The Kerfuffle Over Confucius Institutes in Canada

Posted by david on Nov 3, 2014 in Blog | 0 comments

       Last week, trustees of the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), which has oversight over public schools responsible for teaching some 232,000 students in the city, voted to suspend ties with the Chinese government-backed Confucius Institutes (CI).  For months, opponents, including notably members of the Falungong religious cult and the local Uighur community, had lobbied strongly against continuation of the collaboration, pointing an accusatory finger at CIs for breaching academic freedoms and promoting the interests of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

       The TDSB cancellation follows terminations of CI contracts at McMaster University and Universite de Sherbrooke last year, and in the US at the University of Chicago and Pennsylvania State University earlier this year.  Last December, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUTS) also urged Canadian institutions of higher learning to sever their ties with CI.  Currently, there are 10 active CI programs in Canadian post-secondary institutions and more than 480 worldwide.

      The TDSB vote result was not surprising with community organizations split right down the middle on the issue.  The cancellation of the program represents a temporary setback for China’s efforts to promote CI in Canada as well as overall efforts to project its soft power.  The TDSB had initially hoped that the CI tie-up would bolster its after-school mandarin and Chinese art and culture classes for elementary school students.

      Interviewed by Reuters, a China critic believed the termination would not be taken well in Beijing adding surprisingly that “Canada’s reputation in China as being hostile to Chinese foreign policy goals will be enhanced by the fact of Canada’s largest school board causing the Chinese side to lose face by openly and publically denouncing the idea of a CI.”

       There is little to back up the accusation that CIs promote the interests of the CPC. Michael Nylan, a China historian at the University of California at Berkeley, argues that CIs have become more sophisticated in their operations, being careful to avoid earlier heavy-handed tactics such as insisting host institutions abide by a policy of one-China.

       A 2011 (?) survey of faculty and administration at 15 universities in the US with CI ties conducted by Professor Nylan found only two reports of pressure to block guest speakers but both speakers spoke anyway.  Similarly, in response to charges that CI curriculum is politically determined, the CI director of Chicago Public Schools stated emphatically, “CIs have total autonomy in their course materials and teachers.”

       Another claim, that by teaching simplified characters, CI promotes mainland China at the expense of other regions in Greater China that use traditional characters namely Taiwan, Hong Kong/Macao, Malaysia, and other Southeast Asian countries, is simply a red herring.  Simplified characters along with pinyin have been taught since their introduction in the late 1950s and have gone far to promote literacy in China given the complexities of traditional characters.  If it were not for their superiority over the English Wade-Giles system of conveying mandarin phonetics, why then would Taiwanese educational authorities officially adopt pinyin?!

       As for the purported ‘threat to academic freedom’, a report in the leading US educational journal Chronicle of Higher Education found little evidence of meddling by the Chinese authorities.  Based on a series of interviews of China scholars, journalists, and Ci directors, the Diplomat magazine, which is not China-friendly by any measure, also reported little support for the contention that CIs could serve as propaganda vehicles for the CPC although the author did find some constraints on such touchy curriculum topics as Tibet and human rights.

       Quoted in the Toronto Star, TDSB trustee Sheila Cary-Meagher called opposition lobbying “a tsunami of pressure”.  She elaborated that, “the way (the CI program) would have worked here was different; this would have been advisers to our own teachers, using Ontario curriculum, with our own students…I am ashamed of the board and myself for not standing up to the pressure…”  Ms Cary-Meacgher ultimately voted with the motion “because it was dead already” and only two other trustees dissented.

       But, just as the TDSB cancelled its CI pact, the University of Regina and the University of Saskatchewan announced they are reinforcing theirs which have been in operation for three years offering courses in Chinese language and culture.  Interviewed by cbcnews.ca, Thomas Chase, a University of Regina official, said there have not been any complaints about the Institute and that both the U of R and U of S would never compromise their academic integrity.

       David Parkinson of the U of S added that its CI is not providing courses for university credit.  “It’s important to recognize the limit placed on the level of the classes that are in fact offered.  These are highly introductory classes”, he made clear.  Asked whether the CI would shy away from issues sensitive to China, Daniel Huang, an instructor in Chinese cultural history at the U of R CI, replied, “we encourage people to raise questions.”

       China’s Ministry of Education estimates as of the end of 2010, there were over 40 million people studying Chinese worldwide with other projections as high as 100 million.  (Four years on, a doubling or tripling of that figure is easily imaginable.)  In spite of some hiccups along the way, unsurprising in Western countries that doubt any institution supported by the Chinese government, Hanban headquarters, which oversees CI operations for the Ministry of Education, aims to establish 1,000 CIs by 2020.  With galloping growth in the developing world, that target can only be surpassed.