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Fearing China’s Soft Power

NTV news looks at how Chinese “soft power” is spreading in the United States:

As the report explains, China is “not just seeking territorial expansion,” it is seeking cultural and ideological influence across the world. Examples shown include a Chinese English language media outlet opening an office in downtown New York and the funding of Chinese language/culture education programs.

We are shown an example of a public school in Oklahoma that has a Chinese language class that is funded by the Chinese government. The Japanese reporter looks on in awe as the students practice tai chi. It is an example of some 3,000 such programs the Chinese government has funded across the world. This includes 12 “Confucius Institutes” in Japan.

There are some people who are fighting back against China’s soft power offensive. Concerned Americans are shown speaking out against a PRC-funded “brain-washing” in California public schools.

A Waseda University professor tells NTV that China will keep pushing these programs because it wants to convince the rest of the world that it’s way of doing things, as opposed to the “Western” way of doing things, has value.

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22 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - November 6, 2010 at 10:42 am

Categories: Politics Tags:

Michael

Do those Confucius Institutes have spitting on the sidewalk lessons?

Mr. USA

Yes, they also offer driving lessons.

Rob A

I can’t help but be reminded of the Chinpokomon episode of South Park.

jamesmallon

Ohh… My (Japanese) wife was pissed at me for days for laughing so hard at that ‘little-penis-man’ episode!

Hal

While I hate how hypocritical and ignorant China is being lately (with a certain boat incident), I can’t help but think this is a bit of paranoia. So a country wants to expand its cultural knowledge globally. Doesn’t Japan already do this too, as well as many nations?

flowby

Japan in the 80′s & 90′s.

Actively spread the word. Threw money around like there was no tomorrow.

I know – it’s how my friend came to be here and I then followed.

He was luckier – he got A$30,000 from THE FOUNDATION to “learn about Japan” – no strings attached. He was sposed to write a report about tourism possibilities after his 2yr sojourn, but he never did. He spent all the money after 6 months and then he had to get a job.

I turned down a seperate all expenses paid short study program (3 weeks) because i felt guilty getting the money coming from a rich country and the scheme was in principle for people from developing countries.

Bigger fool me – eh!

This China fear is all turning into a great thriller – “The Anguish that ate Japan”.

Get a Grip i say.

Fat Tony

This is unfortunate xenophobic bullshit. Understandable perhaps, but bullshit nonetheless. The educators who work with the hanban program, as well as university profs connected to the Confucius institute are generally adamant that there is no political component to the courses. They tend to say that if the Chinese partners tried to use the course as an overt propaganda tool, they would just walk away. So big deal. People are learning Chinese. We should probably have faith that American and Japanese children aren’t going to become attracted to communism and human rights abuses just because they learn a bit of Chinese and do some Tai-chi.

Parenthetically, and misogynistically, having a teacher like that give you Tai-chi lessons isn’t a great advertisement for the sport either.
steve

So what. Every country does this.
Voice of America.
Alliance Francais etc

jamesmallon

God knows it worked for Israel (note ‘Israel’, not Jews: one is not equivalent to the other).

Robin

You can’t criticize Israel as that automatically makes you a nazi!!!

ABC

I find this rather interesting considering Japan is doing the exact same thing, and in fact for even longer.
One of the examples I can think of is the recent announcement of the “Cool Japan” campaign by the Japanese Government. Various organizations such as METI has been engaging in it through hosting events.
There are also lots of academic books that discuss the power of Japan’s soft power, such as Network Power: Japan and Asia, by P. Katzenstein and T. Shiraishi, and Feeling Asian Modernities: Transnational Consumption of Japanese TV Drama, by K. Iwabuchi. These books mainly focused on stuffs like TV drama, animation etc. Certain chapters focused on Japan’s soft power influence over its Asian neighbors during 1990s.
I don’t understand why people are so against spread of cultures of some emerging economic powers – considering everyone is doing the same thing.

http://japantrainblog.wordpress.com/ European

Might it not be a problem when American schools are being sponsord by a totalitarian economy?

ij487i

Simply ridiculous fear mongering from the Japanese media. They even had to include that McCarthy-esque “spread of Communism” visual with the giant arrows of doom. China’s
“soft power invasion”…gimme a f’in break.

