investments in cultural understanding sent out from other countries but these are through language and culture will compromise hired as individuals and are wholly integrated the candid discussion, inquiry, and research in our own organization’s academic life and are that are essential to university life. not part of another’s (as are the staff of the CI). In addition, the many CI night school and (Jensen, op.cit., 293-94; see also Don Starr, similar activities, carried out under the aegis of “Chinese language Education in Europe: The its affiliations with the universities where they Confucius Institutes,” European Journal of are located, do not accord with the university's Education 44: 65-83, 2009; Anders Mellbourn, mission to convey research knowledge. “Investigative Report” [personal communication]) —At Stockholm University, a medley of charges, apparently from several sources —The University of British Columbia has twice including faculty, specifiying that in various refused an overture to establish a Confucius ways the CI was damaging to the academic Institute. The first time, of which our source, a integrity of the institution, brought about an prominent member of the Asia faculty, has no independent investigation. The investigation direct knowledge, was early on in the Hanban was largely inconclusive; but because itproject. He does have personal knowledge of documented friction between the Asian faculty the second attempt, in 2010 as he recalls, when and the CI teaching program, because the “the proposal, coming out of the [university] Chinese embassy had intervened in an internal administration, was discussed and rejected by dispute involving a CI teacher, and because the senior China and Asia faculty.” The faculty, he investigator judged it improper for a foreign writes, declined for two reasons: 1) that the CI government to be exercising pedagogical added nothing substantive to the existing UBC functions in the university, it wasChinese program, which had no need for more recommended that the CI be reorganized in a Chinese teachers—though they could use more consortium with other universities and its funding for those they have; and 2), “concerns Chinese teaching should be confined to adult about the tight links between Hanban and the education and other non degree courses.In CCP.” Having been rejected by the senior Asian response, the then Dean of Humanities said a faculty, the proposal never got to a negotiation decision had been taken to remove the CI from stage. Our source himself has “deep the university. “Simply the suspicion ofreservations about Confucius Institutes and influence from the Chinese state is a problem,” their suitability for North American he said, “and therefore the Confucius Institute universities.” Referring to the relevance of will be an independent institute on the model of negotiations with Hanban elsewhere, he writes: the German Goethe institutes or the Cervantes “At the end of the day, as one colleague Institute.” Although the university president remarked: why spend time on making a had explicitly noted this and in 2008 promised Confucius Institute be non-toxic, when it to make these changes, so far as can be doesn’t really add to our mission?” (personal determined from the Stockholm CI website, this communication) A third attempt by Hanban to has not happened. Commenting on theenlist the UBC through the forestry school is Stockholm issues, Lionel M Jensen states: under way.

Events of this kind offer confirmation of the —The first CI in the US at the University of criticisms of Hanban and the ConfuciusMaryland was introduced and directed by a Institutes made by observers in Australia, Physics professor with ties to the PRC, but Canada, India, and the United States that without consulting the then director of the

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Chinese language program (who supplied this academic business. information) or the heads of the Department, School, or College in which Chinese language —The University of Pennsylvania rejected the and culture is taught. “The whole thing was set Confucius Institute. The proposed up in secret” through a relationship between establishment of a CI at Pennsylvania involved Hanban and the Physics professor, and then a furtive end run around the China faculty between the latter and the Universitysimilar to the one at Maryland, based on an president. Later it was learned from the arrangement instead between Hanban and the Physics professor in charge that it wasGraduate School of Education. The Chinese arranged this way so he would not have to studies faculty discovered this arrangement at answer to anyone in the University but the the last moment, when it was about to be president. Initially, most of the CI was staffed endorsed; whereupon their exposure of the by scientists with no cogent connection to proceedings ended them. The China scholars Chinese language teaching. More than one issued a statement explaining they did not want attempt was then made to have the faculty of a program of inferior pedagogy competing with the established Chinese language program their own, one moreover that would “engage in agree to accept the CI’s authority and direction various unwelcome soft power initiatives such for teaching Chinese, Hanban offering in return as are going on everywhere there are CIs.” to supply the teachers, their salaries, together (Lionel M. Jensen, op.cit., pp. 287-88; with the textbooks and course curricula. Writes Bloomberg.com: 1 November 2011) the erstwhile head of the Chinese language —At UCLA, we see the same pattern of stealth program: “During my tenure at Maryland we as in the establishment of a CI at Maryland and were never willing to agree to such an obvious the failure thereof at Penn: “the faculty were on ploy for external manipulation” (personal break and the initiative was foisted on the communication). university with the assistance of deans and administrators.” This helps explain why the CI Comment: In his comparative study of there was set up in a wing of the university at Confucius Institutes, Lionel M. Jensen (op. cit.) some remove from the Asian Languages and observes that a particular member of faculty is Cultures Department—in this case again in the often the singular agent of the establishment of School of Education. the institute. He or she will initiate the project, coach the university president on theThis is for a very good reason, and one that is advantages of a Confucius Institute, and act as broached in most every circumstance in which the prime mediator with Hanban. Although not a CI initiative is proposed by Hanban with the necessarily a scholar of Chinese language, assistance of a university administration: history, or literature, this point person,competition between a university’s own according to Mr. Jensen, is very often ethnically program and that offered by Hanban is Chinese or Chinese-American, and he or she undesirable. could well be named the director of the institute. In this connection, Hensen notes: (Jensen, op.cit., p.288)

