Inside Higher Ed
By Marshall Sahlins
July 26, 2018
There are presently upward of 100 Confucius Institutes embedded in American colleges and universities, and many more Confucius classrooms in American K-12 schools. Funded by the Chinese government, their activities commonly include courses in Chinese language and culture taught by personnel likewise supplied by the People’s Republic.
Although Hanban, the Beijing headquarters of the Confucius Institutes, commonly advertises itself as a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Ministry of Education, the instructional activities of which are devoted to promoting a harmonious multicultural world order, this is a benign disguise. Hanban is in fact controlled by high officials of the Chinese party-state implementing the policies of the PRC propaganda apparatus. The governing council of Hanban, which annually sets its agenda, has long been headed by a member of the Politburo. A number of its ranking officials, beside their high status in such ministries as foreign affairs, finance and national development, are members of so-called small leading groups of the Party’s propaganda and ideology sections -- which thus function as conduits for the realization of Politburo policies in the operations of Confucius Institutes. And insofar as Confucius Institutes and classrooms are installed in colleges and K-12 schools the world around, these educational institutions function as peripheral propaganda branches of the Chinese party-state.
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