GLOBAL: 'Soft power' China expands language centres

The Middle Kingdom's "soft power" approach to international relations continues with the planned establishment of three new Chinese national education centres at universities in Australia, Europe and the US. China says the aim of the centres is to boost the number of students studying Chinese language and culture although its ongoing goal appears to be the generation of favourable public opinion.

The University of Melbourne announced last week that the first national Chinese Teacher Training Centre would be based at its graduate school of education. The university says the centre will develop Australian expertise "in the unique aspects of teaching Chinese and enhance the delivery of the teaching of Chinese in schools".

Other teacher training centres are planned for universities in Europe and the US. Their main task of preparing teachers of Chinese differs from the Confucius institutes that are essentially cultural centres that the Chinese government has been setting up around the world through its National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language.

Known as Hanban, the office is linked to the Chinese Ministry of Education and is governed by representatives of that ministry and several other government departments. On its website, Hanban is described as "the executive body of the Chinese Language Council International, a non-government and non-profit organisation affiliated to China's Ministry of Education".

It was established in 1987 but began setting up Confucius institutes overseas in 2004 at an astonishing rate and China now has some 330 operating in universities in more than 80 countries. Hanban is hardly non-government because, apart from its board, it is chaired by a state councillor - which observers say is an indication of the importance attached to China's "soft power activities".

Each of the institutes is linked to a university in China and the same approach appears to have been adopted with the new education centres. But, as University World News reported two years ago (see that report here), critics have claimed the foreign universities could lose their academic freedom by accepting grants from the Chinese government to set up the Confucius institutes.

Those claims were rejected by the universities that have them, including Melbourne and Sydney among others. Whether the same critics will raise objections about the new teacher training centres remains to be seen but it would seem difficult to sustain as they have a much more specific educational goal than the Confucius institutes.

Professor Jocelyn Chey was one strong critic of the institutes and she told University World News in 2007 that academics should be aware of potential bias when Confucius institutes sought to undertake teaching or research as part of a university's mainstream activities. Because of the institutes' close links with the Chinese government and the Communist Party, Chey said this could lead at best to a "dumbing down" of research and at worst could produce propaganda.

An expert on Australia-China relations in the Department Foreign Affairs for 20 years, Chey has lived in China and was Australian Consul-General in Hong Kong in the 1990s. When she spoke to University World News, she was then a visiting professor at the University of Sydney which, ironically shortly after she spoke out, became the fourth Australian university to establish a Confucius institute.

Chey said that with its growing economic might, the Chinese government was making greater use of 'soft power'. This was part of its diplomatic goal of countering the influence of Taiwan and achieving 'great power' status.

In a press statement last week, Melbourne University said its new teacher training centre was the outcome of a partnership between the Hanban and the Victorian state government. It noted that Dr Jane Orton, an academic at Melbourne's school of education, had been appointed director of the centre.

"It is vital that we encourage our school students to understand China, to ensure enough China-literate young people are available to develop Australia's deeper engagement with this important regional neighbour," Orton was quoted as saying in the release. "Fewer than 20% of Australians now working in China can speak the language and only 10% have studied a China-related subject.

"One of the key ways of addressing this issue is by improving the standard of Chinese language teaching. The centre will base its work on a solid understanding of China and will support teachers through quality professional education and the development of 21st century resources and teaching methods."

Orton said the centre would initiate research on the "unique aspects of learning Chinese to raise our level of understanding about what it involves and improve our teaching of it".

The centre will be managed by a consortium comprising the Melbourne school of education, the Asia Education Foundation, the Australian Curriculum Corporation, the China Institute at the Australia National University and the Beijing Languages & Cultures University.

Orton later told University World News the centre was an initiative of the Victorian Education Department and Hanban. She said the consortium based at Melbourne had been nominated as manager and provider of services.

"The agreement about services is currently being finalised by the two founding parties and I am not a part of those discussions," Orton said.

geoff.maslen@uw-news.com