【今日美国0104】中国孔子学院在美国引起担忧

花落无声

【中文标题】中国孔子学院在美国引起担忧

【原文标题】Chinese-funded institutes raise concerns on U.S. campuses

【登载媒体】今日美国

【来源地址】http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-01-04/chinese-funded-institutes-us-colleges/52378280/1

【译者】花落无声

【翻译方式】人工

【声明】欢迎转载，请务必注明译者和出处 bbs.m4.cn。

【原文库链接】http://bbs.m4.cn/thread-3278524-1-1.html

【译文】
Confucius Institute at North Carolina State University
At North Carolina State University, the Confucius Institute offers non-credit language and cooking classes for local residents, as well as Chinese conversation.
北卡罗来纳州州立大学孔子学院
在北卡罗拉纳州州立大学，孔子学院向当地居民提供不授予学分的语言和烹饪课程，以及中文对话。


More than 300 colleges in more than 90 countries -- including about 70 institutions in the United States -- host Confucius Institutes, centers of Chinese language and culture education and research funded by China's government. The infusion of Chinese government funding into international universities has enabled significant expansions in language teaching, cultural programming, and China-related conferences and symposia, but it has also raised fears regarding academic freedom and independence of teaching and research. Critics have questioned why colleges would provide their imprimatur to institutes that have been described by Li Changchun, China's propaganda chief, as "an important part of China's overseas propaganda setup."

超过90个国家的300多所大学——包括美国的70多所学校——都开设有孔子学院，它是由中国政府赞助的中国语言及文化教育和研究中心。中国政府对国际大学的资金投入已经使语言教学、文化交流以及有关中国的会议和座谈会取得了很大的扩展，但同时也引起了对学术自由和教育与研究独立方面的担忧。批评者质疑过大学为什么要认可一个被李长春——中国的宣传部长——称为“中国海外宣传的重要部分”的机构。


"If we had a U.S. government agency that was stating that it was a tool for U.S. government propaganda, my colleagues would be up in arms about having a center like that on campus," said Anne-Marie Brady, associate professor of political science at the University of Canterbury, in New Zealand. Brady, the editor of the recent volume, China's Thought Management (Routledge, 2011), said the space for criticism and inquiry at overseas Confucius Institutes is similar to that which Chinese citizens navigate: "They've got a lot of space, but the same kind of space that people have in China, which is that there are always no-go zones, and the no-go zones are obvious: Tibet, Taiwan, Falun Gong. And academia does not have no-go zones."

“如果有一个美国政府机构声明某个中心是美国政府的宣传工具，我的同事们早会竭力反对在校园里成立它了。”新西兰的坎特伯雷大学政治科学系副教授Anne-Marie Brady说道。Brady说，在海外的孔子学院中给予批评和疑问的空间和给中国公民的一样：“他们有很多空间，然而是和在中国的人们的空间一样的那种：总有禁区。很明显的禁区是西藏、台湾、法轮功。但学术界没有禁区。”

Other scholars, however, describe the fears regarding Confucius Institutes as, in their experiences, unfounded. "We've not ever had the experience of anybody telling us, 'Oh, don't talk about that,' or, 'This is a sensitive topic, avoid that,' and our position all along has been the minute that anybody does, we're done," said Ken Hammond, a professor of history and co-director of the Confucius Institute at New Mexico State University - which has hosted speakers who have addressed such topics as the history of Tibet and the Nationalist evacuation to Taiwan in 1949. "I wouldn't carry on a program where those constraints were placed upon me. That's not what I do. That's not why I got into this."