From the vantage of a university leader the —Stanford followed the same pattern. The politics doesn’t matter all that much. It is initiative for a Confucius Institute came from a preferable to be meaningfully engaged in China faculty member of the East Asia department—a than not.… Establishing a public mark of Chinese ex-pat with graduate training in the commitment to China and to the dissemination US, also a common m.o.—and was negotiated of Chinese language is simply very canny by the Dean of the School of Humanities and

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Sciences without broad faculty consultation or research in China. Initially, it seems that even even notification of the faculty until it was an the president, the provost, and dean presiding accomplished fact. (personal communication) over the CI Board of Directors knew little about For that matter, according to an official the CI. On 4 June 2010, four days after the spokesperson, the president of the University Confucius Institute was ceremoniously opened, “has not been involved in that institute or any the president and provost had a meeting with negotiations related to it.” (Bloomberg News: 1 representatives of a self-constituted faculty November 2011) The Dean, a scholar of ancient organization called CORES during which the CI Rome, became the Director of the Confucius came under discussion. CORES had organized Institute. He has been quoted several times in the petition signed by 174 faculty protesting the press as being satisfied that Stanford did what they called the “corporatization” of the not compromise its academic integrity in the University, of which the Milton Friedman arrangement, nor has Hanban exerted any Institute and the Confucius Institute were pressure that would have that effect—once the prime examples. The minutes of this meeting original suggestion that Tibet not be mentioned were circulated to all participants and no was rebuffed. But then, “The University plans corrections were offered to any of the contents. to use [part of] the money for a professorship in The contents featured the objections of two classical Chinese poetry, far removed from the prominent East Asia scholars, Norma Field Tibet dispute.” Comment: No problems. (Japan) and Bruce Cumings (Korea), to the political character of the Confucius Institute, —At the University of New Hampshire, a China the role it would now play in determining what Committee, consisting of several high-ranking is taught about China, and how “they and other administrators and the University’s two China faculty members who work on East Asia had experts, undertook the preliminary CIeffectively been excluded from discussions and negotiations. After the Chinese partnerthe decision-making process.” They were not institution invited the university president and alone. The minutes also record that President his family to China, final negotiations were Robert Zimmer and Provost Thomas concluded between the administration, the Rosenbaum “acknowledged their lack of university lawyer, and the Chinese partner, information on this matter and expressed which eliminated a separate oversightbewilderment and regret at how this committee. When the China Committee raised happened.” several objections, the Committee was told that its work was completed. After four years of Although the Chicago statutes, as reaffirmed by implementation, the Faculty Senate questioned two committee investigations, mandate faculty the UNH-CI terms of agreement. The faculty control of the establishment of entities with subsequently tabled a language minor that in teaching responsibilities, the Council of the effect would be controlled by the UNH-CI and faculty Senate, as the appropriate “governing the college established a committee to review body,” was not allowed to vote on the the UNH-CI. (personal communication) introduction of the CI in 2009 or its renewal in 2014. In the latter instance, a petition signed —At the University of Chicago, the faculty at by 110 faculty members, almost all senior in large, including Asia scholars other than the rank, objecting to the presence of the China faculty, did not learn of theConfucius Institute and calling for a Council establishment of a Confucius Institute until vote on its renewal, was effectively blocked in they read about in the news. The impetus at the Council by the faculty Board of Directors of Chicago came from a Chinese ex-pat professor, the CI and the President Robert Zimmer as Dali Yang, with graduate training in the US and presiding officer. A committee of three China

