Educ Res Policy Prac (2010) 9:127–142

DOI 10.1007/s10671-009-9078-1

China’s policy of Chinese as a foreign language

and the use of overseas Confucius Institutes

Hongqin Zhao · Jianbin Huang

Received: 4 September 2009 / Accepted: 17 December 2009 / Published online: 21 January 2010
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Abstract China’s economic power is changing attitudes towards Mandarin Chinese world-
wide. Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) consequently emerges as a subject for research
as well as an educational market. This article investigates the modern evolution of CFL
curriculum policy that has led to the current rapid growth of the Confucius Institute (CI)
around the world, using media sources including government policy, Confucius Institutes
themselves, newspaper reports from the Internet, and individual blogs posted by teachers of
Chinese language, as well as university academics’ observations. It opens up a discussion of
the implications of the development of China’s CFL policy, particularly through the Confu-
cius Institutes, in diversifying the world’s lingua franca and sharing the market of education
in the coming era. The analysis indicates that it is unlikely that Chinese will displace English
as the world’s most widely used language in the foreseeable future, but the view that the
Chinese language is an important element in the future unity of the world has been voiced.

Keywords Chinese as a foreign language · Policy · Curriculum · Confucius Institutes

1 Introduction

Widely known for being the world’s most populous country, the People’s Republic of China
is taking on the role of the economic powerhouse of the world, shortening the world recession
and bringing the recovery faster, due to its stable financial system and continuing economic
growth (Petersen 2009; Macartney 2009; Piboontanasawat and Hamlin 2009). In fact, accord-
ing to Piboontanasawat and Hamlin’s report on Bloomberg (2009) and Macartney’s report
on Times Online (2009), China has surpassed Germany and is now placed as the third largest

H. Zhao (B)
Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
e-mail: hongqinzhao@zju.edu.cn

J. Huang
The School of International Studies, Zhejiang University,
Hangzhou, China

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economy, behind only the USA and Japan. Once it was common sense that any world citizen
should know and understand something of English history and culture—and learn the English
language—due to the leading global position of the UK and then the USA, and other major
English-speaking countries. With China once again appearing in an eminent position on the
world scene, now that same common sense suggests that a world citizen should also know
and understand something of China’s immense wealth of culture and history, certainly in
harmony with its increasing economic stature, but also from their own intrinsic worth (e.g.,
Spence 2008). Kurlantzick (2007) and Nye (2005) have observed the rise of China and the
increasing number of people turning to know more about this country:

China has always had an attractive traditional culture, but now it is entering the realm of
global popular culture as well. The enrolment of foreign students in China has tripled
to 110,000 from 36,000 over the past decade, and the number of foreign tourists has
also increased dramatically to 17 million last year…it would be foolish to ignore the
gains it is making (Nye 2005)

In recent years, industrial products “made in China” and traded on a global scale have
aroused people’s interest from around the world to know more about the success that lies
behind the “made in China” brand, and about its source, which originates in Chinese culture.
This echoes the reading of Hodge and Louie (1998, p. 4) of the world’s need for knowledge
about China and its language and culture:

We want knowledge about China to circulate as freely and as widely as possible.

Immediate access to the culture and people of China is by way of the Chinese language.
There are several main dialects spoken, among which Cantonese has been one of those
most commonly encountered abroad until recently. Although spoken differently, they share
a written system when Chinese characters are used. Upon the establishment of the People’s
Republic of China in 1949, a form of Mandarin, also known as Putonghua (“the common
language”) and based on the Beijing dialect, was legitimated as the official language of
the country (Ministry of Education 2005; Kane 2006). The official language, Mandarin, is
learned by all Chinese at school and is credited as being the language spoken by the great-
est number of people in the world—650 million is the current estimate, although written
Chinese is potentially intelligible to over 1 billion people (Crystal 2003). Now almost all
learners learning Chinese learn Mandarin (Kane 2006; Xing 2006; Nayer 1997).
The written form uses characters that are simplified compared with the traditional charac-
ters, as are used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The written character requires a study in itself,
and the lack of association between the written character and sound makes for difficulty in
learning (see Kane 2006; Xing 2006). Kane (2006, p. 11) describes the form and sound of
Mandarin:

Written Chinese looks like a random set of stokes, dots and dashes. In its handwritten
form it looks like a series of undifferentiated squiggles. Spoken Chinese sounds like a
rapid series of almost identical monosyllables with rising and falling intonations.

The pronunciation requires the use of tones—another distinctive feature—which is indi-

cated in the Romanized alphabet system of the Chinese language—Pinyin. Acquiring all
these features can be accomplished by a dedicated learner, and a growing number of people
are taking up the study of Mandarin all over the world, which has marked the emergence
of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) globally (Xing 2006; Gil 2008; Lo Bianco 2007;
Everson and Xiao 2009).

