Talk:Hanban

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[edit]

http://sydney.edu.au/confucius_institute/about/hanban.shtml http://www.hanban.ca/hanban.php?lang=en

  • On Sydney U CI website, HanBan is described as "Non Governmental".
  • On HanBan official website, "Hanban/Confucius Institute Headquarters, as a public institution affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Education".
  • On HanBan North America website, it is also "Non Governmental", but with a twist:

The Chinese Language Council International is composed of members from 12 state ministries and commissions, namely,

the General Office of the State Council,
the Ministry of Education,
the Ministry of Finance,
the Overseas Chinese Affaires Office of the State Council,
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
the State Development and Reform Commission,
the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Culture,
the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (China Radio International),
the State Press and Publications Administration,
the State Council Information Office
the State Language Work Committee.

President of the Council is State Councilor Chen Zhili.


Arilang talk 08:03, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is clearly not an NGO because it is openly affiliated with a government.Biophys (talk) 22:41, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]


It is amazing how those bigwigs being hoodwinked. Arilang talk 23:52, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]


The official Chinese of HanBan is:中国国家汉语国际推广领导小组办公室, 中国国家=China National, how can it be "non government" when it's name began with "China National" ? Arilang talk 04:02, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Chinese "about us" webpage (http://www.hanban.edu.cn/hb/) declares that 国家汉办是中国教育部直属事业单位 (Hanban is an institution directly under the state ministry of education), so there is no doubt it is an official goverenmental organization. --Yejianfei (talk) 14:26, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Clarity on claim of corruption at Hanban please[edit]

I was wondering if anyone could provide a different source to back up this claim: "Hanban, which is supposedly a non-profit organization but operates CI-related companies for profit. "For instance, in November 2009, Hanban launched a new company, which won the bid for over five million U.S. dollars from the Ministry of Finance to operate the CI’s website; the person in charge of this company is also the deputy director of Hanban."

I've posted a similar discussion topic at talk:Confucius Institute and I'm post here too because the exact same claim is repeated from the same source in this article. I looked at the source and even though its hosted on the george washington University website, the document is not a publication of the university and it clearly states that it is just someones opinion. He makes the claim but gives no context, no evidence, an no source for his claim. If there is a better source for this then I think we need to find it or consider removing the accusation. got any clues? Metal.lunchbox (talk) 16:11, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Parking disputed content[edit]

Since an editor has deleted the following information twice, I'm parking it here temporarily and will discuss its relevance later. With the removal of these 11 WP:NPOV references, the current article, with only two refs from Hanban websites, reads like a biased advertisement.

Confucius Institute[edit]

Main article: Confucius Institute

Hanban is most notable for the Confucius Institute program,[1] but it also sponsors the Chinese Bridge competition, which is a competition in Chinese proficiency for non-native speakers. The current President of the Council is State Councilor Chen Zhili (陈至立). On April 2007 while inspecting Hanban, Li Changchun, member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo in charge of ideology and propaganda stated that: "the construction of Confucius Institutes is an important channel to glorify Chinese culture, to help Chinese culture spread to the world...(which is) part of China's foreign propaganda strategy""[2]

According to the mission statement: "Hanban is committed to developing Chinese language and culture teaching resources and making its services available worldwide, meeting the demands of overseas Chinese learners to the utmost degree, and to contributing to global cultural diversity and harmony."[3] Generally, the Council is charged with cultivating knowledge and interest in the Chinese language and culture in nations around the world that are not native speakers of Chinese.

The following twelve state ministries and commissions are represented in the Chinese Language Council International:[4][5]

  • General Office of the State Council
  • Ministry of Education
  • Ministry of Finance
  • Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council
  • Ministry of Foreign Affairs
  • State Development and Reform Commission
  • Ministry of Commerce
  • Ministry of Culture
  • State Administration of Radio Film and Television (China Radio International)
  • State Press and Publications Administration
  • State Council Information Office and the State Language Committee

Critics point to the potential for corruption and conflict of interest within the Hanban, which is supposedly a non-profit organization but operates CI-related companies for profit. "For instance, in November 2009, Hanban launched a new company, which won the bid for over five million U.S. dollars from the Ministry of Finance to operate the CI’s website; the person in charge of this company is also the deputy director of Hanban."[6]

