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Globalizing China: Confucius Institutes and the Paradoxes of Authenticity and Modernity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Jennifer Hubbert
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Confucius Institutes, the language and culture programs funded by the Chinese government, have been established in more than 1,500 high schools and colleges 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 cultural enrichment, and feared as spy outposts, neocolonial incursions, and obstructions to academic freedom. China in the World turns an anthropological lens on this highly visible and controversial globalization project in an effort to provide fresh insight into China's shifting place in the world.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 17 , Issue 9 , May 2019 , e2
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2019

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