Since 2004, China has established hundreds of “Confucius Institutes” at many colleges and universities around the world. The purpose of their establishment is to promote Chinese language and Chinese culture. The total budget for the project is about US$10 billion and the cost for establishing an institute is about US$150,000 to US$200,000, with the addition of follow-up financial aid.
Today, the Chinese government has established more than 300 Confucius Institutes and more than 300 Confucius Classrooms in more than 90 countries. Each institute also offers scholarships to several students to study in China.
On the surface, China is using these institutes to demonstrate its “soft power,” but things are not as simple as they seem. Colleges and universities where a Confucius Institute is established all have to sign a contract in which they declare their support for Beijing’s “one China” policy. As a result, both Taiwan and Tibet have become taboos at these institutes. Other sensitive issues such as the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, the Falun Gong movement, the neglect of human rights, China’s exchange rate manipulation, environmental hazards, its military expansion and the imprisonment of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) are all issues that have become untouchables.
After a Canadian television station reported live from riots in Tibet last year, a Confucius Institute immediately intervened, in the end forcing the station to apologize for its reporting. Independent institute of higher learning should be able to study and comment on anything they want. How can they implement restrictions saying that specific policies cannot be opposed? That is a serious violation of academic independence, objectivity and freedom.
At some universities, this issue has caused so much dispute it has become a question of whether or not a Confucius Institute should be allowed at the school. One public university in Sweden even kicked up such a fuss that changes were made both to staff and system, which only goes to show the magic of money.
When I moved from Sweden to the US to take up a teaching position in 1970, Sino-US relations were beginning to defrost. Then-US president Richard Nixon visited China in 1972. At the time, the two governments had not had diplomatic relations for more than 20 years.
The “China experts” in the US who were unable to visit China in person were like big chefs banned from their kitchens. Naturally, they were resentful. However, the opportunity finally came and whoever obtained a Chinese visa first would be the big winner. China experts fell over each other in their eagerness to get to China, many of them sacrificing their professionalism to curry favor with Beijing, hoping to win the Chinese authorities’ attention. Even some academics who originally cared about human rights in Taiwan joined the stampede. The Chinese authorities must have been laughing secretly when they saw the US academics walk straight into their trap.
Seeing China fever across the US, active, passive, real and fake, I publicly proposed the right of the Taiwanese people to self-determination. Those who wanted to be nice called the proposal unusually brilliant, while others said it was “a skunk at the garden party.” Although not all US academics attacked my proposal, most of them kept their distance.
In the US today, the same story is beginning to repeat itself. Academics should be ashamed of themselves for allowing such heavy political manipulation.
Peng Ming-min is a former senior political adviser to the president.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
Since COVID-19 broke out in Taiwan, there has been a fair amount of news regarding discrimination and “witch hunts” against medical personnel, people under self-quarantine and other targets, such as the students of a school where an infection was discovered. Quarantine breakers are almost certainly on the loose and it is only natural for people to be vigilant. One in Chiayi was found by accident at a traffic stop because his helmet was not fastened. However, those who follow the rules by quarantining themselves should be encouraged to keep up the good work in a difficult situation, instead of being
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator-at-large Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) has said that there is a huge difference between Chinese military aircraft circling Taiwan along the edges of its airspace and invading Taiwan’s airspace. He also said that whether it is US or Chinese aircraft flying along or encircling Taiwan’s airspace, there is no legal basis to say that such actions imply a clear provocation of Taiwan, and asked the Ministry of National Defense not to mislead the public. People who hear this might think that it is not a very Taiwanese thing to say. US military activity in the vicinity of Taiwan
As the nation welcomes home Taiwanese who had been stranded in China’s Hubei Province — arguably one of the most dangerous places on Earth since the novel coronavirus outbreak began in its capital, Wuhan, late last year — problems surrounding the “quasi-charter flights” that brought them back have been largely overlooked. The media used the term to describe the two flights dispatched by Taiwan’s state-run China Airlines because they do not count as charter flights. Taiwanese wanting to board those flights had to travel — most likely by train — more than 1,000km from Hubei to Shanghai Pudong International Airport
As the COVID-19 pandemic spins out of control, many parts of the world are experiencing shortages of medical masks and other protective equipment. I am studying in Washington state, which at the time of writing is the US state that has suffered the largest number of deaths from the novel coronavirus. The week before last, UW Medicine — an organization that includes the University of Washington School of Medicine and associated medical centers and clinics — sent its volunteers an e-mail asking the public to make masks and donate them to hospitals. Attached to the message was a mask donation
RSS