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Chinese people and government have reached an understanding which is expressed

as “China needs foreign languages, the world needs Chinese” (Gil 2008, p. 116). The
Beijing-based Office of the Chinese Language Council International—known as Hanban—
was established in 1987. Hanban has been initiating policies, and sponsoring activities, of
Chinese language studies, cultural exhibitions, and exchanges. To provide specific help and
support in each country, the Confucius Institutes (CIs) have been inaugurated (Zhang 2004).
It is through these that the new wave of Chinese language learning and cultural awareness is
directed and coordinated. On June 15th, 2004, a pilot institute was opened in Tashkent, capital
of Uzbekistan, with the world’s first fully fledged Confucius Institute opening in Seoul, South
Korea, later, on November 21st, 2004 (Zhang 2004). The CI is managed directly through its
headquarters in China, which itself is directly subsidiary to Hanban.
Learning from the successful model demonstrated by the UK’s British Council, France’s
Alliance Française, and Germany’s Goethe Institute, China has also incorporated the spirit
of America’s former Peace Corps (Gil 2008). The chief aim of the CI, however, is, for non-
Chinese in other countries to have the opportunity to be educated in the use of the Chinese
language, and about Chinese culture, as much as possible by way of the existing education
infrastructure, getting school, college, and university curricula to include Chinese language
classes as an integral part, at least as far as language options are concerned (e.g., Wang and
Higgins 2008; Gil 2008; Wang 2007). Then there is the separate program for adult education
organized in a much more ad hoc way.
The initial target of 100 CIs by 2010 was quickly increased to over 330 by the end of
2009 (Zhao 2009). Since the announcement of the first CI, according to the statistics, during
2006 the rate of increase of Confucius Institutes in the world was such that a new Confucius
Institute opened, on average, every 4 days. By the end of May 2009, there were 339 Confucius
Institutes, and the number of countries with at least one Confucius Institute had grown to 83,
and still the number is increasing (Zhao 2009; Spence 2008).
According to Hanban (Hanban (2009a,b), see also Wikipedia 2009; Xinhua 2007, 2009),
current expansion projection predicts a total of 500 CIs by the end of 2010, and 1,000 Confu-
cius Institutes by 2020; currently there are more than 40 million people learning the Chinese
language around the globe, and Hanban estimates that, by the year 2010, there will be
approximately 100 million non-Chinese worldwide learning Chinese as a foreign language.
Mandarin Putonghua is spreading not only inside China, but also in Hong Kong, Southeast
Asia, and the rest of the world (Lo Bianco 2007; Everson and Xiao 2009), and now it is
regarded as “a world language” (see, e.g., Kane (2006, p. 23)). Teaching CFL has devel-
oped rapidly as a specialized subject (Ministry of Education 2005; Everson and Xiao 2009).
The impact is still to be studied. Therefore, timely studies of this phenomenon will provide
the world with knowledge and enhanced understanding about the politics and the policy of
Chinese language and Chinese culture. This paper, in particular, aims to study China’s policy
of Chinese as a foreign language, through an analysis of the development of CFL curriculum,
facilitated by the Confucius Institutes, including how teachers managed to set up courses for
their students, sometimes from scratch. Some reaction from their overseas partners is also
captured.

2 The chronology of China’s CFL policy in international relations

It is recorded that the Chinese language has a history of more than 3,000 years (Huang
and Li 1996). In the historical past, China went through a period when it was forbid-
den to teach foreigners the Chinese language. The idea was that this would prevent the

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aggressively expansionist European empires from attaining a foothold in China, as Spence

(2008)
reviewed:
There was also difficulty learning the language because the Chinese government was
unwilling to let Westerners learn Chinese. Language was seen in other words as a
protection of your security, and we know from some records that early Chinese who
offered to tutor Westerners in Chinese language could be imprisoned or even executed.
So Westerners wanting to learn Chinese in this period had to do so in secrecy if they
were in the Chinese world or in one of these Chinese cities near the coast.
In a similar line, Kane (2006) described an instance in 1759 when a foreign missionary was
arrested in Beijing and jailed for 3 years because he had illegally learned to speak Chinese.
This attempt to ignore the outside world into nonexistence was a complete failure and was
one of the signs for progressive Chinese citizens that the old feudal ways of “The Middle
Kingdom” had reached a logical end (Spence 2008). The imperial court of China had spurned
engagement with the outside world as a deliberate policy of defensive isolation. This situation
is reversed in modern China. China’s open-door policy, adopted in the late 1970s and early
1980s, over the past three decades has been an important policy that has led to an increase
of interdependence in international relationships and the development of CFL policy and
practice (Yang 2007; Ministry of Education 2005). Recent decades have seen CFL policy
develop from centralized arrangements to more market-mediated regulations.