然而其他学者说对于孔子学院的担忧是毫无根据的。“从来没人告诉我们‘哦，别讨论这个’或者‘这是个敏感话题，别提这个’。”Ken Hammond说，他是新墨西哥州州立大学历史系教授和孔子学院主任。他请过的演讲者曾经讲过西藏历史和1949年国民党逃往台湾这类的话题。


Outreach and Language
The first Confucius Institute in the United States was founded in 2004 at the University of Maryland at College Park. The expansion since then has been rapid: Columbia and Stanford Universities have Confucius Institutes, as do the Universities of Chicago and Michigan. Among the public universities with Confucius Institutes are the Universities of Alaska at Anchorage, Delaware, Hawaii at Manoa, Kansas, Massachusetts at Boston, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Texas at Dallas, Toledo, and Utah, as well as Middle Tennessee, Portland, Kennesaw, San Francisco, and Wayne State Universities. The State University of New York at Binghamton has a Confucius Institute dedicated to promoting Chinese opera. Some of the institutes are at universities with extensive programs and academic strength in Chinese studies, while others are not.

对外延伸和语言
美国的第一个孔子学院在2004年于马里兰大学帕克分校成立。在这之后扩张十分迅速：哥伦比亚大学、斯坦福大学、芝加哥大学和密歇根大学都有了孔子学院。纽约州州立大学有一家致力于宣传京剧的孔子学院。

The Confucius Institutes are run in cooperation with Chinese partner universities and overseen by Hanban, a Chinese Ministry of Education subsidiary. Typically, host universities receive a yearly appropriation from Hanban -- in the range of $100,000 to $150,000 -- and Hanban also pays the salaries and travel costs for visiting Chinese instructors who staff the institutes. Hanban creates its own teaching materials.

这些孔子学院和中国的伙伴学校合办，由汉办监督。一般来说，大学每年从汉办拿到100000美元到150000美元的经费。汉办编写自己的教材。


The majority of Confucius Institutes focus primarily on language teaching and public outreach and programming. At New Mexico State, for example, the Confucius Institute is involved with outreach to local K-12 schools. The institute serves as a hub for 15 Chinese instructors - all of whom are funded by Hanban - who are teaching at nearby elementary, middle and high schools. The institute has also hosted conferences on the China-Mexico relationship and China in Africa. "New Mexico's a poor state," said Hammond. "There's not a lot of spare cash sloshing around here but we've been able to do things academically in terms of programming and involvement with the public schools that we never would have been able to do without this."

孔子学院大部分都主要教授语言。比如说，在墨西哥州，孔子学院可以教从幼儿园到12年级的学生。学院也开办中墨关系和中国在非洲研讨会。“墨西哥州很穷，如果没有这些东西我们可能永远也没有机会办成这些。”（节选）Hammond说。

At North Carolina State University, the Confucius Institute offers non-credit language and cooking classes for local residents, as well as a one-credit Chinese conversation course, intended to supplement the foreign language department's offerings. The institute oversees three language teaching outposts, "Confucius Classrooms," at Central Carolina Community College, Saint Augustine's College, and Enloe High School, in Raleigh. Additionally, the Confucius Institute organized a professional association for North Carolina Chinese teachers and has worked with the College of Education at North Carolina State to develop a licensure program for teaching Chinese.

在北卡莱罗纳州，孔子学院向当地人民开设不给学分的语言和烹饪课程。

In a way, it's a one-stop China shop. "We're known as a mini China center here in the region, so if corporations want somebody to talk to about doing business in China, they contact us," said Bailian Li, vice provost for international affairs and director of the Confucius Institute. "If the public school wants to have an Asia day or a Chinese culture day, they contact us, so we send a teacher or a student to do show and tell."


某种程度上，孔子学院是一个一站式中国商店。“在这个地区，我们被视为迷你中国中心，所以如果有公司想找人聊聊如何在中国做生意，他们联系我们。”孔子学院副院长及主管Bailian Li说道。“如果公立学校想举办亚洲日或中国文化日，他们联系我们，我们派出老师或者学生去展示和讲述。”


The language teaching and outreach model is most common, but as more prestigious universities have signed on with Hanban, research-oriented Confucius Institutes have also developed. Stanford University, which established its Confucius Institute in 2009, received a $4 million gift from Hanban -- matched by Stanford - to fund an endowed professorship in Sinology, graduate student fellowships, and collaborative programming with Peking University. Richard Saller, dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences, said that during discussions of the gift a Hanban official expressed concern that the endowed professor might discuss "politically sensitive things, such as Tibet."

