The twenty-first century is a "soft power" competition age, which is the consensus of all the countries in the world today. In this competition, China seems to have more adequate confidence in their culture comparing with other Asian countries. Throug...
The twenty-first century is a "soft power" competition age, which is the consensus of all the countries in the world today. In this competition, China seems to have more adequate confidence in their culture comparing with other Asian countries. Through the Confucius Institutes-the Chinese education "branch", the potential of the Chinese culture has been extended to the whole world. Through Confucianism-Chinese tradition culture representative, coordinating with the direction of the foreign policy of culture, by making flexible use of culture image, the sage Confucius, China spreads Chinese and Chinese culture to the whole world.
China promotes Chinese actively in order to make it to become a global language. Until March, 2009, China has set up a total of 316 Confucius Institutes in 81 countries. The rapid expansion of Confucius Institutes is not only catering for the worldwide “Chinese is hot”, but also to distribute Chinese "Putonghua" Education for the children of expatriates. Since beginning of the first Confucius Institute set up in South Korea in November 2004 to present’s target that to establish 500 Confucius Institutes until 2010, the development speed is so remarkable but it also caused some problems.
This aims to find the establishment background and reasons of Confucius Institutes, through analysis of the status quo that China revealed to study its development situation. In addition, in this , the great influence of Confucius Institutes in the world will also be analyzed, as well as the coming out new issues, so that to explore equivalent strategies to solve these problems and look into the future development of Confucius Institutes .
Now, Confucius Institutes are faced with the question that how to develop sustainably. The target of setting up 500 Confucius Institutes by 2010 is achievable, but also the institutes need to be built into solid culture media. Otherwise, oversea Confucius Institutes would not be able to keep up with the social development. Therefore, China must strengthen the language education, which the cultural exchange should include. Because only depending on the natural spread of the language is difficult to let the Confucius Institutes obtain the sustainable development. Confucius Institutes in Korea have some problems in this respect; moreover, the South Korean Confucius Institutes often forget to consider South Korea’s reality. Development of South Korean Confucius Institutes must compete with South Korea domestic Chinese classrooms, which can be very intense. In brief, Confucius Institutes cannot have any political purpose or expectation of commercial benefit, but they must make efforts on their all-round development diligently as well as unceasingly the improvement of Confucius brand.
Similar to the Confucius Institutes, Korean language and culture media - "Sejong Institute" should not only promote Korean to the overseas compatriots, but also it should introduce Korean language and Korean culture to the general foreigners. "Hallyu" is also facing new opportunities and challenges during its development. It needs the policy safeguard and the financial support in order to achieve the sustainable development in the 21st century's cultural competition.
The aim of this is to provide some methods and models for the countries who want to expand their diplomacy influence using their languages and cultural dissemination such as China, South Korea, Japan and Russia to overcome difficulties. Meanwhile, this will give some help to the sustainable development of Confucius Institute too.
|
