Comments on: What does the post-COVID-19 future hold for Confucius Institutes?

By: Competing Visions of the Global Promotion of Mandarin – Language on the Move

Mon, 17 Jul 2023 23:22:44 +0000

[…] Editor’s note: Language learning and teaching is rarely about language alone. Sometimes, it is about making a political statement and taking a soft power approach, as Jeffrey Gil and Minglei Wang explain in this introduction to the Taiwan Centre for Mandarin Learning (TCML), an organization that has recently emerged as a competitor to Confucius Institutes. […]

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sat, 11 Jul 2020 04:12:46 +0000

In reply to Robert Phillipson. Hi Robert, Thanks for reading and commenting on my post. I'm also thrilled to hear you referred to my book in your work The film "In the Name of Confucius" certainly raises some important issues about the Confucius Institutes and Classrooms. I was lucky enough to meet Anastasia Lin, the lead actress, at a screening in Adelaide at a couple of years ago. She's a very interesting person with a lot to say about the Chinese government. China recently announced responsibility for the Confucius Institutes and Classrooms would switch from Hanban to an NGO founded by universities and companies: https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1193584.shtml I'm not sure this will make any difference to how they're perceived, and expect they'll remain controversial for some time yet. Jeff..

By: Robert Phillipson

Robert Phillipson — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 14:50:01 +0000

This is important locally and internationally. I have referred to Jeffrey’s book in one article of mine, possibly more. I heard a vivid couple of lectures at the University of Lund a year or so ago, one by the woman who has made a film as referred to here:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/toronto-filmmaker-confucius-institute-doc-1.5478641

which is a vivid, shocking, one-hour film on the Toronto School Board being induced to close down the strong Confucius presence in schools. My institution, Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, has dropped its Confucius teaching.

By: Paul Desailly

Paul Desailly — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 10:13:35 +0000

How are you today Jeffrey? Well, I hope! I wonder, how are we all tomorrow! Today, whether in western democracies (inter alia think Brazil, Hungary, USA) or whether in the 5 communist states such as China, North Korea etc, avoiding in the former authoritarianism and in the latter despotism depends muchly on the supreme commander of the military or the dear leader in command of everything. Yesteryear’s horrendous lessons are like words written on water as WW3 looms. No political system is equipped for the global problems facing us. Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy and Tojo’s militarists all waved the flag of democracy and hauled it down with hypocrisy. Leaders rapt (sic) in the flag and waving the Bible scare the hell out of me as a parent of teenagers. The world is drawing nearer and nearer to a universal catastrophe which will mark the end of a bankrupt and of a fundamentally defective civilisation. WW1 resulted in the League of Nations, WW2 in the United Nations. The question becomes what will a mega confrontation, one that makes WW2 look like a foretaste of the devastation facing us in a conflict that no one can win, produce in its wake insofar as establishing a fair and truly representative world body for the one billion or so survivors? And who will want to speak there either of the languages of the primary belligerents if the same mistakes of the past are to be avoided? In every school left standing will we teach our kids Mandarin or their kids English? Welcome our grandchildren to WW4 with sticks and stones if you think either alternative is acceptable. Consider Googling fee and copyright free: PRESIDENTS TRUMP AND XI: TRADE OFF ON CORPORATE ENGLISH