这种以教授语言为中心的孔子学院是最常见的，但也有有名望的大学和汉办签约成立以研究为目标的孔子学院。斯坦福大学在2009年成立孔子学院，它从汉办得到了四百万美元，用来支持汉学研究方面的教授和研究生，以及和北京大学的合作。Richard Saller，文理学院的院长说，在和汉办关于这笔钱的讨论中，汉办官员提到了关于教授可能会讨论“政治敏感的话题，比如西藏”的担忧。

"This is something that comes up in other discussions with other donors of endowed chairs, and I said what I always say, which is we don't restrict the freedom of speech of our faculty, and that was the end of the discussion. I've had domestic donors walk away because of that, and in this case Hanban did not walk away."

“和别的捐赠人也总会有这样的讨论，而我总是说，我们不限制教职工的言论自由。我们国内有些捐赠者就走开了，而这次汉办没有。”

"Given my experience, I don't see any kind of insidious or subversive tone to this," Saller said. "I think there is a genuine interest in trying to reach the best American universities." He added that when he was provost at the University of Chicago the French government established the France Chicago Center with a million dollar gift. "The consulate in Chicago was far more involved in trying to influence the nature of the programming for the purposes the French wanted to see, than Hanban has been for our program."

“从我个人经验来看，我没发现任何阴险的或是破坏性的问题，”Saller说，“我觉得这是一种真诚的联系到最好的美国大学的尝试。”他曾经在芝加哥大学担任院长，法国政府给法国芝加哥中心赠送了一百万美元。“法国在芝加哥的领事馆也参与干涉项目来达到法国想要的目的，比汉办在我们的项目里参与的多多了。”


Academic Freedom and Soft Power
Objections to particular Confucius Institutes have emerged. For example, in 2010, 174 University of Chicago faculty members signed a letter that, among other things, objected to the establishment of a Confucius Institute in absence of Faculty Senate approval. The letter described the institute as "an academically and politically ambiguous initiative sponsored by the government of the People's Republic of China," and asserted that, "Proceeding without due care to ensure the institute's academic integrity, [the administration] has risked having the university's reputation legitimate the spread of such Confucius Institutes in this country and beyond."


学术自由和软实力

对特定的孔子学院的反对也出现了。比如说，2010年174名芝加哥大学的教职工签署了一封信，反对在教授代表会没通过的情况下建立孔子学院。信中将这个机构描述为“被中华人民共和国政府资助的一个在学术上和政治上都模糊不清的机构”，并断言，“在没有保证这个机构在学术上的独立性的时候就开始建立它，（孔子学院）很可能借由这所大学的声誉而传播到这整个国家和其他的地方，行政机构在冒这个风险。”


This past spring, the faculty union at the University of Manitoba raised objections to a proposed Confucius Institute for academic freedom reasons. "Materials and instructors for CIs are selected and controlled by a branch of the government of the People's Republic of China," said Cameron Morrill, president of the University of Manitoba Faculty Association. "It is inappropriate to allow any government, either foreign or domestic, control over a university classroom regardless of how much money they offer."


上个春季，（加拿大）曼尼托巴大学的教师工会因为学术自由的原因而反对建立孔子学院的提议。“孔子学院的教材和老师都由中华人民共和国政府挑选和控制。”Cameron Morrill，曼尼托巴大学教授协会主席说。“不应该允许任何政府——无论是外国的还是自己的——控制大学课堂，不管他们提供多少钱。”

The Canadian press also recently called attention to a provision in Hanban's hiring practices that discriminates against teaching candidates with a "record of participation in Falun Gong and other illegal organizations." The bylaws of the Confucius Institutes stipulate that "they shall not contravene concerning the laws and regulations of China."