The CIs are also criticized for their hiring practices. It was revealed that CI teachers are forbidden to have any in class discussion on or any involvement with topics sensitive to the Chinese regime, such as the Uyghurs, Tibet, Falun Gong, democracy advocates, etc. Canada's McMaster University terminated it's contract with it's CI after Sonia Zhao, former teacher at the University's CI, quit her job, and subsequently appealed to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario for the university's “giving legitimization to discrimination.” Under her job contract with the CI Ms. Zhao was forced to hide her belief in Falun Gong, a spiritual movement persecuted by the Communist party of China. [7]

  1. ^ Don Starr (2009). [Chinese Language Education in Europe: the Confucius Institutes "Chinese Language Education in Europe: the Confucius Institutes"]. European Journal of Education. Volume 44, Issue 1. pp. 65–82. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
  2. ^ Will Wachter. "The language of Chinese soft power in the US".
  3. ^ http://english.hanban.edu.cn/hbsm.php
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference About Hanban was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Sydney was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Ren Zhe (2010), Confucius Institutes: China's Soft Power?, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, June 2010.
  7. ^ [1]

Keahapana (talk) 20:37, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Xu Lin at the EACS conference[edit]

Would be great if someone with more time than me could add something about this interesting incident (refs below), in which Xu Lin, international chief of the Hanban/Confucius Institute, ordered that four pages be torn out of the main brochure at the July 2014 conference of the European_Association_of_Chinese_Studies at the [University_of_Minho], Braga, Portugal, delaying the release of the brochure and resulting in considerable inconvenience to attendees. The censored pages included a full page by a main conference sponsor, the Taiwanese Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange.

EACS to protest Hanban’s academic meddling: source Letter of protest at interference Report: The deletion of pages Original version of brochure later censored by Hanban representative Sun Lam, one of the conference organizers, is director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Minho (Maybe not for long) Evangeline (talk) 08:16, 4 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Evangeline. Thank you for these links about Xu's incredible temper tantrum. I'll add them and revert the deleted CI criticisms under a new section. It's still seems wordy and any editing help would be appreciated. Thanks again. Keahapana (talk) 02:39, 6 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent job! I've added a couple more refs. I had considered starting a Xu Lin article, but see you've already done it. Thanks again. Besides the Concerns and Controversies over CI article (which you've also done), should we add this controversy into the EACS article? Would you like me to change the raw links in the footnotes into the existing format? Have you seen this Global Times spin? Best wishes, Keahapana (talk) 00:34, 9 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! No more time for the Xu Lin article so if you can add anything there or at EACS that would be great.. Re Global Times, I have seen that same thing, breathtaking. We will be hearing more about this incident in the western media. Evangeline (talk) 00:45, 9 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's outrageous. I already linked the zh interwiki to the Xu Lin article and will do some more. Do you know if "Confucius Institute Headquarters" means the Beijing CI office or the Hanban itself? Keahapana (talk) 01:03, 9 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps we could trim this section down a little. Isn't it WP:UNDUE to take up half the article about the organization with discussion of one brochure which was temporarily censored at one event? - Metal lunchbox (talk) 04:15, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, any constructive trimming would be great, but Xu's international bullying scandal is one the Hanban's most newsworthy stories. Have you read this recent WSJ article?
