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Posts tagged as “Confucius Institute”

UO closes controversial Confucius Institute, after DoD pressure

4/30/2019 update: Now official, according to reporter Michael Tobin, in UO’s newspaper of record, here. Meanwhile the UO’s Twin Eden’s partnership with Gabon continues under the leadership of former Ambassador Eric Benjaminson – at least according to the official UO PR website here. 4/22/2019: Or at least that’s what the University…

Government Accountability Office visits UO on tour of Confucius Institutes

The GAO is basically Congress’s audit division. Congress asked them to look into the Chinese government supported Confucius Institutes. About 100 US colleges, including UO, have these. The GAO asked to meet with CI administrators and a selection of faculty. They also scheduled a 30 minute meeting with me, as…

Chinese students, and Chinese money, at American universities

The in-depth Washington Monthly article is here:

Colleges mostly see this as a win-win situation, solving budget woes and adding to the value of the school’s education at the same time. But with the impact of the boom still reverberating, pockets of dissent are emerging. In states like Washington and California, there are growing complaints that the influx of foreign students is crowding local students out of their own state schools. Meanwhile, at least some Chinese students are complaining that American universities exploit them by charging extra fees. It’s difficult to argue against the valuable opportunities for cultural exchange and public diplomacy that international education provides. But at the current scale, Chinese students have become so concentrated on some campuses that in many ways it’s as if they were attending separate schools within schools.

International students bring a lot of money into the United States, contributing roughly $22 billion to the U.S. economy in 2012, according to one estimate. Francisco Sánchez, the undersecretary for international trade at the Commerce Department, has said the U.S. has “no better export” than higher education, and Larry Summers, former secretary of the treasury and former Harvard president, lists “exporting higher education”—bringing more international students to American institutions—as a key part of his recommendations for economic growth.

I wonder where UO’s exports of undergraduate degrees would put us, on a ranking of Oregon’s most successful foreign trade industries?

And former UO professor Arif Dirlik sends this warning about the influence of Chinese money on academic studies of China, with regard to the Tianamen square demonstrations and the Chinese government sposored Confucius Institutes:

Tiananmen commemorations, June 4,1989—June 4, 2013

The Tiananmen Tragedy of June 1989 is significant not just for humanitarian but also for historical and political reasons. It is a humane obligation to recall those who lost their lives and those who continue to suffer under its shadow. Analysis of the forces that brought it about, and the forces that issued from it, requires confrontation of questions of crucial importance to understanding the PRC’s development over the last three decades–as well as of outsiders’ reaction to and entanglement with that development. A broad group of China scholars and other specialists involved in the study of the PRC is urging centers for China Studies (including the so-called Confucius Institutes) to use this occasion to discuss issues of democracy, human rights and social justice with reference to the PRC. These issues are pertinent to the contemporary world in general. They include especially issues of complicity in the perpetuation of human rights abuses of outsiders involved with oppressive regimes in some capacity or other that have been dramatized by the recent American Studies Association decision to boycott universities in Israel. Attached here are the statement, “We Will Not Forget June 4th,” with a list of signatories, and a draft copy of the letter being circulated to Confucius Institutes by Dr. Stephen Levine on their behalf. Further information may be found on the website, http://www.june4commemoration.org

Arif Dirlik, Independent scholar, Eugene, OR (Knight Professor of Social Science, UO, 2001-2006)

China, Tibet, Corvallis

I’ve posted a few things about the Chinese government’s use of on-campus Confucius Institutes to promote their political ends. It appears they’ve jumped the shark on this one though. From the RG: The Chinese government is pressuring the mayor of an Oregon college town [Corvallis] to order that a Taiwanese-American…

Sydney Confucius Institute sponsors talk criticizing Tibetan Buddhism

As reported in The Australian News. CI’s are cultural and language institutes located at universities worldwide, including UO. They are sponsored by the Chinese government, which also controls the content they provide. Tibet and the Dalai Lama are apparently not subjects for free discussion – Bloomberg report here. Thanks to an…

Confucius Institute at UO

3/8/2011 update: Richard Read of the Oregonian gets some amazing quotes on this, from the PSU CI head. 3/6/2011: The London School of Economics has thoroughly embarrassed itself with its ties to the Gaddafi regime. The world now knows you can buy an LSE PhD and whatever that brings in…