A pedestrian passes by on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis on April 9, 2019. The university closed its Confucius Institute in 2019. Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
Hanban, an organization closely affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), established the Confucius Institute program in 2004. Ostensibly, the program was created to help promote the Chinese language and culture on a global scale.
Today, rather incredibly, there are 525 of these institutes in 146 different countries and regions. Accused of being little more than Trojan horses for the CCP, these institutes have garnered a notorious reputation. This explains why a number of countries have opted to close these CCP-backed institutes. Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, to name just three countries, have moved to completely remove their presence.
This, perhaps, explains why the CCP has established a new initiative—let’s call it the Confucius Institute program 2.0. As I show in this piece, there are plenty of reasons to believe that the new program will be every bit as dangerous as the original one.
Last year, in a piece for the South China Morning Post, Connor Mycroft discussed a new string of CCP-funded workshops that have popped up (and continue to pop up) around the world. The intriguing piece starts by discussing a vocational school in the Indonesian province of East Java, where automotive engineering and vehicle maintenance classes are taught. Meanwhile, in Setubal, Portugal, students can learn the ins and outs of automation technology and industrial robotics. Recently, a vocational school in the Central Asian country of Tajikistan began offering degrees in the field of urban thermal-energy planning.
What do these three places have in common? You guessed it; all three are closely associated with Chinese investment.
“Despite their subject variety and the vast distances between them,” Mycroft said, “all of these schools exist under the same educational umbrella stemming from the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin.”
Before reading this piece, you probably never heard of Luban Workshops. If so, don’t feel bad; you aren’t alone. Outside of China, these training centers have received very little coverage. Why is this the case? After all, since 2016, at least 25 Luban Workshops have opened in 23 different countries. Along with Indonesia and Portugal, other host countries include Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand, and even the United Kingdom.
In September 2022, Eurasianet published a piece discussing the rise of Luban Workshops and why these centers should be viewed as “the second stage” of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Created to institutionalize the CCP’s soft power presence, the BRI, an expansive (and expensive) infrastructure project that spans the globe, has 146 members. When a country signs on to become a member of the initiative, China then finds many ways to meddle in the host country’s politics, culture, and educational institutions. To sign a deal with Beijing is, in many ways, to sign away the keys to the house.
Laborers walk through the Gwadar Port in Pakistan on Oct. 4, 2017. China invested in this multibillion-dollar infrastructure project as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. Amelie Herenstein/AFP/Getty Images
It’s no surprise that Confucius Institutes are mostly found in countries that are members of the BRI. The same can be said for Luban Workshops. Confucius Institutes have been widely considered vehicles for various forms of espionage. Why should we expect anything different from these workshops? They should be viewed as new additions to Beijing’s soft power offensive.
Soft power is considerably cheaper—and arguably far more effective—than, say, the hard power of military force. The ability of the CCP to co-opt rather than coerce shouldn’t be underestimated. When one thinks of Chinese soft power, propaganda and censorship spring to mind. And when one thinks of propaganda and censorship, one inevitably thinks of the online world, where social media profiles are closely monitored, and fake news stories are promoted. However, one needn’t be located in the virtual world to experience Chinese propaganda and censorship firsthand.
Confucius Institutes aren’t just vehicles for espionage but also for disseminating false information and acts of intimidation. When it comes to CCP-endorsed endeavors, behind the images presented to the world, we must always strive to look at what’s really going on behind the scenes and what the real motives are. When the CCP says, “We’re here to help,” we must ask, “Help who, exactly?”
The CCP establishes these institutes and workshops to spread a false image of communist China. To do this, they suppress voices of reason, investigations of merit, and any political commentary that accurately portrays the brutality of the Chinese regime. This is what makes Luban Workshops so dangerous.
According to the aforementioned Eurasianet piece, compared to Confucius Institutes, which have received a great deal of scrutiny for obvious reasons, these workshops “are more practical” and less cumbersome to establish. Translation: They require less red tape and raise fewer alarms. As the piece noted, establishing something like a Confucius Institute “requires many levels of approval.”
“Compared with that,” it added, “a Luban Workshop is easier to build.” These workshops are easier to build largely because they’re so new. The world simply hasn’t had enough time or enough exposure to fully comprehend the potential threats posed.
However, now that we know they’re just another part of the CCP’s harmful BRI program, another string in Beijing’s soft power bow, it’s time to say no to these risky workshops.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
John Mac Ghlionn
Author
John Mac Ghlionn is a researcher and essayist. He covers psychology and social relations, and has a keen interest in social dysfunction and media manipulation. His work has been published by the New York Post, The Sydney Morning Herald, Newsweek, National Review, and The Spectator US, among others.