最近加拿大媒体还注意到汉办雇佣教师的一条规定歧视了“参与过法轮功及其他非法组织”的人。孔子学院的这一制度保证了“他们不能违反中国的法律和规则”。


Lionel M. Jensen, an associate professor of East Asian languages and cultures and a fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame, writes critically of the Confucius Institutes in the forthcoming book, China In and Beyond the Headlines (Rowman and Littlefield, 2012): "[S]o far there have not been any events in which the academic freedom of the host university was explicitly threatened by authorities of Hanban. Most directors have gone on record in this regard to affirm the independence of their institutes. This, though, does not mean that U.S. Confucius Institute directors do not take special care in arranging programming that is uncontroversial in the eyes of their benefactor. By this I mean that their mindfulness of the funding source has affected consideration of what is appropriate programming. At its worst, this amounts to a persistent self-censorship, a practice common to the political survival experience of Chinese citizens today."

Lionel M. Jensen,一位东亚语言及文学教授、圣母大学凯洛格国际关系学院成员，在即将出版的书《头条里外的中国》里面批评性地写道了孔子学院：“目前为止，这些大学的学术自由还没有被汉办的官员明显地威胁到。大多数主管都会用这一点来证明自己机构的独立性。然而，这并不意味着美国孔子学院的主管没有特别用心安排在他们的捐助者眼里没有争议性的项目。我是说，他们心里想着资金的来源，这会影响到他们对什么才是适当的项目的考虑。最坏的是，这最终导致了一种持久的自我审查——一种对今天在政治经历中存活的中国公民十分平常的行为。”


In an interview Jensen said his concerns about Confucius Institutes stem from the fact that, unlike other cultural institutes charged with promoting the study of language and culture of their countries, such as the Alliance Fran?aise, British Council, and the Goethe-Institut, Confucius Institutes are distinct for being located within institutions of higher education. "That in itself is astonishing," he said.

在一个访问中，Jensen说他对孔子学院的担忧是从这个事实而来的：不像其他主要宣传语言和本国文化的文化机构，比如Alliance Fran?aise、英国文化协会和歌德学院，孔子学院不同之处在于它位于高等教育机构里面。“以其本身而言这是惊人的。”他说。

Jensen also has concerns about the quality of culture and language education offered through the Confucius Institutes. As he writes, the diversity of China's cultures has been reduced by Hanban to a "uniform, quaint commodity," characterized by Chinese opera and dance performances: "The term most appropriate for CI programming is 'culturetainment.' The concept gets at the abridgment of Chinese civilization in the name of digestible forms of cultural appeal that can be readily shipped overseas. To that extent, it is possible the Chinese-language education provided by CI will fall short of standard proficiency."

Jensen还担心孔子学院提供的文化和语言教育的质量。他写道，中国文化的多样性被汉办减少成了一个“统一的、古雅的商品”，以中国戏曲和舞蹈表演作为标志：“对孔子学院的项目的最合适称呼是‘文化娱乐’。这个概念意指在易接受的可以很容易地被运到海外的文化形式的名义下对中国文明的删节。在这种程度来说，很可能孔子学院提供的中文教育会达不到标准程度。”

Scholars have characterized the Confucius Institutes as instruments of soft power, defined by the Harvard University political scientist Joseph Nye as "the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments. It arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals and policies." As James F. Paradise, a newly minted political science Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeleswho has published an article on Confucius Institutes and soft power explained, "The Chinese government has a broader agenda, which is to project a benign image of China in the international community, and a convenient way to do this is to establish these Confucius Institutes."