24 12 | 46 | 1 APJ | JF scholars established and charged by the CI community at large is that the agreements Board to make a report on the renewal had establishing them, ratified by one or two recommended that the teaching component be representatives of the host institution, are eliminated and the research component be usually secret. The model agreement developed subject to greater University control; but the by Hanban has a nondisclosure recommendation was opposed in Council by the clause—although the relevant wording is same Board of Directors (notably including a sometimes omitted, especially in contracts with dean and ex-dean), and apparently buried. To prestigious universities. As published on the date the report has not been seen by the faculty Hanban website, Article 14 reads (in at large and evidently never will be. The translation from the Chinese part of the renewal is now under consideration by the bilingual text): Provost—for a decision during the summer vacation. The two parties to the agreement will regard this agreement as a secret document, and —The adoption of a Confucius Institute at without written approval from the other party, Chicago was cited as precedent for taking on a no party shall ever publicize, reveal, or make CI at George Washington University by a GW public, or allow other persons to publicize, dean; the dean said it increased their comfort reveal, or make public materials or information level. (GW Hatchet: 17 January 2013) obtained or learned concerning the other party, except if publicizing, revealing, or making it —A member of the Asian faculty at the public is necessary for one party to the University of Oregon relates that he found out agreement to carry out its duties under the about the establishment of the UO Confucius agreement. Institute when he read it in the press. His letters of protest to the administration had no —Among other universities known to have effect. The driving force of the arrangement rejected Confucius Institutes are the following: was the new president of the University. UC Berkeley (“rebuffed” Hanban’s approach; “What’s striking to me,” he writes, “is that Jensen op.cit.); Cornell (spurned invitation from there was no advance warning. No public Hanban, Bloomberg News: 1 November 2011.); meetings. No rumors. Nothing. Orchestrated Harvard (“maybe there was discussion as a silence.” (personal communication) broad possibility, but nothing serious,” Bloomberg News: 1 November 2011); UC San —In an article of 24 July 2008 in Chinascope, Diego; Claremont College; Mount Holyoke; referring to Hanban under its original name Dickinson State College; University of (National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Sherbrooke (The Globe and Mail: 22 May Foreign Language)—but speaking of its current 2011); Tokyo University; Kyoto University; The director (Xu Lin)—it is described as Australian National University; Southern Denmark University; Aarhus University; a daily affairs organization…organized by the University of Wisconsin; University of leaders of 11 ministries under the State Oslo—and they “remain very happy to have Council. Its function is to coordinate the rejected it.” (personal communications) various ministries and committees to promote Chinese as a national and ethnical enterprise, What Is To Be Done? going abroad in a “smooth, fine and silent” fashion. Reflecting on the events of July 2014 at the European Association of China Studies, where —One reason for the lack of knowledge of Hanban’s Director General censored Confucius Institutes in the universityconference materials including academic texts

25 12 | 46 | 1 APJ | JF not to her liking, Professor Christopher Hughes subcontracting teaching and research from a of the London School of Economics wrote: “In Chinese government that has repeatedly shown light of this (and what we now know about the itself to be inimical to these values. On the pressure exerted on Lyon) I really do not contrary, precisely because these great understand those who still claim that CIs are institutions are facilitating the global spread of not a political instrument of the CCP.... If they academic and intellectual principles contrary to are not giving you pressure now, it is just a those upon which they are founded—contrary matter of time. The strategy is clear: establish to their own universal project of advancing CIs in leading universities to get credibility, human knowledge in the interest of human spread to smaller ones on the back of that, then welfare—they ought to reverse course, start to exert pressure from the small ones, terminate their relations to the Confucius combined with the carrots of the new sinology Institutes, and resume their obligation of living project to penetrate core activities of research up to the idea of the university. Others will and non-language teaching through the whole follow. academic system. It really is time for academics to take a united stand on this, especially for Breaking News those in more influential institutions, to support The following important news broke just as this colleagues in less powerful and well endowed pamphlet was on its way to the printer: institutions like Lyon and in Portugal.” (personal communication).

