12 - Beijing's Soft Power Bid: Promotion of the Chinese Language and Confucius Institutes

Summary

Since China's arrival as an economic and political power, Beijing has started efforts to project soft power. Its main mode of developing soft power is the setting up of schools known as “Confucius Institutes” to spread knowledge of the Chinese language and culture across the world, including Southeast Asia. The idea is that grassroots appreciation of the Chinese language and culture would advance China's traditional diplomacy and foreign policy interests.

China's soft power projection, in fact, is not targeted at the Chinese overseas but at the non–Chinese. However, in the process, China has realized that it can also make use of the Chinese overseas to spread the Chinese language and culture. Moreover, it can “re–sinicize” the Chinese overseas and strengthen their cultural ties with China in the hope that they would serve China'snational interests.

China's promotion of the Chinese language and the establishment of Confucius Institutes/Confucius Classrooms are done through Hanban, or the executive body of the Chinese Language Council International, which is under China's Ministry of Education.

This chapter attempts to briefly examine the revival of the Chinese language (known in China as the Han Language or Hanyu) and Chinese education in Southeast Asia. The questions it will examine are: What is the current state of Chinese language learning in Southeast Asia? Is there a revival of Chinese–medium schools in these states? How have local Chinese communities and governments reacted to the teaching of the Chinese language, especially the establishment of Confucius Institutes/Confucius Classrooms? Have the local Chinese been re–sinicized, thus hindering or slowing down the “nation–building” process in these young nations?

REGIONAL OVERVIEW

During the Cold War, while communism as well as Chinese influence was perceived to be a threat, many Southeast Asian countries implemented assimilationist policies. They restricted or even prohibited Chinese schools and the use of the Chinese language. The most extreme cases could be found in Vietnam, Indonesia, Laos, and Cambodia, where the three pillars of Chinese culture (Chinese organizations, Chinese newspapers, and Chinese schools) were eliminated. These restrictions contributed to the further indigenization of the ethnic Chinese in the region.