已有学者把孔子学院形容为软实力的媒介，哈佛大学政治科学家Joseoh Nye将软实力定义为“通过吸引力而非强迫或薪酬来得到你想要的东西的能力“。
它从一个国家的文化、政治思想和政策方面的吸引力而生。James F. Paradise——一位新近从加州大学洛杉矶分校毕业的政治科学博士——发表了一篇关于孔子学院和软实力的文章，他解释道，“中国政府有一个更广的计划，这就是在国际社会投射一个中国的亲切形象，而建立孔子学院就是一个很方便的方法。”


"It's not a bad thing to expose students to Chinese culture, but is it leading to an intrusion into American academic affairs?" Paradise asked. "I don't know if I would put it in such crude terms. I think the exercise of influence happens in a much subtler way. This is an example of public diplomacy, which the U.S. has used for years. During the Cold War, there were American centers around the world."


“让学生接触中国文化不是一件坏事，但它会导致对美国学术事务的入侵吗？”Paradise问道。“我不知道我是否应该用如此粗鲁的措辞形容它。我觉得影响应该是一种更不引人注目的方法。这是民间外交的一个例子，这种方法美国已经用了很多年。在冷战时期，世界各处都有美国中心。”


However, Brady, of the University of Canterbury, returned to the point that the Confucius Institutes are located within universities - and even subsidized by them, in the form of matching funds and overhead costs. "What they're promoting is a positive and benign image of Chinese society and Chinese political systems, and they are promoting Chinese language," she said. "They believe that if more people learn Chinese, they'll have more positive feelings toward China. There's nothing wrong with that. These are all similar activities as to what the British Council [for example] does, but the difference is that they're in universities and universities help to subsidize them, and why would we do that?"


然而，坎特伯雷大学的Brady回到了孔子学院都在大学里——甚至被这些大学用对等资金或管理费用的形式补助——的这一点。“他们在宣传的是一个中国社会和中国政治制度的正面和亲切的形象，他们还在宣传中文。”她说。“他们相信，如果更多的人学习中文，这些人会对中国有更积极的感受。这没有错。英国文化协会（比如说）在做同样的事，但不同之处在于孔子学院在大学里并且大学补助它们，我们为什么要这么干？”

Sources of Funding
Confucius Institute directors counter that Hanban provides them with the funding necessary to pursue programming of significant educational value. The University of Oregon has a Confucius Institute that sponsors events and symposia about China in a transnational context. Recent events include a lecture by a professor emeritus at Harvard on Deng Xiaoping, a folk music concert featuring musicians from the Central Music Conservancy, in Beijing, a panel discussion on Chinese foodways, and a symposium on China's role in regulating the global information economy. Hanban does not set the agenda: The institute puts out a call for proposals for projects each year, and the proposals are vetted by a board of faculty and administrators. "Especially since there's some suspicion of China and Chinese funding we want to make sure that everything we do is desired locally," said Bryna Goodman, the director of Oregon's Confucius Institute, a professor of history and director of Asian Studies. She said that the Confucius Institute sends an annual budget request to Hanban outlining the proposed projects; not once, she said, have Hanban officials raised any questions regarding the content of the programming proposed.

孔子学院的主管们反击说汉办给他们提供有意义的教育项目所必需的经费。（省略）汉办并不设定活动日程，每年这家孔子学院会邀请对项目的提议，而这些提议会被教职工和行政人员投票表决。“尤其是因为对于中国和中国的资助有很多怀疑，我们想确保我们做的所有事都是当地人愿意的。”Bryna Goodman，俄勒冈大学孔子学院主管、历史教授和亚洲研究主管说。她说每年孔子学院向汉办送去一份年度财政预算要求，描绘被提议的项目；汉办官员从未对提议的项目内容有过任何疑问，她说。

Goodman said that the funding from China provides a good counter-balance to other funding sources for China studies, including Taiwanese sources - such as the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange -- and U.S. government sources. "In terms of academic freedom, I would say the more sources you have the better, because you can go to different units to fund different things," she said.
"I would like a university that had enough independent funding so that everything could be independently funded, but that's not how universities work."