2.1 The centralized 1950s–1970s

CFL policy is “an integral part of China’s reform and opening up drive” (Ministry of Education
2005), and grows hand in hand with China’s political situation, economic development, and
foreign policy. It, in fact, has catalyzed the infrastructure for CFL as a subject as well as a
language education market.
In the 1950s and 1960s, CFL teaching started to serve China’s foreign diplomacy and build
up international relations, mainly working with socialist countries and the Third World, such
as Vietnam and some African counties (Yang 2007). In 1950, in response to the request
to exchange students with those from socialist countries, beginning with Poland and the
former Czechoslovakia, in Eastern Europe, the Chinese government commissioned Tsinghua
University to prepare to teach the exchange students Chinese. A Chinese language class, set up
in 1951, marked the beginning of the first official CFL course in China (Ministry of Education
2005; Yang 2007). In 1952, China started to send Chinese teachers to Bulgaria and North
Korea to teach modern Chinese language. Up to 2004, the total number of teachers sent by
the Chinese government to teach CFL overseas reached 1,314 (Ministry of Education 2005).
The first academic paper concerning teaching CFL—Some Issues in Teaching Chinese to
Non-Chinese Students—appeared in 1952 in China. The first CFL textbook—Chinese Teach-
ing Textbook—to be taught in the former Soviet Union was published in 1958 by Beijing
University. Since then, more than 1,000 Chinese textbooks have been published. From 1961
to 1965, China selected 112 candidates for CFL teaching from the Chinese Departments and
Foreign Language Departments of 11 Chinese Universities. This has continued since 1972
and the open-door policy in the early 1980s. In April 1962, the Beijing Radio Broadcast-
ing Station (now China International Radio Broadcasting Company) initiated Lectures on
Chinese in Japanese to audiences in Japan. Now China has CFL learning programs through
radio broadcasting in 39 languages. In January 1965, Beijing Languages University was
established, being the only University specializing in teaching Chinese to overseas students.

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Now many Chinese universities have CFL programs (Ministry of Education 2005; Cheng
2005), just as almost every university in English-speaking countries has programmes for
English as a second, or foreign, language (ES/FL).
English as a foreign language (EFL) has also played a critical role in the development
of CFL teaching and research. EFL is still the ideal commodity in the knowledge economy
during the process of industrialization in China and Asia (e.g., Guardian 2005). To educate
its people to speak English well, in order to engage with the rest of the world, is part of
China’s national and educational policy of curriculum development and modernity encour-
agement project, which has undoubtedly enhanced the strength and perception of China in
the international context (Zhao 2008a,b, 2009). The area of foreign language acquisition in
general, and ES/EF in particular, has also resulted in both language and knowledge that CFL
can refer to; for example, Chomsky’s concept of language competence and performance, the
theory of communicative language teaching and learning, and the notion of joining language
and culture in teaching and learning are important theories and models for CFL development
(see Xing 2006, p. 6; Everson and Xiao 2009).
Benefiting from both educational endeavors and economic expansion, learners of the Chi-
nese language are welcomed, both by the people of China and at the highest official level.
Government initiatives in CFL policy have gradually interplayed with other factors, especially
the worldwide demand for learning Chinese as a foreign language. This has meanwhile been
facilitated by the engagement in all aspects of the interconnected world of high-speed travel
and electronic communication, which is enthusiastically followed by current generations.
CEF policy and practice have therefore evolved from a mode that was highly centralized and
planned to one that is more of an educational market, regulated by the relationship between
demand and supply.

2.2 The opening up in the 1980s and 1990s

To satisfy people’s needs when learning Chinese, and to build friendship with people from
other countries at the grassroots level, the Chinese government has launched a variety of ini-
tiatives to encourage and help foreign learners of Chinese. The summer of 1978 was a time
when Beijing Languages University started short-term training, with 28 French students.
This has become one of the main modes of implementing the CFL curriculum. Training
materials have further developed. From 1980, a series of short-term training materials were
published including 300 Chinese Sentences, The First Step to Speak Chinese, etc. August
1985 witnessed the first conference of CFL teaching, held in Beijing, which is now a world-
wide annual event. In the same year, the Ministry of Education first introduced CFL degrees
at four universities: Beijing Languages University, Beijing Foreign Languages University,
Shanghai Foreign Languages University, and Huazhong Teachers University, followed by
master’s degrees; the highest level in this subject is now a doctoral degree at some universi-
ties, featuring the academic research area of CFL curriculum, as well as implying a potential
educational market.
In 1987 CFL policy stepped up into a significant new stage, through the National Office
of Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, now the Beijing-based Office of Chinese Lan-
guage Council International, involving 11 ministries of the Central Government, also known
as Hanban, as mentioned above. Hanban (2009a,b) has now clearly identified that it is affil-
iated with the Ministry of Education of China as a nonprofit organization. The government
established Hanban to specialize in the policy and practice of developing Chinese as a for-
eign language, responding attentively to a market demand, including the development and
administration of an examination system for foreigners, known as Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi

