“Tell your students about China’s high-speed railway. Describe to them how fast, convenient, and advanced it is.”
“Don’t discuss Taiwan and Tibet with your students. If they ask, say there is only one China, and Taiwan is part of China. If they ask more, try to change the subject.”
These were some of the things that former teachers Mike Chen and Sonia Zhao say they were told in training sessions in China before they were sent to teach Mandarin at one of the hundreds of Confucius Institutes (CIs) that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has set up internationally.
“We were told of this noble mission of reviving China on the world stage, and we were made to feel it was our calling to spread the Chinese culture and promote the positive images of China to the external world,” said Chen (a pseudonym), who spoke to The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity.
CIs are marketed to universities as academic centers for learning Chinese language and culture. As Beijing provides a significant portion of the funding and pays the salaries of teaching staff, CIs have quickly established a presence on the campuses of more than 540 universities in more than 100 countries since the program began in 2004, according to figures released by Hanban, the government agency affiliated with the Ministry of Education that oversees the CI program.
Trained to Promote the CCP
All language instructors hired by CIs are mandated to spend six to eight weeks at an all-expenses-paid residential training camp in China, where attendees learn how to promote a positive image of China, Chen said.Prior to the coaching sessions, Chen and other attendees were taken to visit some of China’s renowned tourist sites, such as the Great Wall of China, as well as historical sites and museums that displayed China’s “glorious” history and achievements of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the past few decades. These events weren’t meant to be ice-breaker trips for the trainees, but to instill in them a sense of nationalism and loyalty to the Party, he said.
“Most of us were young, many fresh out of university. With all expenses paid for including the sightseeing, and with the prospect of working abroad with a dream salary, we were all in a great mood, and happily took in everything we were told,” Chen said.
“The activities, the settings, and discussion invoked a strong sense of pride in us that China was turning into the greatest country on earth.”
Chen marveled at how many renowned lecturers and professors were brought in to coach them.
“I only knew their names from textbooks previously,” he said.
According to Zhao, during their training, they were taught that if a student insists on asking a question, the teachers must toe the CCP line on the issue, such as: Taiwan is part of China, and Tibet has been “liberated” by the regime.
Once established, CIs became platforms for further spreading the CCP’s narrative.
‘Correct’ Political Orientation Ensured
Chen, like all other coaching participants, was put through a vetting process to ensure his political orientation was aligned with the regime.Every applicant for a teaching position is required to submit at least one reference from his or her university or current employer, he said.
“If you do not hold the correct thinking by their standards, your application will not be accepted,” Chen said.
In a template reference letter obtained by The Epoch Times that was issued by Xiamen University, an assessment of the applicant’s “political thought” is listed as the first recommended item to include on the form, ahead of “teaching ability” and “physical and mental health.”
Furthermore, two signoffs are required, with the first-level approval coming from the branch head of the CCP where the applicant is currently studying or working. All state-backed or large enterprises, including schools in China, have a Communist Party presence built into their organizations to ensure political adherence.
Xiamen University is one of the main partner universities working for Hanban to train and recruit teaching staff for 15 Confucius Institutes and 46 Confucius Classrooms. In the UK, Xiamen is the partner university of CIs at Newcastle University, Cardiff University, and the University of Southampton.
Zhao also went through the highly politicized and discriminatory hiring process.
Before her assignment to teach Mandarin at a CI at McMaster University in Canada, Zhao had to sign a contract stipulating that staff members can’t do anything that isn’t to the liking of the CCP, and explicitly stating that they can’t practice Falun Gong.
Zhao and her mother had been quietly practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual group persecuted in China since 1999. Because of the fear of being arrested and detained, as her mother had been, she concealed her faith and signed the contract against her conscience.
More recently, direct references to dissident groups such as Falun Gong and Free Tibet have been removed from contracts, Chen says, possibly due to increasing international scrutiny. Instead, there are now more generic clauses prohibiting CI teachers from attending “events not approved by the Institute.”
“We all understand what that means,” Chen said. He doesn’t believe the different wording reflects a change in attitude.
Heavy-Handed Investment
While officially under the Ministry of Education, Hanban’s governing council is chaired by Sun Chunlan, a vice premier and member of the powerful Politburo. From 2014 to 2017, Sun led the United Front Work Department, which runs a massive influence operation inside and outside of China, reporting directly to the Party’s Central Committee.Unlike other language and cultural centers, such as the British Council or Alliance Française, CIs are integrated into their host universities, making it much easier and more efficient to influence academic discourse on campus.
Beijing spends hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars every year to maintain the CIs and build more.
CI teachers are paid exceptionally well by Chinese standards.
A public recruitment announcement for CI teaching positions showed that the lowest pay starts at $1,500 a month for a teaching assistant position, plus an annual bonus and various perks such as subsidies for relocation, commuting, and flat rental.
According to Chen, the entry-level pay at a CI for someone with limited or no experience is similar to the level of income of an associate professor in China, who would hold a doctoral degree and have up to 10 years of experience teaching undergraduate courses.