Would you please explain your recent deletions of Xu's EACS conference censorship? On 11 August, you deleted the Inside Higher Ed Hanban paragraph because it was "already repeated in full at Criticisms of Confucius Institutes", on 14 August, you deleted the relevant section of Criticisms of Confucius Institutes as "Not directly related to Confucius institutes, so it doesn't belong here, put it in Xu Lin instead", but didn't put it there. Judging from your edit summaries, I mistakenly assumed that copying content within Wikipedia violates policy. I just checked, and as WP:CWW explains, copying is commonplace among related articles, as long as page history maintains copyright attribution. Shouldn't this content be in all three articles? Keahapana (talk) 00:57, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, I did not remove the content because it was copied from another article. I believe the edit summary speaks for itself, lack of direct relationship with CI. If you want to dispute that, consider doing so on that page, not this one. My concern about direct relationship also applies to Hanban. This story sounds like it's about Xu Lin and not really about Hanban at all. As for the removal of content from THIS article, let me explain. This edit was about WP:SUMMARY since there's a big link to the main article at the top of the section I feel that it's best if we have a summary of the topic of confucius institute related controversies and let the reader follow the link to get the details. - Metal lunchbox (talk) 11:28, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, thanks, I'll do that. As discussed directly above, this Hanban article is the main one, where the topic first appeared, and was subsequently copied into other articles. Xu officially attended the conference in Portugal as Director General of Hanban and Executive Officer of the CI Headquarters, which are both direct relationships that should be mentioned under all relevant articles. You needn't copy this into Xu Lin, I've already done it. To take an analogy from recent news, that's like saying the scandal about CIA director Brennan's denial of hacking the Senate Intelligence Committee's computers should only be mentioned in the John O. Brennan article and not CWW-ly repeated in the Central Intelligence Agency, Panetta Review, and Rand Paul articles. Your summary is a good start, but since you're deleting Evangeline's contributions, I suggest we wait for her reaction. In the meantime, I will revert two deletions of essential information for interested WP readers: seeing the censored program pages and reading Greatrex's official protest. Also, it now reads as if the (Hanban-funded) Abstracts and the Program are conflated. Keahapana (talk) 00:27, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry but we just aren't going to be able to put every detail from this story into the article, for the reasons I mention above. And your analogy is bogus. He was speaking 100% as director of the CIA about what the CIA did or did not do as an organization, this is a little different, though indeed his position does link him closely with Hanban and the CI headquarters. The letter stands on its own, there's no reason to feel we have to reproduce its details here. If you think that the language now used isn't clear or accurate with regards to the abstract and the program, that's another story. Naturally you should fix such a problem if you can. As for Greatrex official protest, I have no idea what you are talking about. I've trimmed some of our coverage of it, because it isn't our responsibility to tell the readers every detail he includes. It does seem significant that such a letter was written and that's certain still included in the article. I'm also not sure what you mean about the censored pages, there's plenty of talk about that.
The problem remains, the reader is likely to read this article and still know almost nothing about Hanban, but the'll be bombarded with a barrage of detail and opinions about one of the page of a conference program that the Hanban vice-minister had removed at a conference once in Portugal. It's most of the article, and that's after the deletions and consolidation that you are objecting to. You don't think that's a little excessive? - Metal lunchbox (talk) 01:25, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
And you keep adding quotes about the event, as if that would improve things. - Metal lunchbox (talk) 01:27, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The reasons this seemingly minor issue (to non-Sinologists) is actually not minor are:

