Confucius Institutes, the language and culture programs funded by the Chinese government, have been established in more than 1,500 schools worldwide since their debut in 2004. A centerpiece of China’s soft power policy, they represent an effort to smooth China’s path to superpower status by enhancing its global appeal. Yet Confucius Institutes have given rise to voluble and contentious public debate in host countries, where they have been both welcomed as a source of educational funding and feared as spy outposts, neocolonial incursions, and obstructions to academic freedom. China in the World turns an anthropological lens on this most visible, ubiquitous, and controversial globalization project in an effort to provide fresh insight into China’s shifting place in the world. Author Jennifer Hubbert takes the study of soft power policy into the classroom, offering an anthropological intervention into a subject that has been dominated by the methods and analyses of international relations and political science. She argues that concerns about Confucius Institutes reflect broader debates over globalization and modernity and ultimately about a changing global order. Examining the production of soft power policy in situ allows us to move beyond program intentions to see how Confucius Institutes are actually understood and experienced in day-to-day classroom interactions. By assessing the perspectives of participants and exploring the complex ways in which students, teachers, parents, and program administrators interpret the Confucius Institute curriculum, she highlights significant gaps between China’s soft power policy intentions and the effects of those policies in practice. China in the World brings original, long-term ethnographic research to bear on how representations of and knowledge about China are constructed, consumed, and articulated in encounters between China, the United States, and the Confucius Institute programs themselves. It moves a controversial topic beyond the realm of policy making to examine the mechanisms through which policy is implemented, engaged, and contested by a multitude of stakeholders and actors. It provides new insight into how policy actually works, showing that it takes more than financial wherewithal and official resolve to turn cultural presence into power.

Drawing on reports in the media and conversations, the author shows that the Confucius Institutes are a threat to the principles of academic freedom and integrity at the foundation of our system of higher education

This book presents the first comprehensive analysis of Confucius Institutes (CIs), situating them as a tool of public diplomacy in the broader context of China’s foreign affairs. The study establishes the concept of public diplomacy as the theoretical framework for analysing CIs. By applying this frame to in-depth case studies of CIs in Europe and Oceania, it provides in-depth knowledge of the structure and organisation of CIs, their activities and audiences, as well as problems, challenges and potentials. In addition to examining CIs as the most prominent and most controversial tool of China’s charm offensive, this book also explains what the structural configuration of these institutes can tell us about China’s understanding of and approaches towards public diplomacy. The study demonstrates that, in contrast to their international counterparts, CIs are normally organised as joint ventures between international and Chinese partners in the field of education or cultural exchange. From this unique setting a more fundamental observation can be made, namely China’s willingness to engage and cooperate with foreigners in the context of public diplomacy. Overall, the author argues that by utilizing the current global fascination with Chinese language and culture, the Chinese government has found interested and willing international partners to co-finance the CIs and thus partially fund China’s international charm offensive. This book will be of much interest to students of public diplomacy, Chinese politics, foreign policy and international relations in general.

From Missionary Education to Confucius Institutes examines the history and globalization of cultural exchange between the United States and China and corrects many myths surrounding the incompatibility of American and Chinese cultures in the higher education sphere. Providing a fresh look at the role of non-state actors in advancing Sino-American cross-cultural knowledge exchange, the book presents empirical studies highlighting the diverse experiences and practices involved. Case studies include the U.S.-initiated missionary education in modern China, the involvement of private foundations and professional associations in education, the impact of Chinese and American laws on student exchanges, and the evaluation of the experience of U.S. Confucius Institutes. This book will appeal to students and scholars of U.S. and Chinese higher education from the past to the present, as well as international admission officers and university executives who are concerned about the global educational partnership with China and questions around the internationalization of education more broadly.

‘The Confucius Institute Project’ – consisting of Confucius Institutes and Classrooms, the posting of Chinese language teachers to overseas schools and universities and the Chinese Bridge language competition – represents an attempt by China to extend its influence globally through the use of soft power. Facilitated by a rapidly increasing demand for Chinese language learning, it has established a presence across the globe and made valuable contributions to the learning and teaching of Chinese. However, this has not necessarily led to an increasingly positive view of China, either at a political or a societal level. Through an analysis of official documents, interviews with those involved, a survey of Chinese-language learners and a study of academic and media sources, the author evaluates the aims of the project, and discusses whether these aims are being met.

