China’s Confucius Institute faces backlash at prestigious US school
Professors at the University of Chicago seek to kick out the centre from its campus when the deal is up, saying the institutes come with too many political strings attached
Just as China celebrated five new Confucius Institutes across the United States, more than 100 professors in the city of Chicago were lobbying for the eviction of the Chinese state-sponsored language centre.
Arguing that the centres indirectly placed schools under Beijing’s grip, 108 professors launched a petition demanding that the University of Chicago break ties with the Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban), administrated by Chinese Education Ministry, when their five-year contract expires in September.
The “dubious practice” of allowing Hanban to “have a voice in the research and curriculum”, the professors wrote in the petition, has compromised the academic integrity of the university, and subject its staff members and students to Beijing’s “political constraints on free speech and belief”.
The normal principles of free speech, open inquiry and politically disinterested scholarship ... are not obtained in courses offered through the CI
It is not the first time a Confucius Institute has come under fire in the Western academia. Last year, McMaster University in Canada shut it down after it dismissed a teacher who was revealed to be a follower of Falun Gong, which was made illegal by Beijing in 1999.
Despite this, Hanban’s influence has been growing internationally. The institute announced in Los Angeles last Thursday that it would collabourate with the US College Board, a non-profit that designs and hosts college entrance exams, to open five Confucius Institutes (CI) in colleges and 15 Confucius secondary school classrooms in nine different US states this year.
The deputy director-general of Hanban, Wang Yongli, told China Daily that CI was not China’s propaganda tool, as he defended the speeded-up expansion of its global network in 2011.
“The institute focuses its programme on culture and communication,” Wang was quoted as saying. “It avoids ideological content.”