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(HSK), the Chinese Proficiency Examination (see also Kane 2006). Meanwhile, Hanban
promotes cultural exchanges and tours, support networks for teachers and students of Chi-
nese, and provides a wide array of language teaching and learning supports (Lo Bianco, 2007,
p. 12). Among these, the Chinese Language Bridge, staging a Chinese language proficiency
competition for university students from around the world, was implemented in 2002, and
the CFL teaching Volunteers Project was initiated, which have formed important parts of
the CFL infrastructure and schemes in policy and practice. In recent years a key policy of
Hanban has been the promotion of joint-venture language centers abroad—the Confucius
Institutes (named after one of the most influential Chinese thinkers, Confucius)—and it plays
an important role in creating and overseeing CIs.

2.3 The new archetype for the 21st century

The 21st century is witnessing the Confucius Institute investing in, and opening, for the first
time in history, the opportunity for people outside of China—around the whole world since
its first appearance in 2004—to learn about Chinese language and culture. China’s policy
of CFL interplaying with China’s political foreign policy and economic interest, however,
appears as a different prototype. While Confucius Institutes can be found in most countries
of the world, they are distributed more densely in the countries of the advanced First World,
rather than the Third World or emerging economies (Zhao 2009). Currently, the USA has
the largest number for any single country, now 70. Comparatively large numbers are also
found in the UK (35), Japan, South Korea, Thailand, France, Germany, and Australia, as of
May 2009. The underlying implication that economic strength and partnership is the main
deciding factor seems clear. Nevertheless, it is certainly clear that no country will be left
without a CI, if an expression of interest in hosting a Confucius Institute is made.
A Confucius Institute is normally attached to an overseas university, and a link is made
with a similar university in China as a partner, for help and support in maintaining and pro-
moting Chinese language teaching and Chinese cultural programs. The overseas university
works with a Chinese partner university to put forward a proposal for a Confucius Institute
to the headquarters of CIs in Beijing, which is administered by Hanban. With the approval
from the headquarters of CIs, the headquarters at Hanban signs a standard contract with the
overseas university. Hanban provides start-up financial support, plus instructors and some
teaching resources. There is also the opportunity for host sites to apply for maintenance
financial support after the initial period of 3 years. The CI operates China’s policy of CFL
in offering Chinese language curriculum and associated cultural activities. The universities
in any country are the natural focus and resource for the effort to provide a higher level of
attainment in learning Chinese language and understanding Chinese culture. Hanban and the
overseas partners have also linked a few CIs at school level, which will be discussed further
later. However, the influence of the Confucius Institutes through the CFL curriculum needs
more study (Spence 2008).

3 Analysis of CFL policy and the curriculum offered by CIs

The headquarters—Hanban—oversees all the Confucius Institutes globally and continues to

respond to the increasing demand for more. It seems that now the time has come for Hanban
to fully develop and carry out China’s EFL policy through the CIs, which is expressed in
Hanban’s mission statement (2005), which states that Hanban will strive to provide Chinese
language and culture teaching resources and services to countries throughout the world, to

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satisfy as far as possible the needs of overseas learners of Chinese, and to contribute to coop-
eration in developing multiculturalism and working together to build a harmonious world.
This is profoundly reflected in the CFL curriculum through CIs. This analysis takes a close
look at the Hanban CFL curriculum offered by CIs with their partners across the globe and
opens up a discussion of the multiple implications of such development.