1) The Confucius Institute rep in Portugal & the CI authorities she had showed it to agreed the conference program was fine. Yet when Hanban/Confucius Institute head Xu Lin arrived, she ordered it censored to get rid of any mention of Taiwan institutions even though these Taiwan institutions were important conference sponsors, just like the Confucius Institute, and had been for 20 years. In other words, as Hanban/Confucius Institute chief, Xu Lin obviously felt she had the right & duty to censor an international Sinology conference's program to suit Chinese government objectives. She is a top official in the Chinese Communist party. Thus the impact was as if, to take an unlikely example, a top British parliamentary leader ordered censorship of international academic conference materials to suit British politics.

2) The Confucius Institute is not just some minor institute; nor is the EACS a minor organization. It is the major European organization for studying China; hundreds of scholars from dozens of universities were attending to discuss Chinese history, culture etc. in the biggest European conference of this kind. The Confucius Institute is present in more than 100 universities worldwide.

3) This incident made it clear that China feels free to censor any materials it doesn't like, using Confucius Institute money as its rationale, even in international, academic settings.

4) Sinologists around the world have been talking about this incident and once universities are back in session, we will hear more about the EACS/Xu Lin incident. For example, the Japanese Asahi Shimbun wrote about it [2], and yesterday there was this article in the Christian Science Monitor about it. [3] The Inside Higher Ed article is significant because it is published by the major US academic news source, the Chronicle of Higher Education. You will certainly be seeing more articles about this as the Confucius Institutes are trying to expand worldwide on university campuses, and consider they have the right to censor materials they "sponsor." Evangeline (talk) 19:58, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Two more articles: [4] [5]Evangeline (talk) 03:57, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have never suggested that the event be removed from the article completely so the above argument is for nought. This article is about Hanban. How does including an incredible amount of detail and a confusing array of various quotes of little importance about this one event help the reader understand hanban any better. What I will argue is that this one event which is not directly related to Hanban is not the most important thing about Hanban and therefore shouldn't occupy most of the content of the article. That much is pretty straight-forward and in making my original statement above, Keapana even appeared to agree with me, though he immediately reverted my summarizing and cutting before adding more content to the section, exacerbating the problem. If we can't resolve this problem on this page, I'll bring in some other eyes. - Metal lunchbox (talk) 07:40, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Evangeline's reasons why the EACS scandal cannot be interpreted as "one brochure which was temporarily censored at one event", but disagree with your unsupported hypothesis that Xu Lin's censorship "is not directly related to Hanban". Two recent deletions-reversions mention it: the EACS program's opening ceremony page (18) identifies her as "Director-General of Hanban", and the Asahi article translates Hanban in describing her as "director of the National Office of the Directive Group for the External Promotion of Chinese Languages". In the current version, footnotes 15-29 concern the EACS scandal, and many directly mention this relationship. Hanban is mentioned once in 26 and 29; twice in 16, 2a, 23, and 25; five times in 19; six times in 18; and twenty times in 27. Keahapana (talk)
I am not directly related to Kevin Bacon. Let's talk about the difference between a direct relationship and some other relationship. for it to be a direct relationship as strictly as I am choosing to define it, it would need to be said that Hanban censored the brochure. That is never said, instead it is repeatedly stated to be the actions of Xu Lin, who is described by his relationship to Hanban. See the difference? Anyways, my point is about WP:UNDUE and trying to summarize the event so that it doesn't take up the whole page, which would be valid even if all the papers said was the action of Hanban directly and then said that it was the most important thing that Hanban ever did, none of them do. - Metal lunchbox (talk) 04:42, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Good one, but there's only one degree of separation between Xu Lin and the Hanban/CI. (FYI, Xu is female, as seen in the EACS program page ref.) Thanks for defining "direct relationship" in your ideolect, which <grin> is reminiscent of what Humpty Dumpty told Alice about word semantics. Fortunately the question is moot; Wikipedia conventions establish our goalposts and we needn't talk about moving them, or what newspapers ought to say. In light of all the foreign criticisms of academic censorship, I looked for some NPOV-balancing sources saying that the Hanban/CI has denied involvement, but couldn't find anything in English. Perhaps you could locate something in the Chinese press. The CSM article (n. 29) says, "In the latest twist, this week Ms. Xu met in private with foreign scholars in Shanghai. She was reportedly gracious. But asked specifically about the missing pages she denied ordering them censored." Should we add this, or is it too ludicrous? Also, when Evangeline returns to editing, we can discuss deleting the Asahi Shimbun ref. Keahapana (talk) 23:48, 7 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Again, my point is about WP:UNDUE, not who gets to define how many people are related to Kevin Bacon. Perhaps we don't need to include so much detail or so many quotes about this event in the article, especially since much of it is redundant. Do you agree or not? Why do we need to discuss deleting the POV quote from Shimbun? The edit summary speaks for itself. If you have a problem with it say so, don't politely request someone else to contest it. - Metal lunchbox (talk) 19:07, 8 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously, I disagree with the removal. Since Evangeline hasn't edited since contributing the Asahi ref on 24 August, I was suggesting that we show patience, not requesting someone to challenge you. I wouldn't say the edit summary speaks for itself, other than indicating a snit about quoting the word "snit" (which I intentionally chose for its salience). There are many good reasons to remove content, but WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT isn't one of them. Before I revert the deletion, here's a request. Based upon your skillful 8 September revision of my weasel word in the Shambaugh ref for Criticisms of Confucius Institutes (thanks again), would like to summarize the Asahi reference?

