New research adds nuance to a contentious debate
Confucius Institute instructors receive little political training and experience minimal day-to-day monitoring while teaching abroad, new research suggests, yet they exhibit high levels of political compliance, disseminating the views of the Chinese Communist Party and censoring discussion of sensitive topics.
The findings, by a team of Stanford University researchers, don’t fit neatly into either of the prevailing narratives surrounding the Chinese-government-funded language and cultural centers on American college campuses: The language teachers do not appear to be agents of the Chinese government, as critics, including public officials, have charged. Still, they toe the party line in their classrooms, the researchers found.
“I do hope this work complicates the prevailing narratives,” said Jennifer Pan, an associate professor of communication at Stanford and one of the paper’s authors. “There are two narratives, but it’s really neither.”
Pan and her colleagues, Tongtong Zhang, a doctoral candidate in political science, and Yingjie Fan, now a Ph.D. student at Princeton, reviewed Confucius Institute training and selection materials, conducted an online survey of instructors from around the globe, and did individual interviews with a smaller group of current and former teachers.
They found that while all teachers are required to go through a training program, the curriculum does not include explicit or specific instructions on how to handle political discussions in the classroom, nor are teachers told to adopt certain political behaviors while overseas.
The researchers also found no evidence that the instructors, who do not have to be Communist Party members, were chosen for their political beliefs. In fact, many of the teachers, who typically spend a couple of years abroad, regarded the Confucius Institute assignments as a sort of “gap year” between their university studies and professional careers. The most frequently cited reason for taking a Confucius Institute position, reported by 60 percent of respondents, was to “broaden their horizons.”
While the instructors are overseas, the quasi-government office that runs the centers had little direct control over teachers and was largely unable to monitor what they did in their classrooms. Compliance with particular political stances was not included in teacher evaluations.
Yet, when Pan and her colleagues ran a controlled experiment as part of the survey, they found that the instructors frequently espoused Chinese Communist Party (CCP) positions. Respondents were given one of three prompts — one group was reminded to adhere to CCP principles, another was instructed to “avoid friction” without mention of the government, and a third received only a neutral statement, “People may encounter different scenarios at life and in work.” All were then asked how they would respond if Confucius Institute students or colleagues raised the issue of the political status of Taiwan.
Even among the group given the neutral prompt, 70 percent said they would either change the subject to stop students or colleagues from further discussion, or they would echo the Chinese government line, that Taiwan is part of mainland China.
In open-ended survey responses, as well as interviews, teachers who said they permitted open discussion did so with the goal of persuading others that the CCP view was the correct one, Pan said. Of course, she noted, it was difficult to know the impact of these more-free-flowing discussions — on students and on the instructors themselves.
The Chinese government “enforces the obedience of Confucius Institute teachers not by selecting loyalists, dictating explicit rules of behaviors, or rewarding/sanctioning their political actions,” the researchers conclude. Rather than prescribing behavior, government officials prescribe objectives — that is, they set out broad goals, such as “promote a positive and healthy image of China,” and leave it up to instructors to decide what actions to take.
The Stanford team’s findings inject shades of nuance into the often black-and-white debate around Confucius Institutes: While they are not being sent out explicitly as propagandists, instructors may act as advocates for Chinese-government interests and perspectives.
These conclusions could inform policy making, the researchers suggest. There have been efforts in Congress to more highly regulate, limit, or shut down Confucius Institutes.
Of course, this could be a moot point — political pressure has led to a wave of Confucius Institute closures. There are just 18 centers left in the United States, down from some 120 just a few years ago, according to the National Association of Scholars.
Extra credit: Politico has the story of one graduate student who tried to measure China’s influence on his own campus.
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