3.1 A multiple-media discourse analysis

This study is based on a research project sponsored by a “talents for research” scheme initi-
ated by Zhejiang Province, China, known as Qianjiang Rencai Jihua. The project intends to
provide a timely study on CFL policy and curriculum development, which is much needed
to inform those who are involved in CI development and/or those who are planning CFL
courses and research in this new area, as discussed above. Given the fact that CIs are located
around the globe and have just emerged across the world, they are still increasing; the method
of study and analysis thus follows a discourse analysis of data collected online.
Applied to this study, this method adopts a multiple-media discourse analysis of pub-
lished data, official documents, news reports, and individual stories, mainly obtained from
the Internet (Levine and Scollon 2004). The concept of discourse follows Gee’s notion of
“language-in-use” (2005, p. 5), and analysis of it acts as an interaction of language. There-
fore, the discourse analysis as a research approach in this paper does not take an “algorithmic
procedure” nor use “a set of rules” that can be followed step by linear step to obtain a guar-
anteed “result”; rather, it is used as a “thinking device” for this research (Gee 2005, p. 6).
This is important when applying this kind of analysis to discourse based on hyperlinks to
written text, photos, and video–audio messages. This involves constant visits to home pages,
including observation of the online communities of, for instance, Hanban and CIs for data
mining and collection, with regular searching of World Wide Web pages using key words
such as “Chinese language,” “Confucius Institute,” and “Chinese as a foreign language [with
and without the word] policy,” within the space of 1.5 years, up to the time of writing and
revision. The researchers have also followed links for textual documentation, pictures, and
video materials published by the CIs and the Chinese government, and relevant reports by
news agencies online. For example, the researchers have collected and studied the first three
Confucius Institutes Conferences, which are reported and hosted by the CI headquarters at
Hanban (2009c), and the China Central Television websites. Therefore, data for analysis also
draw on reports which contain multimedia, such as audio–video speeches of the officials at
these conferences, and articles from news agencies, such as Xinhua, People’s Daily Online,
the BBC, The Guardian, etc., most of which are accompanied by photos or graphics, taking
advantage of Internet technology.
The principle sources are the web sites and hyperlinks of Hanban, the Confucius Insti-
tutes headquarters, individuals, and Chinese teachers who have taken up posts with them,
whose blogs can be candid and open, and quite frank about their experiences. For example,
The Confucius Institute at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln has links to the home pages
of more than 100 Confucius Institutes around the globe. On each CI’s website, their mis-
sion statements, curriculum, courses, activities, and events are particularly good sources for
data.
Approximately speaking, it is feasible to divide the facts and opinions about Hanban,
Confucius Institutes, and CFL into those that come from government-supported bodies
and those from more independent sources, such as the press and individuals, as shown in
Table 1.

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Table 1 Data sources

Governmental reports Public voices Academic observations

e.g. e.g. e.g.

Hanban website Newspapers (e.g., The University-based Confucius
CI headquarter websites Guardian, the BBC, The Institutes websites,
China Today Independent, Edmonton University reports,
People’s Daily Online Globe and Mail, etc.) Academics’ opinions
Xinhua News Individual blogs, such as
Chinese teachers’ blogs and
stories

This data source frame is reassuring from the point of view that, apart from including
reports from the Confucius Institutes themselves, commentaries from journalists and aca-
demic observations are taken as evidence as well, so as not to be liable to a whitewash.

4 The result of the analysis

4.1 CFL curriculum interwoven with introducing Chinese culture and business

The analysis shows that the mission of Hanban stated above is well executed by the Con-
fucius Institutes across the globe. Almost all CIs are primarily committed to carrying out
the policy of providing Chinese language teaching and introducing Chinese culture, teacher
training, and Chinese language learning resources. The London Confucius Institute (2004
onward) opens its website with a statement echoing Hanban’s mission:

“The London Confucius Institute is a non profit making organization that aims to pro-
mote Chinese language learning and teaching and the understanding of the Chinese
culture in the United Kingdom. It also endeavours to facilitate research activities in the
above areas and cultural and education exchanges between Britain and China.”

The CFL curriculum, through the CIs, coordinates a structured approach to Chinese lan-
guage learning by targeting support and resources along the diachronic trajectory of a lan-
guage learner, starting from several points synchronically. For instance, the Chinese language
courses offered by the London Confucius Institute range from a beginner’s level to advanced
levels, while Chinese for special purposes, such as Chinese for lawyers and for business,
as well as a special spoken class for the Cantonese dialect, are also provided. The variety
also includes teacher training and HSK examination preparation courses. The Confucius
Institute at China Institutes in America specializes in CFL teacher training and professional
development tailored to CFL programs in K-12 classrooms.
Although the majority of CIs are tied to universities as addressed earlier, Hanban also pro-
motes CIs with schools that supply Chinese language programmes particularly aimed towards
younger people, the coming generation. The brightest children are the most motivated (e.g.,
Harding 2006; Guardian 2005). In this way China has a good audience which creates a grow-
ing market for the educational economy. In 2006, an independent school in the UK made
Chinese one of their compulsory subjects for study (BBC 2007). A total of 400–500 second-
ary schools in the UK offered Chinese as a foreign language; 1% of primary schools that
offer a foreign language are offering Chinese; 10–13% of all secondary schools in England

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provide some Mandarin teaching, as of 2007. The majority of these have high educational
achievement in general (Wang and Higgins 2008; The National Centre for Languages, UK
2007).
In the USA, the popularity of Chinese has been tremendously enhanced in recent years,
reflecting China’s emergence as a superpower in the 21st century. America has the largest
number of Confucius Institutes of any single country, at present (Zhao 2009). Chinese is
described as “an expanding field” and identified as a “critical language” (e.g., Wang 2007,
p. 36; Asia Society 2008), from educational policy to school language planning. Chinese
language is promoted as one of the world languages for implementation; within the Chi-
nese communities in the USA, Chinese is regarded as part of their heritage (Wang 2007).
In May 2006, the College Board of the USA signed a 5-year agreement with Hanban to
engage the two countries in a variety of activities in order to build capacity for and pro-
mote Chinese programmes (Wang, 2007, p. 38). A total of 1,000 schools in the USA offer
Chinese as a foreign language. Chicago is identified as the leader in the USA in teaching
Chinese language, with more than 12,000 students in 43 schools studying Chinese. Chi-
cago Public Schools have created the largest programme in the USA for Chinese teaching
and learning (People’s Daily Online 2009a). A survey indicates that “in 2006, at the higher
education level, there were 51,582 students learning Chinese, a 52 percent increase over
2002 (Asia Society 2008).” A total of 2,500 universities and colleges around the world
are offering Chinese, reaching 40 million learners outside of China (Wang and Higgins
2008).
According to Harding’s (2006) and Mahoney’s (2008) reports in the Edmonton Globe and
Mail, in Canada, Edmonton Public Schools performed very well in Chinese learning, and
the Edmonton school district is the first of its kind to host a Confucius Institute, when the
majority of CIs are in partnership with universities.

