Another Chinese Export Is All the Rage: China's
Language
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
SHANGHAI, Jan. 10 - Conquering the world is
not supposed to be easy, but that's exactly how things must look some days to
Xu Lin, head of the government's new effort to promote the Chinese language
overseas.
Ms. Xu is creating a global network of
Chinese cultural centers, called Confucius Institutes, to teach foreigners
throughout the world a language with a forbidding reputation for difficulty.
But far from having to round people up, Ms. Xu is finding they are beating down
her door.
"There is a China
frenzy around the world at the moment," she said. "The launch
of this program is in response to the Chinese language craze, especially in
neighboring countries."
For decades, people in those countries have
viewed China
with deep suspicion. But now mastering Chinese as a door to
lucrative business opportunities, or simply as a matter of popular fashion, is
suddenly all the vogue - not only there but in the United
States and Europe as
well.
Just as new, though, is the decision of the
Chinese government to ride the wave, not just capitalizing on the newfound chic
that surrounds the language but also determined to perpetuate it as a way of
extending Chinese international influence and good will toward the country.
For some, the choice of a slightly fusty
name like Confucius Institute, which evokes images of anything but a rising new
power, might seem odd given Beijing's
increasing penchant for high-tech imagery and slick public relations. Yet the
carefully selected label speaks volumes about the country's soft power
ambitions.
Among other things, using the name of the
country's oldest and most famous philosopher avoids reference to the official
ideology, which remains Marxism. Confucius, who was an educator and
quasi-religious figure, also stands for peace and harmony, values that China
insistently proclaims today, hoping to disarm fears about its rapid rise.
Judging by the reactions of its long-wary
neighbors, the effort appears to be paying off. Indonesia,
which for three decades banned the teaching of Chinese because of Beijing's support for
Communist rebels, recently lifted the prohibition. Vietnam,
which has long had strained ties with Beijing,
has accepted a Confucius Institute amid a boom in Chinese language instruction.
In South Korea, an American ally that fought alongside the United States in a
war against China's troops a half century ago, Chinese has reportedly
outstripped English as the most popular foreign language among students.
"Chinese is as popular in Korea today as English is in China," Ms. Xu said enthusiastically.
Although Chinese language studies may be
most advanced in neighboring countries, where the ability to understand the
Mandarin dialect has traditionally been considered a mark of cultivation, they
are making huge strides farther afield. Eleven Confucius Institutes are up and
running, in Europe and Africa as well as Asia.
One center is already operating in the United States, at the University
of Maryland, and five others are
expected to open soon in Honolulu, Kansas City, Mo., San Francisco, Chicago and New York. Twelve more
are under discussion.
Even before that first center opened, the
College Board, the body that administers advanced placement exams, added
Chinese to its list of foreign language tests, the first time an East Asian
language has been included in its testing.
In a 2003 survey of American high schools,
the College Board found that 50 said they would like to add advanced placement
courses in Russian, about 175 said Japanese and 240 said Italian - and 2,400
said they would prefer Chinese. "We had no idea there was such an
incredible interest out there," Tom Matts, a College Board official, told
CNN.
Ms. Xu said that "education officials
from several states, actually several dozen states, have sent us requests"
to help them establish Chinese language programs.
In many respects, China's Confucius Institutes seem like a
throwback to the 1950's and 1960's, when the United
States, the Soviet Union
and leading European countries were competing intensely for international prestige
and influence. Moscow
distributed magazines like Soviet Life through its embassies, and others
promoted their languages through cultural organizations like the Alliance Française,
the Goethe Institute and the Cervantes Institute.
As China
becomes a major economic and military power and its diplomacy becomes more
assertive, Beijing
is also working harder at winning friends and influencing people. Indeed, taken
together with China's recent
launches of manned space flights, and the huge push to build world-class universities
and to produce prize-winning scientific research, some have called the language
initiative part of this country's "Sputnik moment," after the first
artificial satellite, launched by the Soviet Union
in 1957.
But where Sputnik fed a sense of alarm in
the United States and elsewhere about the rise of an aggressive new superpower,
the Confucius Institutes are intended to do almost the opposite, elevating the
country's prestige while easing anxieties over the arrival of a new power.
"They are using Chinese culture to
create a warmer, more positive image of Chinese society," said Nancy
Jervis, vice president of the China Institute, a nonprofit Chinese-language study
group that will be home to a Confucius Institute in New York City. "That's probably why the
State Council has funded them, and why they've given a fair amount of money in turn
to the College Board."
China's
re-entry into the contest for global influence reflects the broader strategy of
a nation that is still poor by many measures but is moving fast and making a
big impression. The approach often involves advancing with frugal means through
lots of hustle and word of mouth.
"The British Council spends over 3
billion pounds a year," or more than $5 billion, Ms. Xu said, adding that China is
spending only about $12 million on the Confucius Institutes. Instead of
building expensive new headquarters in each city, the institutes team up with
local partners, taking space in their buildings or getting foreign governments
to pay for their housing. Instead of sending teachers who will instruct
foreigners directly, the institute sends teacher trainers who can help upgrade
the skills of local Chinese teachers.
"The vision for this sort of thing has
existed in China for a very
long time," said Wu Yongyi, deputy dean of the International College of
Chinese Studies at East China Normal
University in Shanghai, who has been involved in overseas
language instruction missions since the 1980's.
Mr. Wu said China
worked hard to promote its language among third world nations from the 1960's
to the 80's, when he got his start teaching in Africa
and elsewhere overseas.
Today, about 90,000 foreign students come
to China
every year to study the language, he said, with 30 million more people around
the world studying Chinese.
"After China's economic reforms started,
we discovered we had an urgent need for communication, and we found that it's
not enough that we learned foreign languages," he said.
"Communications could be better if other people could speak Chinese. We
need two-way communications, and now that our economy is strong, we can support
this."