WP:UNDUE says "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." In regard to Hanban's EACS conference section, all the viewpoints in published RS (to date) are anti-censorship and none is pro-censorship. The only exception is Xu's denial of removing pages, which I'll add. Undue weight cannot justify deleting sources criticizing the Hanban because there aren't equal numbers praising it. Our time could be spent more constructively by finding Chinese sources to counterbalance the foreign criticisms. Presumably, the soft-power propaganda professionals have found a better spin than denying facts. Keahapana (talk) 20:42, 9 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So much to say. I never claimed not to like the quote removed. I said that without further explanation, saying simply that they were "in a snit" over the incident doesn't give the reader any useful information about what happened, I said so much in the edit summary, why you choose to categorize this as WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT is something that I don't understand. Since, then and now I have explained the removal, perhaps instead you could explain what you think it adds to the article, before you automatically revert it. It doesn't say who the "international scholars" are, it doesn't say why they were upset, or how we know and it doesn't say what they did about it or why it matters. It's meaningless and should not be included in the article. It only serves to add sensation, in the way that a newspaper article might be written. It is unencyclopaedic at best. So why don't you read what I have to say about the subject in my long edit summary before assigning my edit the mildly insulting label of WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT while you assume no responsibility to explain your own revert.
As for WP:UNDUE, keep reading. Forgive me but you are right to point out that the section linked at UNDUE is really about balancing the viewpoints of different parties and keeping proportion, but directly below this, in the section titled "Balancing Aspects", which explains that we shouldn't take up the whole article with one event or aspect of a subject, keeping proportion with the relative importance of the subjects various aspects, or in English, "discussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic." This section is clearly disproportionate , it should be summarized and shortened considerably. - Metal lunchbox (talk) 21:21, 9 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Metal.lunchbox that devoting half of the article to a single recent incident is without a doubt WP:UNDUE and WP:RECENTISM. The incident should be summarized in one paragraph. In addition, it has so much undue weight on Xu Lin, which is at the risk of becoming a WP:Attack page. This is a pure media incident with no real consequence, and it should be treated that way. -Zanhe (talk) 05:58, 10 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You are wrong to think the incident is "a pure media incident with no real consequence." Universities are just starting up again and word of this incident is spreading. Today, the University of Chicago essentially decided to suspend its cooperation with the Hanban, apparently because of Xu Lin. The Chinese report says, "许琳的刚与硬，很多人都领教过。今年4月下旬，美国芝加哥大学百名退休教授联名要求停办孔子学院，许琳直接一封信写给芝加哥大学校长、一个电话打给其驻京代表，只有一句话，“只要你们学校做决定退出，我就同意”。她的态度，让对方着了急，很快答复，校方决定继续办好孔子学院" or, translated, "Xu Lin's firm attitude has been experienced by many people. At the end of April 2014, 100 retired university professors at the University of Chicago signed a petition to ban the Confucius Institute. As soon as she saw it, Xu Lin telephoned the president of the university from Beijing, saying curtly, 'If you want to withdraw your university from the program, I will agree.' Her attitude made the president anxious, and he quickly responded, deciding to keep the Confucius Institute going." [You can try translating this in Google Translate]. We haven't heard the last of Xu Lin and the Hanban.... Evangeline (talk) 22:52, 25 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Another example is the closure of the CI in Lyon. Gregory B. Lee was the director and his personal webpage has information, click "Lyon Confucius Institute Closure" on the left.
Here's another link.
Can anybody find coverage of this closure in English-language publications? Keahapana (talk) 00:13, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of arguing about whether it's a pure media event, let's get back to the real point which is that the section is presented with gross disproportion to it's importance and should be shortened considerably. We don't have to agree about the exact words we use to generalize about the event, but perhaps we can agree on this? - Metal lunchbox (talk) 04:05, 27 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
More links about this: *Economist: Confucius Institutes About-Face *Wall Street Journal: University of Chicago Cuts Ties *American Association of University Professors' magazine Academe September 2014 issue: Confucius Institutes Threaten Academic Freedom *Toronto, Canada District School Board trustees move toward ending partnership with Confucius Institute (talk) *[http://thediplomat.com/2014/09/the-future-of-chinas-confucius-institutes/ The Diplomat: The future of China's Confucius Institutes *China Post: World should watch for Confucius
I agree the section on the EACS incident doesn't need to be so long. Would be clearer if shorter. No time to abridge, sorry! Evangeline (talk)15:54, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Pennsylvania State University also decides not renew ties with Confucius Institute because "several of our goals are not consistent with those of the Office of Chinese Languages Council International, known as the Hanban": *Inside Higher Education: Another Confucius Institute to Close Evangeline (talk)