“Edmonton’s Mandarin program, which has 3,000 students from Grades 1 through 12,
began 26 years ago when the city’s Chinese immigrant community asked the board for
Chinese-language instruction for their children and grandchildren. Now, however, 15
per cent of pupils are from non-Chinese backgrounds. Students in the bilingual stream
spend up to half their days learning in Mandarin (Mahoney 2008).”

For the flow of students to reach university level, secondary schools will have a programme
of language learning, and similarly a suitable preparation for that stage will be found in the
primary schools which feed these secondary schools. The impetus for primary schools to
teach Mandarin should come from parents themselves, who will find their interest and enthu-
siasm encouraged and nurtured by a programme of publicly accessible information sites
and public cultural events. The current effort directed at adult learning will continue to be
supported, both in organized community courses and for individuals conducting their own
self-study. Whether for serious scholarship, from interest or just as an enjoyable hobby, a
suitable level will be available for any ability.
CFL teaching and learning is increasingly engaged with research in this field. Since its
establishment in 2004, the Confucius Institute (2009) has developed Chinese language teach-
ing and learning curricula and various activities. For example, in February 2009, the London
Confucius Institute held the UK–China Partners in Education Conference. Chicago Public
Schools have just held the USA’s second National Chinese Language Conference, founded
by the Asian Society.
Along the trajectory of the development of CFL curriculum and research through CIs into
teaching CFL are cultural courses, art events, and business demos. The CI for Scotland (2007

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onward) offers a series of cultural courses, one of which is calligraphy and Chinese brush
painting classes, accompanied with the activities of showing Chinese films as an experience
of and window into Chinese culture. The CI at the University of Western Australia (2005
onward) in partnership with Zhejiang University provides a number of cultural courses along
with courses of Chinese language and business:
• Tea appreciation
• An introduction of traditional Chinese painting
• An introduction to Chinese chess
• An introduction to Chinese calligraphy
This CI also provides training services for people to do business in China. One of the events
organized by the CI at the University of Melbourne under the theme of “How to profit in the
world’s fastest growing market—China” sheds some light on the variety of curricula that CIs
are offering.
It seems that, in the field of second- and foreign-language education, language and its cul-
ture are inseparable. This is widely researched in the case of English as a foreign language.
Almost all CIs are functioning as an important platform and bridge for people around the
world to have direct access to Chinese calligraphy, traditional Chinese music, festival cele-
brations, and Chinese philosophy, which are presented in the forms of courses, seminars, and
exhibitions, or combined all-in events. For instance, Miami University Confucius Institute
is coordinated with Liaoning Normal University. These two partner universities have just
cosponsored the China Week event (Hanban 2009b; Miami University 2009):
“The event created a wave of ‘China Craze’ on the campus and surrounding areas,
becoming one of the hottest topics this month…A variety of activities such as a Chi-
nese painting and calligraphy artwork exhibition, ‘Night of China’ concert, Chinese
skit competition, Chinese cultural lecture, showcase of traditional Chinese martial arts
and crafts and Chinese demonstration lessons were hosted at the event. As the insti-
tute’s Chinese partner, Liaoning Normal University sent a large delegation, led by the
school’s president, Qu Qingbiao. President Qu gave a lecture entitled ‘To be a happy
person following the law of love—a modern interpretation of ‘humanity’ in traditional
Chinese culture’.”
The newly established CIs are more specialized in certain areas; for example, the CI hosted
at London South Bank University is very proud to be the first CI specialized in traditional
Chinese medicine, initiating a degree for their students to major in acupuncture. Confucius
Institute at University of Minho in Portugal has put forward a lecture series on modern China,
which includes various topics concerning modern politics and economy of China, modern
China versus traditional Chinese thoughts, culture of Chinese enterprises, history of China’s
diplomacy, etc. All these lectures have given local Portuguese an opportunity to “talk” to
China.
The effect of such connections and introductions made between China and its overseas
partners have just commenced, and the influence of CIs falls in diverse dimensions.