There are Spanish, German, even Russian language classes offered in public schools. Why no
mention of the threat of European or Russian soft power projection? What about Japan’s soft power? Japanese learning institutes?

Practicing Tai Chi and Chinese culture in a Chinese culture and language class doesn’t seem all that strange. Unless the lesson plan includes heavy reading of Questions from Chairman Mao, learning how to say “hello” and “how are you” in Chinese won’t turn students into Communist sympathizers.

Don’t see how this cheap sensationalism is news. Coming from NTV, though, I’m not surprised. Add in the tenuous connection to the ongoing Senkaku spat and you have Japanese media hypocrisy at its finest.

TofuUnion

Can you say the same thing if China is in fact becoming the biggest economy followed by the US in 30 years ?

oscar

if this is “brainwash” How about “Alliance France” in every country(a global school by French gov where I studied French), those language schools teach language, should people connect them with politics? It is just culture communication. How about I am a fan of Japanese animation/manga for 20 years and hope to study Japanese one day, Am I brainwashed?
LM Shea

Exactly, the French teach classroom French around the world.

The Japanese do it to themselves by bringing English teachers to Japan.

They might have been better off sending Japanese teachers to America.

I applaud American students learning Chinese. After all:

不知彼，不知己，每戰必殆 (孫子)

(If you don’t know yourself and if you don’t know your enemy,
then you are in for a world of hurt!)
DM

The Confucius Institute is actually modelled after the Goethe-Institut. Oh no, China is learning from (former) Nazis? Japan has Japanese Association. France has Alliance Française. The only reason why the USA doesn’t have something similar is probably because it has no real monoculture to promote, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but doesn’t really mean anything either.

MEXT sponsors foreign undergrad students to study for free in Japan through Monbukagakusho. This is clearly indoctrination…?

If you want to look at things this way, this blog can probably more than qualify as a source of pro-Japanese propaganda seeking to change the West’s perceptions of an East Asian country and culture that it has little understanding of. Scary huh.
hioihoi

school teachers will be invited to China..
they get something like honey trap.,,,

jamesmallon

I don’t think we school teachers are worth bothering with a ‘honey trap’: well above our pay-grade. Perhaps the idea is to copy what Japan did with JET, et al. There is a problem with this, that my own experience illustrates: I wanted to learn both Japanese and Chinese, and spent a month in both countries between university years. I did not find China appealing enough to EVER return to, but I did return to Japan, and continued my Japanese language studies. There are problems with both countries, and my own point of view is embedded in being a white Anglo-Canadian, so I won’t belabour my comment with a point-by-point comparison of China and Japan; however, not a few people of a N.American background are going to come to the same conclusion, right or wrong.

http://www.chirimotsumoreba.net Jordan

I see nothing wrong with this.
Concerned Filipino

Japan has the Japan Information and Culture Center (JICC), and the Japan Foundation. The Japanese Studies program at my university works closely with those two organizations.

And as already mentioned, France has Alliance Francaise, Germany has the Goethe-Institut, and Spain has Instituto Cervantes. The US doesn’t really have an organization like those, but then again, parts of American culture already have worldwide penetration anyway.

But when China does it, it’s a problem?

jamesmallon

“But when China does it, it’s a problem?”

Yes, as they are also buying politicians in N.America. In fact, the head of CSIS (Canada’s wee spy agency) publicly declared that they are monitoring these activities. Probably said to put the fear of god into our politicians, who as politicians cannot be relied upon to have conscience, unless narcissistic sociopathy counts as one.

Fearing China’s Soft Power

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