Universities Sever Ties with the Confucius Institute

By Aria Urdaneta / November 11, 2014;

Protest outside the Toronto District School Board Headquarters
Photo: Totonto Star/Carlos Osorio

Toronto District School Board (TDSB) has ended ties with Confucius Institutes, a Chinese government funded after school programme that promotes Chinese culture to students ranging from primary school age to university level.

The Canadian branch of Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) has been at the forefront of a protest against the involvement of Confucius Institutes in Toronto school districts. “The Confucius Institute is anti-democratic, it’s anti-Tibet, it’s under direct control of China’s authoritarian government and has no place in our classrooms,” said Urgyen Badheytsang, Canadian Director of Students for a Free Tibet. SFT led a protest outside the building where the TDSB were making the decision on their future involvement with the Confucius Institute there.

20 out of 22 of the Toronto District School Board trustees voted to terminate the partnership with Confucius Institutes. Pamela Gough, a TDSB trustee, voiced: “My concern is that the Confucius Institute is directly controlled by the Communist Party of China, and there is irrefutable evidence that the party exerts its influence through [the institute]”. She added, “we have to resist with all our might.”

Xu Lin, Chief Executive of the Confucius Institute worldwide, has been described by the Wall Street Journal as having a “bullying approach to academic freedom”. She has caused two international scandals this year. In July, she ordered her staff to rip pages referring to Taiwanese academic institutions from the published programme for the European Association for Chinese Studies conference in Portugal, claiming the materials were “contrary to Chinese regulations”. The University of Chicago has suspended negotiations to renew their five year partnership after a dispute involving Xu Lin in September, blaming Xu’s comments that her threatening letter and phone call forced the university to continue hosting the institute

Protesters
Photo: SFT

There are 480 Confucius Institutes worldwide. More and more schools are cutting ties with the institutes. “I think any new Confucius Institutes that will be opened will be subject to more scrutiny and lead to the same kind of popular response,” voiced a professor from Brock University. “The discourse is that they are a negative, and aren’t of benefit to the recipient.” The American Association of University professors called for other universities to immediately terminate their partnerships, speculating that Confucius Institutes have no room for academic freedom in their curriculum, which is contradictory to Western ideals of free speech.

The refusal of the Toronto District School Board to allow Confucius Institutes into their classrooms and after school programmes marks a considerable achievement for SFT. SFT has pledged to continue raising awareness of the issue.