4.2 Implications

With consolidation continuing to enable supply to catch up with demand, more solid and
evenly paced growth of Chinese as a foreign language and deeper understanding of Chinese
culture can be anticipated. Such has been the positive outcome that it can be heard that
Chinese may well displace English as the world’s lingua franca in the coming era (Guardian

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2005). Certainly, this will not occur in the foreseeable future, but the opinion that the Chinese
language and culture is an important element in the future unity of the world has been voiced
(e.g., Crystal 2003; Zhao 2009). With the expansion of Mandarin as a foreign language, in
a rapidly growing market, encountering different cultures, the Confucius Institute has also
encountered difficulties in developing further and is faced with challenges. This has a number
of implications for some issues facing CIs and the prosperous unity and harmony that CIs
may create for the future, as described below.

4.3 Three issues

The most immediate issue is the shortage of teachers and teaching materials for Chinese as
a foreign language; the style of curriculum requires adjustment to meet local culture (Zhao
2009). When Wang (2007, p.44) analyzes the case of Chinese in the USA, in a similar line,
the researcher reveals that a:

“…serious shortage is the lack of teacher trainers who can provide meaningful pedagog-
ical professional development for pre-service or practicing Chinese language teachers
at all levels. The Chinese teaching field must engage in professional dialogues within
and outside Chinese to conduct research and develop pedagogy, curriculum, material,
and computer adaptive or assisted learning systems”

The number of learners is projected to become 100 million by the year 2010, which requires
5 million teachers of Chinese as a foreign language, whereas only 2,000 teachers are available
from China (Wang 2007). Though Hanban has initiated a national volunteer scheme to meet
the increasing demand for teachers, the shortage of training schemes and qualified Chinese-
language teachers is also a major factor hindering Chinese language learning (Xinhua 2008;
People’s Daily Online 2004).
The increasing number of learners has resulted in demand for teaching materials. Well-
written textbooks are in great need. This is particularly the case when the language of the
host country is not English. In some countries there is nothing at all pre-existing in the host
language for teaching Chinese, and the teachers themselves must translate existing books
from other languages, or write completely new ones from scratch. Ms He Yi was honored
with the Confucius Institute Individual Performance Excellence Award at the third Annual
Confucius Institute Conference held at the end of 2008 (Confucius Institute Online 2009).
Her story tells why she is the only Confucius Institute teacher to receive this special honor:

“He Yi is an Associate Professor at Hebei University of Business and Economics’ Col-

lege of Humanities. In June 2007 she was sent by Hanban to the Confucius Institute
at Kathmandu University for a period of two years. As the first Chinese teacher in the
area, she has been actively involved in the planning, organization and execution of a
host of educational, cultural and advertising activities connected with the Confucius
Institute at Kathmandu University. During the first days of the Institute, she put heart
and soul into preparations for its unveiling ceremony, despite many and various dif-
ficulties; once established, He Yi successfully set up the Institute’s first beginner and
intermediate Chinese courses, teaching more than 400 students of differing age and
proficiency during the past year. Taking into account local conditions, she has per-
sonally authored curricula including Everyday Chinese, Tour Guide Information and
Getting to Know Nepal, etc.”

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Zhang Guoyou, vice president of Peking University, said, “Compiling teaching material
for people speaking different mother tongues should be on the top of the agenda” (Xinhua
2008). Confucius Institutes around the world are now expected to function as the base sup-
plying CFL curriculum resources, both human and material, and most importantly to provide
a network for CFL teachers for better practice and peer support.
More intangible and complicated is the choice of forms of Chinese language to teach
outside of China, which is always tied to deep emotion and identity for Chinese emigrants
from different regions of China, such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the mainland. The variety
of Chinese that should be taught has become a controversy that spills over to the grounds of
teaching Chinese as a foreign language (Wang 2007). With the increasing expansion and the
perceived economic utility of knowing Mandarin Putonghua, with simplified Chinese char-
acters, Mandarin is becoming the de facto lingua franca of the world’s Chinese communities
and in greater China (Li 2006). The impact of this on the emotions and identity of ethnic
Chinese from Hong Kong and Taiwan is simply enormous.
On top of the shortage of teachers and textbooks of teaching Mandarin, resistance and
cultural clashes encountered by CIs have also been reported:

Some critics view the institutes as mostly a vehicle for propaganda. An Indian online
business magazine reported in October that India had rejected China’s efforts to estab-
lish Confucius Institutes there. Others raising concerns about China’s motives include
members of the Swedish Riksdag and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (USA
Today 2009).

While the first two issues can be resolved with greater speed of teacher training and produc-
tion of teaching materials, the issue of cultural resistance requires more mutual understanding
and respect.

