The Confucius Institute partners with education institutions across the world to make Chinese language and culture more accessible, according to its website. However, the institute is under scrutiny for allegedly pushing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s political agenda.
Carleton University is still under contract with the Confucius Institute after it opened at the university in 2012.
In 2013, McMaster University cut ties with the Confucius Institute due to academic freedom concerns. In 2014, the Toronto District School Board did the same. Earlier this year, Brock University opted to not renew its contract.
A petition calling for Carleton to be transparent about the details of its relationship with the Confucius Institute was started in July. The petition organizer could not be reached for comment in time for publication.
Carleton’s Confucius Institute supports the university’s for-credit Chinese language courses, offers non-credit language courses, promotes cultural workshops and events, and helps fund the Ottawa Transpacific Orchestra.
Hanban, the office that oversees Confucius Institutes, contends it is an independent entity. However, organizations like Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and U.S. State Department have said they believe it has direct ties to the Chinese government.
Universities and schools often partner with similar cultural outreach programs from a variety of countries, such as the German Goethe Institute or the British Council.
Paul Evans, a University of British Columbia professor who specializes in teaching about Asian and trans-Pacific international relations, said Confucius Institutes are problematic because of the political approach they take to some of China’s most contentious issues.
Evans referenced the institute’s avoidance of Taiwan’s attempt at independence, the Tiananmen Square Massacre and Tibet’s disputed sovereignty as examples.
“You don’t see in their materials mention of that kind of thing,” Evans said.
Carleton’s institute—officially named the National Capital Confucius Institute for Culture, Language and Business—could not be reached for comment in time for publication.
However, Brenna Mackay, acting communications coordinator at Carleton, outlined the financial link between the university and the Confucius Institute.
“Revenue from the Confucius Institute funds a chair in history and two Chinese instructors, but does not contribute to core funding,” Mackay wrote in an email.
According to Mackay, all programming and hiring decisions are made by the department head and the dean.
Karl Roscoe is a second-year Carleton mathematics student who took the first half of his CHIN 1110 course, “Intensive First-Year Mandarin Chinese,” before dropping it to balance his workload. He said he had not encountered any controversial or propagandist material in the course.
The course textbook was not published by Hanban, Roscoe said.
Tiffany Wu is a second-year global business and digital arts student at the University of Waterloo, another Canadian university with a Confucius Institute partnership.
Wu said in the three Chinese language courses she has taken at Waterloo, she has not noticed any propaganda material. The textbook for her CHINA 202R course, New Practical Chinese Reader, was a text provided by Hanban, according to Wu.
In 2013, Canada’s primary national security and intelligence service, CSIS, released a report on China. It said universities associated with Confucius Institutes compromise the “independence from political interference that is important for independent academic activity to flourish.”
According to the report, Chinese leaders describe the Confucius Institute “as an organisation for spreading propaganda and building soft power.”
Soft power is the ability of one country to persuade other countries without the use of force.
Three of Hanban’s 16 council members were members of the CCP when the report was published, the report said.
Whether or not Confucius Institutes push propaganda, information on their practices and relationships with specific universities and school boards is scarce.
Evans said that while Confucius Institutes can offer important learning resources, information regarding funding, hiring and curriculum at Confucius Institutes needs to be accessible to the public.
“It’s no longer good enough for Confucius Institutes to just say, ‘Trust us,’” Evans said. “It’s an obligation to institutions that sponsor or host [Confucius Institutes] to be more than squeaky clean transparent. That’s the only way we’re going to be able to continue their work.”