Prominent universities—Stanford, Columbia, On September 25th, four days before the the University of Chicago, the LSE—willing or contract of the University of Chicago with the not have functioned to legitimate the Confucius Confucius Institutes of Beijing (Hanban) was Institutes by their participation, and thereby scheduled to run out, the University suspended justified and encouraged the inclinations of negotiations for a renewal, issuing the other institutions to do likewise. Interesting following statement: that the most esteemed universities in America, Britain, and Canada—Harvard and Yale, Oxford "The University of Chicago has informed and Cambridge, Toronto and BritishMadame Xu Lin, director-general of Hanban Columbia—have kept clear of the CI project, and chief executive of the Confucius Institute ostensibly because they already have strong Headquarters, of the University’s decision to China programs of their own. Yet the same can suspend negotiations for the renewal of the be said of Chicago or Columbia, so as the UBC agreement for a second term of the Confucius professor asked, “why spend time on making a Institute at the University of Chicago (CIUC). Confucius Institute be non-toxic, when it doesn’t really add to our mission?” True that in "Since 2009 the University of Chicago and the interest of enlisting the more prestigious Hanban have worked in partnership to develop research universities, Hanban offers more the CIUC, which has benefited research on generous terms than it does for smaller China and collaboration between the University colleges or municipal school districts. But of Chicago and academic institutions in China. unless it is holding Stanford, Columbia, and The University and Hanban have engaged in Chicago hostage for their newly constructed several months of good faith efforts and made centers in Beijing, there seems no cogent steady progress toward a new agreement. reason for these wealthy and well-staffed However, recently published comments about universities to risk their reputations forUChicago in an article about the director- academic freedom and integrity bygeneral of Hanban are incompatible with a

26 12 | 46 | 1 APJ | JF continued equal partnership. one sentence to say: 'If you want to end the relationship, it’s fine with us.' Her attitude "The University is therefore suspendingbrought panic to the other side, and a quick negotiations for the renewal of the agreement decision that the university would continue at this time. The University of Chicago remains with its Confucius Institute." committed to supporting the strong connections and longstanding collaborations Report has it that no such letter was received between University of Chicago faculty and by the president, Robert Zimmer, nor was he students and Chinese scholars, students, and reduced to panic by Madam Xu. And although institutions. As always, the University is guided the drama may not be over, as of 29th of by its core values and faculty leadership in all September, 2014, the University of Chicago has matters of academic importance." no contract with the Confucius Institute. Consequently, it should receive no monies from The “published comments” that purportedly Hanban; it should not have teachers trained, caused the University to suspend negotiations supplied and paid by Hanban offering for a renewal of the CIUC appeared in the accredited courses in its own East Asian newspaper "Liberation Daily, " an official organ program; it should not be required to submit of the Shanghai Communist Party, and were research proposals of its faculty and graduate clearly intended for domestic consumption. students through the CIUC for approval and They were near the tail of an article fulsomely funding by Beijing; and it should thus be able to praising Madame Xu Lin, Director-General of restore the reputation for academic autonomy the Confucius Institute. The passage inand integrity that has long distinguished it. question related how with one sentence Madame Xu was able to intimidate theThis is a slightly revised and updated version of president of the University of Chicago over the a pamphlet published in November 2014 by issue of a protest of the CIUC by members of Prickly Paradigm Press. his faculty—mistakenly described as 100 emeritus professors. The reference was to a The pamphlet can be purchased fromThe petition to the Council of the Faculty Senate University of Chicago Press, The Seminary calling for termination of the University’s Coop Bookstore, and the usual Internet outlets. Confucius Institute, signed by 110 professors, the great majority senior in rank and still in Marshall Sahlins is the Charles F. Grey service. Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, University of Chicago. In translation, the key part of the Chinese text A specialist on Polynesian cultures, he is known read: also for his cross-cultural and historical studies. He is the author of a number of books, "Madame Xu Lin is smart, but more than that, including Stone Age Economics, Culture and she combines softness and toughness to a fault, Practical Reason, Islands of History, The and wields the combination as a weapon. Many Western Illusion of Human Nature, and What people have tasted this. At the end of April of kinship Is--And Is Not. this year, one hundred emeritus professors at the University of Chicago in the U.S. wrote an See Xu Lin's December 12, 2014 interview on open letter calling for an end to the university’s the Confucius Institutes with BBC. Confucius Institute. Then Xu Lin, in a letter sent straight to the President of the University Recommended citation:Marshall Sahlins, of Chicago, and in a phone call to the"Confucius Institutes: Academic Malware", The university’s representative in Beijing, had only Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 12, Issue 46, No. 1,

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November 17, 2014.

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