If it comes from the PRC, it is run by the CPC.
April 26, 2019 § Leave a comment
. About 12 years ago, the CCP’s propaganda chief at the time, Li Changchun, described Confucius Institutes as “an important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up.” In 2010, Xu Lin, director-general of a unit of China’s education ministry known as the Hanban, confirmed that the party wanted to expand its influence and Confucius Institutes were an important part of China’s soft power.
Propaganda in the name of Confucius
China is using educational institutes in 154 countries to spread its influence and threaten academic freedom
Chinese language teachers talk to a Nigerian student at the Confucius Institute at the University of Lagos on April 6, 2016. Such institutes are now present in at least 548 universities and 1,193 schools in 154 countries. (Photo by Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP)
China is waging a global propaganda war in an attempt to silence overseas critics at a time when it has unleashed the most repressive crackdown on internal dissent since the Tiananmen Square massacre 30 years ago. Its soldiers include Chinese state media reporters, diplomats and students studying overseas, recruited to do the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The most recent example has been the decision by the London School of Economics to adjust the depiction of Taiwan on a sculpture after pressure from Chinese students. Its weapons include political infiltration and influence, a global media outfit, threats and aggression towards activists abroad, an attempt to hijack and derail the human rights agenda at the United Nations, and — as some are slowly realizing — deploying hundreds of innocuous-sounding language and culture institutions embedded in universities and schools. China’s Confucius Institutes, which on the surface appear to be simply an equivalent of the British Council, American Center, Alliance Francaise or Germany’s Goethe Institutes, are now present in at least 548 universities and 1,193 schools in 154 countries. With a US$314 million budget, 46,200 teachers and 1.7 million students, China aims to have 1,000 Confucius Institutes by 2020 in what it calls a “Confucius revolution.” South Korea opened the world’s first Confucius Institute in 2004, and it now has 23, the most in Asia. Thailand, second in the region, has 16 Confucius Institutes, while Japan has 15. Indonesia has seven and India, Pakistan, the Philippines and Malaysia have four, but Confucius Institutes also exist in Singapore, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Mongolia, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
Sign up to receive UCAN Daily Full Bulletin