4.4 Unity and harmony of the world

On the whole, despite local difficulties in some countries, the CFL programme through CIs
has been significant, overwhelmingly so for some teachers. With consolidation continuing to
enable supply to catch up with demand, more solid and evenly paced growth can be antici-
pated. Although Chinese is the language that claims the largest number of users in the world,
it is mostly used within the Chinese community. Recently, China’s CFL policy has started to
change this situation through the Confucius Institutes. English has been firmly established as
the world’s lingua franca since World War II. There is still worldwide enthusiasm for being
able to communicate in English. A case in point is that, in China alone, about 200 million
students are learning English through their formal educational system and curriculum, and
many people are studying English on their own (Zhao 2008a,b). The educational infrastruc-
ture for teaching and learning English is in place. The point to make here is not to compare
which language is the lingua franca for the world but to point to the changing landscape of
a lingua franca for today’s world, and the implications for the future such as the impact of
current CFL policy on the world. Well-educated world citizens will not praise the dominance
of any one language, but will appreciate the diversity and harmony that growing phenomena
can bring to the world, which has heretofore been threatened by wars, terrorism, economic
crises, and religious conflicts, along with sporadic natural disasters. Any force or power that
can unite the world and turn it into a more harmonious place is welcomed.
The current wave of CIs blooming around the world provides people both inside and
outside China with not only the Chinese language but also the opportunity for access to

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the Chinese culture and its philosophical wisdom, for example, the teaching about unity
from Confucius. The Confucius Institute Online (2008), for instance, presents Confucian
philosophy with a portrait of Confucius, one of the greatest teachers in human history:

The Confucian world outlook is generally based on two questions: a person’s under-
standing about heaven, and people’s relationships with heaven. The significance of the
human being is highly valued—even as great as heaven and earth is with one’s own
efforts and creation. The emphasis of Confucianism is to explore the heavenly part of
human nature to follow the codes of universe.

The philosophy of the “middle way” advocated by Confucius more than 2,000 years ago,
continues to teach the world, through CIs’ language and cultural programs, to solve cur-
rent problems in a peaceful, mutually respectful, and pragmatic manner for a harmonious
relationship with society, families, and individuals (People’s Daily Online 2009b, Spence
2008).
The opinion that Chinese language and culture is an important element in the future unity
and harmony of the world has been voiced. The mission of Hanban (2005) is, as mentioned
earlier, through the provision of Chinese language and culture education, to “contribute
to cooperating in developing multiculturalism and working together to build a harmonious
world.” The reactions of partners of Confucius Institutes to Hanban’s mission call indicate
the new dynamics. All the home pages and the links available on the Internet state that CIs
make connections between countries, cultures, institutions, communities, and individuals.
The CI at The Hague campus of Leiden University in Holland, cooperating with Shandong
University in China, works to promote and integrate Chinese language and culture into the
different business and social contexts around the world. The Confucius Institute is stimulat-
ing interactions between The Netherlands and China by acting as a hub for communication
and networking between Dutch parties working with China (Confucius Institute The Hague
2007):

“As Holland continues to build its economic, cultural and social links with China, the
Institute will play a key role in helping make the most of the fast-emerging opportuni-
ties in China. Our primary role is to promote Chinese language and culture in Holland,
as a world-class centre for co-ordinating and enhancing China-related activities for
individuals, communities, institutions of education and business.”

Most CIs are building ties between China and their host communities and countries and
creating a sustainable, in-depth base of knowledge about China. China and the Chinese lan-
guage are making connections between different parts of the world, as well as serving their
local communities.

5 Conclusion

A central theme running throughout Chinese culture is the concept of harmony. The whole
tradition of Confucianism is about how to establish, or reestablish, harmony, during conflicts
and disorder. Confucius said “Harmony is something to be cherished.” For Confucianism,
harmony is the essence of the universe, and of human existence. It is more of an aspira-
tion than a feature of life in modern China. Nevertheless, it has an ever-present influence
on aspects of policy, from top to bottom in Chinese society. Thus the CIs must be seen to
“fit in” with the culture of the host country, and much effort goes into making a CI be seen

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as amenable to any reasonable demands put upon it by the host government. This is a new
manifestation and version of soft power generated by economic growth and the CFL policy
that influences and attracts people around the world (Nye 2004). However, the question is:
Is China and the Chinese language powerful enough to unite and harmonize the world?
Optimism abounds in the Confucius Institutes, and in the current climate of world eco-
nomic recovery, China continues to be in a prime position to spur world economic growth and
take on a leading role in the political and cultural world scene in the immediate future. Those
people who are now making the effort to learn about China and its language will be justifi-
ably pleased to receive the knowledge and insight they will be afforded regarding this most
important global player in the ever more interconnected world community. The conditions
and facilities available for learners of Chinese—throughout the entirety of history—have
never been better than they are right now, and they are going to improve further. In this sense,
Hanban and the Confucius Institutes have a role to play in networking CFL curriculum
worldwide and teaching about the philosophy of harmony, in the name of Confucius.

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