This book provides a comprehensive account of language management and planning at Confucius Institutes in the UK, implementing an ethnographic approach grounded in language management theory. As a global language promotion organization, Confucius Institutes have previously been discussed in the literature with respect to socio-political issues, but this volume will shed particular light on their role in shaping and informing Chinese language policy, at both the institutional and individual classroom level. The book focuses specifically on Confucius Institutes in the UK, demonstrating how language teaching practice in these organizations is informed and shaped not only by organizational paradigms but local language needs and institutional attitudes of host institutions. In turn, Li highlights these organizations’ unique position in a multilingual region such as the UK can offer new insights into language management by illustrating their roles as platforms for both individuals and institutions to become involved in the making and implementation of language policy. This volume will be of particular interest to students and researchers in language policy and planning, language education, applied linguistics, and Chinese linguistics.

This book examines China’s contemporary global cultural footprints through its recent development of cultural diplomacy. The volume presents an alternative analytical framework to examine China’s cultural diplomacy, which goes beyond the Western-defined concept of ‘soft power’ that prevails in the current literature. This new approach constructs a three-dimensional framework on Orientalism, cultural hegemony and nationalism to decipher the multiple contexts, which China inhabits historically, internationally and domestically. The book presents multiple case studies of the Confucius Institute, and compares the global programme located around the world with its Western counterparts, and also with other Chinese government-sponsored endeavours and non-government-initiated programmes. The author aims to solve the puzzle of why China’s efforts in cultural diplomacy are perceived differently around the world and helps to outline the distinctive features of China’s cultural diplomacy. This book will be of much interest to students of diplomacy, Chinese politics, foreign policy and International Relations in general.

If China seems unstoppable, so too does its leader Xi Jinping. As General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and President of China, he commands over 1.4 billion people, in a vast country that spans the prosperous megacities of Beijing and Shanghai and desperately poor rural regions where families still struggle with malnutrition. Today, Xi Jinping faces a series of monumental challenges that would make other global leaders tremble: a trade war with the USA, political unrest in Hong Kong, accusations of genocide in Xinjiang, stuttering economic growth and a devastating global pandemic that originated inside China. But who is Xi Jinping and what does he really want? To rejuvenate China and bring economic prosperity to all its people? To challenge American supremacy and turn China into the world’s dominant power? Avoiding both sycophantic flattery and outright condemnation, this new biography by Stefan Aust and Adrian Geiges gets inside the head of one of the world’s most mysterious leaders. Skilfully unravelling the hidden story of Xi Jinping’s life and career, from his early childhood to his rise to the pinnacles of the Party and the State, they flesh out his views and uncover how he became the most powerful man in the world. This biography of China’s leader will be indispensable for anyone interested in China and where it is heading.

This book explores the effectiveness of the Chinese government’s recent public diplomacy efforts aimed at building its national image, and how these efforts may influence foreign public's view of China. Based on in-depth interviews, media-content analysis and public opinion-poll data, the book discusses Chinese leaders’ foreign visits, Chinese media’s overseas expansion, Confucius institutes, global mega events, and Chinese government’s new policies to attract foreign students, providing not only background information, but also insights from scholars and experts. Although intended mainly for students majoring in communications, Chinese studies, public relations and international relations, it is also of interest to anyone studying China or public diplomacy.

China’s investment in U.S. higher education has raised considerable debate, but little research has been directed to the manner in which this investment unfolds and takes shape on the ground in local contexts. Confucius and Crisis in American Universities fills this gap by closely investigating how Chinese-funded U.S. programs are understood and configured in the modern American university. Drawing on interviews with Chinese teachers and their American students, as well as conversations with university administrators, this book argues that Chinese investment in American higher education serves as a broad form of global policy, harnessing the power of intercultural exchange as a means of managing international diplomatic relations through the experiences of university students. A transnational study, Confucius and Crisis in American Universities questions and reframes conventional notions of economic globalization and flexible citizenship, demonstrating how Chinese investment in U.S. education advances the lives of the already-privileged by creating access to overseas labor and markets, but to the exclusion of middle- and working-class students. A valuable and timely resource for scholars of education and anthropology, this book will also be useful to anyone interested in education policy or international affairs.