Thanks for these new links, which I'll first add into Criticisms of Confucius Institutes. I agree that the current paragraph on what's now called the "Braga Incident" should be summarized. Xu Lin's recent actions have created a PR shitstorm for the Hanban/CI, and it's getting hard to keep up with the developments. Keahapana (talk) 00:43, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
More on "Braga Incident" with Xu Lin and EACS:
--Bloomberg does article on Hanban mentioning the incident again (fourth paragraph): *China's Soft-Power Fail
--The Japan Times *Structure self with propriety, Confucius said
--The China Spectator (Australia) *Hard times for China's soft power This article calls the Braga incident a "highly damaging scandal" for China and calls Xu Lin's behavior a "publicity disaster" Evangeline (talk) 00:49, 10 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

More links on same subject (I told you it would get more press once school started!):

--The Daily Signal (newletter of The Heritage Foundation) *Confucius Institute Under Fire as Conduit of Chinese Propaganda
--The Interpreter (Australia), newsletter of the Lowy Institute for International Policy *China and China and unification of the Korean Peninsula (part 2): A rising cost for Beijing says that "Confucius Institutes have provoked a substantial academic backlash in the West as propaganda vehicles for Beijing."
--The Epoch Times (New York City; associated with Falun Gong) *Beijing Uses Confucius Institutes for Espionage, Says Canadian Intelligence Veteran This is an article about the Toronto District School Board's committee hearings on whether close the Toronto Confucius Institute. The committee has voted to end the partnership. The decision will be made at the end of the month, according to the article.
--The Parliament Magazine (Brussels; newsmagazine on the EU parliament and other EU issues) *Intensified educational links strengthen ties with China "The Hanban is also influenced by the propaganda ministry, which stands under the direct leadership of a member of the political office of the Communist party." (i.e. Xu Lin) "The recent European sinology conference in Portugal is a scandalous example....Such censorship and direct interference of Chinese officials are not acceptable....It has to be made sure that the cooperation of the Confucius institutes with European higher-education is not turned into an instrument of outright propaganda of the Chinese Communist party."

Evangeline (talk) 01:06, 19 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, thanks for even more references, Evangeline. I've recently updated the Criticisms of Confucius Institutes (note new final section) and Xu Lin articles, and would appreciate it if you could take a look. Best wishes, Keahapana (talk) 03:46, 10 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If the Confucius Institute article can make do with a single sentence devoted to the event then perhaps this page can too, since Hanban's relationship with the events is the same. I've replaced the section with as slightly edited copy of the paragraph from Confucius Institute. It merits some improvement, but I think this is much more appropriate than the previous long list of details and quotes that we are complaining about above. - Metal lunchbox (talk) 03:26, 12 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Evangeline, thanks again for these new links. Owing to the FLG connection, The Epoch Times is usually not considered a WP:RS. Recently, it seems like criticisms of Hanban/CI have exponentially increased. Best wishes, Keahapana (talk) 22:44, 21 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Marshall Sahlins mentions Braga Incident in new book distributed by the University of Chicago Press, *Confucius Institutes: Academic Malware (2014)
Yes, thanks. I posted this at Talk:Confucius Institute#Forthcoming but Criticisms of Confucius Institutes would probably be more apt. Keahapana (talk) 22:20, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to keep just posting links but the incident seems to have been a turning point in many academics' view of the Confucius Institute. Here's one from German (I guess we can't use it). The Stuttgarter Zeitung title says "Controversial emissaries from Beijing. In the Media University a Confucius Institute is being set up. The university leadership is happy about it. But critics warn of the establishment's close ties to the government of the communist country."

  • Controversial emissaries from Beijing The first subtitle says, "Criticism comes from human rights organizations." The article ends with a quote from one of the professors: "Of course we know that the Hanban is part of the Chinese government."

