Confucius Institutes v2 (1)

More documents

Recommendations

Info

CONFUCIUS INSTITUTES AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF CHINA’S SOFT POWER 59regarded as more problematic in Africa than elsewhere—or what’sthe fuzz about learning Chinese?” (ibid.).In order to advance the debate about Confucius Institutes, Iwould like to take up his points and provide some ideas of my ownbased on my fieldwork in Africa and past engagement with the topicof Confucius Institutes. 55 Firstly, I agree that Sino-African relationsare normally described and reported in an overly negative way.Second, Cissé is absolutely correct that China’s economic rise andmodernization is one reason why more and more people are learningChinese.But is there, as Cissé suggests, a tacit understanding that Africansare “indoctrinated” by Chinese language teachers, while others areimmune to this? I partially disagree, as the accusations broughtforth towards Confucius Institutes in Africa are apparently the sameelsewhere in the world. The major difference, in my understanding,is that CIs on the African continent face a fundamentally differentstarting point from those elsewhere, and therefore it is correct that“on the African continent, in almost all cases, you’ll only have anopportunity to learn Mandarin through Confucius institutes.” 56As for Cissé’s claim that “Africans who learn Chinese viaConfucius Institutes have an intellectual freedom and criticalopinions to clearly differentiate their interest in Chinese languagefrom China’s political and economic engagement in the continent.” 57Africans are, of course, not helpless or passive individuals whocannot recognize Chinese communist propaganda or react againstit. But most CIs in Africa normally start from scratch, workingin communities with no previous exposure to Chinese, and thisprovides, at least theoretically, greater opportunities for CIs inAfrica than elsewhere. While there are currently too many issuespreventing the development of CIs across Africa, and the scale ofthe overall CI project is simply too small, this does not necessarilymean that this could not change in the coming years. But ultimatelythis will be up to people on the ground to critically engage withproposals from Hanban. As the South African case shows, there
60 CONFUCIUS INSTITUTES AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF CHINA’S SOFT POWERis no reason that local African CI staff could not critically engagewith Hanban as they do in other parts of the world. Ultimately,the lack of existing tradition and infrastructure to support Chinarelatedstudies in Africa makes the continent ripe for opportunitiesfor CIs.Appendix: Global distribution of Confucius Institutes and ConfuciusClassrooms by the end of 2013 58Confucius InstitutesEurope 149 153The Americas 144 384Asia 93 50Africa 37 10Oceania 17 49Confucius Classrooms
Page 1 and 2:
De-Americanizing Confucius Institut
Page 3 and 4:
CONFUCIUS INSTITUTES AND THE GLOBAL
Page 6:
Table of ContentsPreface 7By Jian W
Page 9 and 10: 8 CONFUCIUS INSTITUTES AND THE GLOB
Page 11 and 12: 10 CONFUCIUS INSTITUTES AND THE GLO
Page 34 and 35: CONFUCIUS INSTITUTES AND THE GLOBAL
Page 46: CONFUCIUS INSTITUTES AND THE GLOBAL
Page 59: 58 CONFUCIUS INSTITUTES AND THE GLO
Page 69 and 70: 2012/9 Silicon Valley’s Foreign P
Page 71: 2010/4 Spectacle in Copenhagen: Pub
show all

Confucius Institutes v2 (1)

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?