On the surface, China’s Confucius Institutes are committed to promoting Chinese language learning and culture. However, it is increasingly apparent the institutes are the vanguard for China in a global ideological struggle to influence international opinion, part of a strategy to create a new “weak West, strong China.”
Politburo Standing Committee member and Ideology and Propaganda Leading Small Group chairman Li Changchun (李長春) has expressly chosen the institutes to be China’s main instrument for the overseas propaganda war.
In a speech to the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, then-Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) said: “We must deeply recognize the gravity and complexity of struggle in the ideological domain … the international cultural and public opinion structure of ‘strong West and weak us’ has not yet been fully reversed.”
Over the past decade China has been planning an ideological conquest, establishing more than 1,000 Confucius Institutes in more than 120 countries on five continents. Instead of employing the inter-university cooperation model, it has operated the institutes independently, providing free materials, scholarships, salaries and travel expenses for teaching staff, with funding running into several million US dollars. However, there is no such thing as a free lunch. The institutes are Chinese concessions on the campuses of Western universities, under Chinese jurisdiction.
Many academics believe this represents the biggest setback to academic freedom since the US opened up to these initiatives. However, over the past two years Western academics have become alert to the issue. In December last year, the Canadian Association of University Teachers called on Canadian universities and colleges to stop working with the institutes, and in the past few months such opposition has become increasingly vocal. This month alone, the Toronto District School Board suspended plans to cooperate with Confucius Institutes and the American Association of University Professors issued an official call for universities to cut ties with them, saying they function as a political arm of the Chinese state and do not respect academic freedom.
In April, more than 100 academics from the University of Chicago, including the renowned Chinese academic Anthony Yu (余國藩), signed a petition calling on the university to end its contract with the Confucius Institute. Their objections included procedural violations and infringement of rights, connected to the non-transparent way in which the original agreement between the universities was reached five years ago — very similar, in fact, to Taiwanese objections over the cross-strait service trade pact. The protests against media monopolization, the Sunflower movement and the opposition to the Confucius Institutes are not simply isolated products tied to specific geopolitical phenomena, they are all manifestations of a rejection of China’s behavior.
The petition describes the University of Chicago’s reputation and responsibilities. The gist is that the university has privileges not available to other schools, and that “mindful only of its own welfare,” it is lending the weight of its reputation to the Confucius Institute, therefore “participating in a worldwide, politico-pedagogical project ... that is contrary in many respects to its own academic values,” the petition said.
When China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) visited I-Shou University, the young members of Taiwan March were not shy about expressing their opinions. Taiwan’s universities are obsessed with school rankings, perhaps they should learn from the professors at the University of Chicago.
Li Chung-chih is a professor at Illinois State University’s School of Information Technology.
Translated by Paul Cooper and Perry Svensson
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
In her article in Foreign Affairs, “A Perfect Storm for Taiwan in 2026?,” Yun Sun (孫韻), director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, said that the US has grown indifferent to Taiwan, contending that, since it has long been the fear of US intervention — and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) inability to prevail against US forces — that has deterred China from using force against Taiwan, this perceived indifference from the US could lead China to conclude that a window of opportunity for a Taiwan invasion has opened this year. Most notably, she observes that
For Taiwan, the ongoing US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets are a warning signal: When a major power stretches the boundaries of self-defense, smaller states feel the tremors first. Taiwan’s security rests on two pillars: US deterrence and the credibility of international law. The first deters coercion from China. The second legitimizes Taiwan’s place in the international community. One is material. The other is moral. Both are indispensable. Under the UN Charter, force is lawful only in response to an armed attack or with UN Security Council authorization. Even pre-emptive self-defense — long debated — requires a demonstrably imminent
Since being re-elected, US President Donald Trump has consistently taken concrete action to counter China and to safeguard the interests of the US and other democratic nations. The attacks on Iran, the earlier capture of deposed of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and efforts to remove Chinese influence from the Panama Canal all demonstrate that, as tensions with Beijing intensify, Washington has adopted a hardline stance aimed at weakening its power. Iran and Venezuela are important allies and major oil suppliers of China, and the US has effectively decapitated both. The US has continuously strengthened its military presence in the Philippines. Japanese Prime
RSS