Another link is from the Nouvel Observateur in France: *[http://rue89.nouvelobs.com/2014/11/04/soft-power-chinois-faut-fermer-les-instituts-confucius-255807 China's soft power: should the Confucius Institutes be closed?] The third sentence in the article says, "A French diplomat in China said to me a few days ago, "The Confucius Institutes are a progaganda tool of the Chinese government." The article refers to "blunders" such as that of "that Chinese [female] Hanban official [i.e. Xu Lin]... who tore out pages concerning a Taiwanese sponsor in the program of the annual convention of the European Association for Chinese Studies." The article, by a French person writing under a pseudonym who has lived in China for 30 years, says that the CIs abroad are actually more important to get Chinese officials themselves to realize that they can't control western universities or discourse, and that opening CIs abroad supports reformers in China.

Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) calls for ban on Confucius Institutes *Universities to keep Confucius Institutes, despite criticism. Dawson College (in Montreal) and two others have renewed ties despite the CAUT's letter. *Dawson College to renew ties The article in the CBC: "The Canadian Association of University Teachers sent letters urging nine universities and colleges across Canada to disassociate themselves from existing deals with China.

"'You have essentially an arm of the state of the Peoples' Republic of China dictating educational content, dictating hiring practices, and then cases like Tibet, Tiananmen Square and Taiwan are off-limits in terms of discussion. I don't think it's an appropriate thing in our institutions,' said the association's executive director, David Robinson"....Executive Director Meng Rong said she believes politics do not have a place in language courses, but there are no institutional rules against discussions.

"Students come here, they want to learn language, they don't want to come here to discuss any political things," she said.

The article says that of the nine universities addressed by the CAUT, only the University of Sherbrooke would be severing ties with the CI. Evangeline (talk) 00:50, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"The most expensive website in history"?[edit]

The Hanban apparently spent 35,200,000 RMB on the CI website.

Keahapana (talk) 00:03, 12 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's an interesting story, but we need to think about WP:RS, the above sources are all just discussing what some weibo users are discussing. That some weibo users discussed this matter doesn't seem like an important enough story to include. If we can find some RS for the facts of the matter, such as how much the website cost, what that price tag actually covers and how the contract was awarded, then we have some useful information worthy of inclusion. Thanks for bringing this up. I wasn't able to find good sources about this story. I did find one Epoch Times article though which may lead us to something useful. That article also cites what it calls "A sohu blog" as the source. Note as well that the Epoch Times is not a reliable source on matters pertaining to the Communist Party of China. It opens the article by associating the rumors with the CCP. If the story is legit, it shouldn't be hard to find reliable sources covering it. - Metal lunchbox (talk) 03:05, 12 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks anyway for the ET link. You're right, it wasn't hard. This Foreign Policy Chinese Doubt Their Own Soft Power Venture article links to China Daily and Beijing News, which gives us enough RS to start adding this incredible story. Best wishes, Keahapana (talk) 22:45, 21 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I've roughed out coverage of the Wuzhou Hanfeng story. Please take a look and make any needed improvements. Thanks, Keahapana (talk) 23:12, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The FT article fits the bill, but let's not pretend that disproportionate coverage isn't an ongoing problem on this article. Mention of the popular disgust over the high cost of the website is probably worthy of inclusion, but let's not give the coverage more detail than it merits. This article is now two very short paragraphs about the administration of the organization, a large portion of which is quotes, followed by a long and detailed account of all scandals and criticisms which can be linked to Hanban. This is a POV problem. Let's not make it that much worse. - Metal lunchbox (talk) 02:47, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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July 2019 status quo and further improvements needed[edit]

As of July 16, 2019, I've done extensive work on the article, including copy editing, expanding the lead and body sections, and updating citations.

Here are further improvements that are needed:

  • The article's newly created History section needs expansion. It also only has one source (from an archived Texas A&M website).
  • I've deleted some of the criticism of Hanban, but the article still lends undue weight to Confucius Institutes controversies and the Xu Lin incidents (which are now 5 years old). As user Metal.lunchbox noted elsewhere in this talk page, the average reader "is likely to read this article and still know almost nothing about Hanban, but the'll be bombarded with a barrage of detail and opinions about one of the page of a conference program that the Hanban vice-minister had removed at a conference once in Portugal." As it stands, this content is excessive, borderline sensationalist, and adds little value to understanding the subject of the article.
    • See WP:UNDUE for more information and context.
  • This article needs to be updated. Most of its sources are from 2014.

Any help in resolving any of these issues would be greatly appreciated. —Bobbychan193 (talk) 22:24, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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