by Aaron Jed Rabena, Ph.D.

12 October 2021 – In the wake of growing anti-China sentiment in Western liberal democracies such as the US, Europe, and Australia due to political (i.e., human rights issues in Hong Kong and Xinjiang) and geopolitical differences (South China Sea and Taiwan), not only have China’s technological companies been at the crosshairs of their national security concerns. The securitization of issues has affected the sociocultural domain where multiple countries have turned their backs on China’s Confucius Institutes (CI). Countries that have closed and/or required stricter regulation of their CIs include the US, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

Specific reasons for the dozens of CI closures and their stricter scrutiny range from activities that allegedly go against democratic political values — such as malign influence (propaganda) and restriction of academic freedom or censorship on Tibet, Taiwan, and Tiananmen Square Incident — to operational concerns (e.g., low enrolment, lack of funds). Examples of regulatory pressures exerted against CIs include Australia’s Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme, and the US’ designation of CIs as a “foreign mission,” the bipartisan barrage in Washington of statutory measures (e.g., The Confucius Act, Protect Our Universities Act), and threats to limit federal funding for American universities hosting CIs. The Trump Administration even intended that all CIs in the US should be shut down by 2020. In filling the gap created by the closures of CIs, the US government has expressed policy support for the US-Taiwan Education Initiative.

Confucius Institute in Chinese Foreign Policy

The CI, established in 2004, is administered by the Confucius Institute Headquarters or “Hanban,” which is under the auspices of China’s Ministry of Education. It forms a crucial part of China’s cultural, educational, and public diplomacy and is well-aligned with then-Chinese President Hu Jintao’s call to boost Chinese soft power projection. CIs may be said to be China’s version of Germany’s Goethe Institute, France’s Alliance Francais, Spain’s Instituto Cervantes, the UK’s British Council, Japan’s Japan Foundation, and South Korea’s King Sejong Institute. The difference, though, is that CI is run by a one-party communist state that is currently rivaling American global preeminence. The primary aim of CIs is to promote Chinese language and culture to the world, and it caters to language teaching majors, school and university students, businessmen, professionals, and government officials.

CIs are usually set up by way of a partnership between a Chinese university and a local university. For the most part, CIs provide the teachers’ materials/textbooks and institutional funding. CIs also have affiliate entities such as teaching centers and Confucius Classrooms in K-12 levels. CIs have largely figured in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) since its announcement in 2013 as it champions the BRI’s fifth area of cooperation which is people-to-people ties and connectivity. Last year, as a response to controversies involving CIs, China rebranded the “Confucius Institute Headquarters” to “Center for Language Education and Cooperation.” The new organization is said to be independently and jointly run by educators from the public and private sectors. Despite this, however, the examples of Huawei and TikTok have shown that even private companies are not immune to geopolitical risks.

Confucius Institutes in Asia and the Philippines

In Asia, there have been calls to shut down or investigate CIs, particularly in US-allied countries such as Japan and South Korea, for reasons similar to those in the West. But in Southeast Asia, there has not been much political noise concerning CIs. There are currently 40 CIs in Southeast Asia and they are hosted in: Thailand (16), Indonesia (8), Malaysia (5), the Philippines (5), Cambodia (2), Laos (2), Singapore (1), and Vietnam (1). CIs in Southeast Asia link 40 local universities with 33 Chinese universities. But as far as the Philippines is concerned, the first reported public call to shutdown CIs were made last year by retired Philippine Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio where he said that China can use CIs to “propagate their historical falsehood about nine-dash line [in the South China Sea].”

In the Philippines, the five CIs are based in: the Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) (2006), Bulacan State University (BSU) (2007), Angeles University Foundation (AUF) (2010), University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD) (2015), and Ateneo de Davao University (AdDU) (2019). Their partner Chinese universities are Sun Yat-sen University, Xibei University in Xi’an, Fujian Normal University, Xiamen University, and Huaqiao University, respectively. Notably, the CI of AUF standout as it has been awarded three times as one of the best CIs in the world (Global Advanced Confucius Institute) and Excellent Test Center for Chinese Examination in 2019. In addition, there was an announced plan by the Mariano Marcos State University together with the Chinese Consulate in Laoag last year to put up a CI in Ilocos Norte.

As with CIs all over the world, the activities of CIs in the Philippines, apart from language training, involve cultural exhibits, movie and food festivals, concerts, cultural tours, lectures, conferences/workshops, and summer camps. CIs also offer scholarships, corporate training programs, translation and interpretation services, and socioeconomic research. Some Philippine CIs have also mentioned a greater understanding of the BRI in their agenda and have affiliate teaching centers and Confucius Classrooms. Philippine CIs likewise teach Chinese to or has partnerships with, various government departments/agencies and stakeholders. These broad-based and multi-sectoral linkages include the Department of Foreign Affairs/Foreign Service Institute, Bureau of Immigration, Philippine Ports Authority, Bureau of Customs, Department of Tourism, Department of Education, Clark Development Corporation, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, Presidential Communications Operations Office, Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, Philippine National Police, Armed Forces of the Philippines, League of Cities of the Philippines, National Library, National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, Union of Governors of the Philippines, and local business chambers of commerce.

In 2019, the Department of Education (DepEd) and Hanban had inked a Memorandum of Agreement for the Joint Training of DepEd Teachers for the Master of Arts Major in Chinese Language Teaching. This program is meant to develop the DepEd’s Special Program in Foreign Language (SPFL)-Chinese Mandarin in public secondary schools by training 300 teachers within five years. Since 2011, Chinese Mandarin has been included in the basic curriculum/special program for the foreign language of DepEd, and there have been more than 310 trained Filipino public school teachers (from junior and senior high schools) to teach Mandarin. As of December 2019, there are 11,000 secondary students from 93 public secondary schools across the Philippines learning Mandarin. As to the impact of CIs on Philippine students, according to a study by Prof. Lourdes Nepomuceno, the director of UPD CI, “the exposure to Chinese culture and language offered by the institutes had altered Filipino students’ perceptions towards issues involving China, including territorial disputes in the South China Sea.” She adds that even though some of the students still did not “fully” support China after an immersion program, they remained “neutral to somewhat positive on their views on China and the Chinese.”

Securitization vs. Compartmentalization

Clearly, deteriorating political relations can blur the lines between culture and traditional security or national security, especially when states consider non-military retaliatory actions against another state. The same principle holds true in the case of economics, namely, trade wars and sanctions. In relation to the Philippines being a democracy, boundaries between academic freedom or freedom of speech vis-à-vis institutional autonomy may similarly be obscured. Currently, however, there is no evidence yet that CIs in the Philippines are engaged in acts that undermine Philippine political interests or violate Philippine laws. As far as the establishment of CIs in the Philippines is concerned, the only issue that has come into view is the expression of concern by UPD’s Department of Linguistics on matters of supervision and teaching methods.

Allegations that CIs avoid discussions on issues it deems politically sensitive (Tiananmen Square Incident, Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang), if true, may be attributed to the fact that the main task of CIs is to generate interest in Chinese language and culture. As to the issue of Taiwan, it is a given that the Philippines adheres to the One China Policy where the People’s Republic of China is the recognized legitimate Chinese government. Moreover, the demand in the Philippines to learn Chinese stems from China’s rise as a global economic powerhouse and the business and employment opportunities that come along with it. The Duterte administration’s likely attitude towards CIs, given its inclination to de-politicize economic and commercial issues, may be premised on how it has shunned calls by the US to ban Huawei and TikTok in line with its policy to maximize constructive engagement with Beijing.