Goodman说从中国来的资助很好地平衡了其他给中国研究提供的资助来源，这些来源包括台湾——比如蒋介石国际学术交流基金会——和美国政府。“根据学术自由，我会说越多的来源越好，因为你可以找到不同的机构来资助不同的东西。”她说。


The influx of Confucius Institute dollars comes at a time when U.S. government funding. specifically National Resource Center funding for area and language studies, has been slashed by 47 percent. Paul Jacov Smith, a professor of history and East Asian studies at Haverford College, said he worries that some of the fears surrounding the Confucius Institutes mask frustrations about the U.S.'s own disinvestment in language and culture study. "While I do worry about the strings that often seem attached to CI funding, I think some of the more general concern is generated by the frustration that we in the U.S. feel as our ability to fund our own academic projects is eroded by the economic downturn," he said. "Our national power and prestige are under pressure right now, and I worry that could fuel unproductive resentments against China."

Paul Jacoy Smith,哈弗佛德学院的一位历史和东亚研究教授，说他担心围绕孔子学院的恐惧掩盖了对美国自己在语言和文化研究方面投入减少的挫折感。“我的确对附属在孔子学院资金上的线表示担忧，然而我觉得更多的担忧可能来源于我们在美国的人觉得我们资助自己的学术项目的能力被经济低迷侵蚀了的挫败感。”他说，“我们的国家力量和威望正处于压力下，而我担心这会导致对中国的无价值的愤恨。”


David Prager Branner, a Chinese lexicographer and adjunct associate professor at Columbia University, said it is a fallacy to believe that "taking money from the Chinese government will have no long-term consequences."
"Of course, many of our universities are strapped for funds and the whole economics of American higher education is in the midst of changing drastically, so it's easy to look favorably on what seems to be a little easy money. At the same time, many universities have friendly relationships with institutions in China, so it's understandable that their administrators hope to do things to please the Chinese government."

David Prager Branner，一位中文词典编纂者、哥伦比亚大学的兼任副教授，说相信“从中国政府拿钱不会有长期影响”是错误的。“当然，我们的很多大学都缺少资金，美国高等教育的整个经济都在剧烈变化之中，因此很轻易对得来容易的钱表示好评。与此同时，很多大学都和中国的机构有着友好关系，所以如果它们的管理者希望做一些取悦中国政府的事也是可以理解的。”


"But I think this is like taking out a sub-prime mortgage or buying everything on credit without paying off the full debt: it may seem like a good deal at first but it will surely have consequences we may not be able to foresee at the outset. In order to try to anticipate those consequences we need to ask: why would China be willing to spend so much money to set these organizations up? Specifically why does China consider this to be in its national interest and why would it be in America's national interest?" Branner asked.


“但我认为这就像取出次贷或是用信用卡购物却不还钱一样：在开始时看起来可能是个划算的交易，但它一定会有我们现在无法预见的结果。为了预测这些结果我们需要问：中国为什么愿意花这么多钱来建立这些组织？尤其是中国为什么会觉得这符合国家利益而为什么会符合美国的国家利益？”Branner说。


"I'm most concerned about what might happen in the long run," said Matthew Sommer, an associate professor of Chinese history at Stanford. "The program seems to be expanding exponentially in the United States and around the world, and inevitably it's going to have an increasing influence on the way Chinese studies is taught in the U.S. and elsewhere. It's not so much what might happen right now, but what might happen 15 years from now, or 20 years from now."

“我更关心长远下来会发生什么。”Matthew Sommer（斯坦福大学中国历史副教授）说。“这个项目看起来正在美国和全世界成倍扩张，不可避免地，它将在美国和其他地方对中国研究的教授方式产生逐渐增加的影响。现在这可能不太会发生，但15年后或20年后很有可能。”

（译文有删节和省略）

fuhexinqd

李长春不是中国的宣传部长
刘云山才是！

倾杯乐

不就是个汉语培训机构而已嘛。无非在米国人看来，由政府支持的项目是“政治不正确”的罢了。