Talk:Confucius Institute

Split is now complete, so further discussion of POV and other issues related to controversy content should happen over at talk:Concerns and controversies over Confucius Institutes. Metal.lunchbox (talk) 22:27, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to Metal.lunchbox for making the splits and to Homunculus for offering to contribute. Now we can focus on improving the Controversies article. Keahapana (talk) 01:16, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

General questions/suggestions

Well done to those who've been working on this page; it's coherent and reads quite well. On reviewing it, I remain a little concerned that a POV fork has been created, and also have some specific questions:

• The lede describes Hanban uncritically as a non-government organization. Hanban is closely affiliated not only with the Chinese Ministry of Education, but features prominently in the agendas of the State Council and, to some extent, the Party's propaganda department. I understand that Hanban's website describes it as an NGO, but some incredulity is in order here. It is a GONGO at best.
• The lede also described CIs as being similar in nature to Alliance Française and Goethe-Institut. Again, this description is one that is advanced by CIs themselves, frequently in the context of trying to deflect crticisism. But as numerous western journalists have pointed out, there is a very important difference: Alliance Française and Goethe-Institus do not attach themselves to universities, so they do not engender the same concerns over academic freedom. Again, I suggest that we not adopt the official line so uncritically on the main page; if a statement is made, and that statement is controversial, then the relevant perspectives should be presented in a manner commensurate with their weight and significance.
• Regarding the organization, it may be worth noting that CIs require that their curriculums do not conflict with the laws of either the host country or of China. The laws in question would presumably encompass, say, article 105 of China's criminal code. Furthermore, Hanban imposes some rather strange requirements on the teachers it recruits—requirements that may or may not break host nations' anti-discrimination laws.[1]. This is a controversy, but it is also germane to the organization and administration of the CIs.
• I wonder if there is a place where we can discuss other administrative issues. In the few investigating news reports I've found on CIs, they frequently allude to strange financial transactions, empty offices and classrooms with no staff, and other seemingly mundane operational challenges and anomalies that would seem to stem from overstretched ambitions.
• I don't suppose we should also breifly describe the Confucius classrooms (in high schools) here?

Those are just some initial ideas. I was hoping to make some edits along these lines, but wanted to first discuss them here. My main concern, really, is that we should accurately reflect the available information and discourse around these institutes, and not relegate anything that could be classified as a "controversy" to a separate page. As I understood it, the purpose of the split was to avoid an unwieldy controversies section on the main page, which is absolutely fair, but we should still strive to ensure that a reader gets a more or less complete picture from the main page.Homunculus (duihua) 04:57, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

This is good stuff. I'll see if I can help:

• if they are described as being similar to Alliance Francaise et al but there are important differences frequently cited by journalists then we should state it that way in a manner which respects due weight. you are correct.
• the administrative issues, would require some sourcing and some details. I'm not aware of these issues. see what you can find. That kind of nuance, though, probably should go in the body of the article, purpose section.
• as for the "NGO" problem. I believe that I have just addressed this problem by simply removing the word "non-government" since its inclusion would require some confusing explanations and the rest of the sentence adequately explains the organizational position of the Hanban for the lead, further expansion can go in the body if necessary.
• The confucius classrooms are often lumped into the same topic. If you can expand the information about Confucius classrooms please do.
• the main page already includes a section on controversies. I made it into a brief summary because of the existence of this page and in order to no have the controversies section take up 1/2 of the article. I think its good the way it is but if you can improve it then go for it. We don't have to ghetto-ize anything the could be considered controversial, but we don't want it taking over the page either. Metal.lunchbox (talk) 18:46, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Apologies for the long delay here. I'm just getting back to a normal routine following vacation, but will work on drafting some edits in the next little while. Regarding the NGO issue, I think yours is the simplest solution for now. It is not easy to define the nature of the relationship between Hanban, the government, and the party, but we might want to briefly expand on the subtleties of it somewhere. For instance, describing the role of Liu Yandong, a senior CCP official, former United Front Work Department head, and now chair of Hanban (it would seem[2]). Homunculus (duihua) 03:52, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

No action. Are the above suggestions all uncontested, then? A more significant matter: is it necessary to split off a page about "controversies"? This seems an odd move. Here's what I think. I think we should factually describe the subject of the article according to what has been published in reliable sources. I don't think we should make a judgement about which descriptions are "controversial" and which aren't, and shunt them to another page. Everything is information about the topic. I suggest a complete integration of all facts and relevant perspectives, without any lingering on what people simply think about a matter, but with emphasis on the information that has been documented on a matter. If there are prominent "thoughts", then they could be restated simply and briskly. In scanning the "controversies" page now, I see mostly information rather than "controversies." The percentage of this page about "controversies" should be in proportion to what has been published in reliable sources. Nearly all accounts I've seen of the institutes mention something about the CPC connection. What do others think of my suggestions? The Sound and the Fury (talk) 19:30, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I just deleted an amusing tail-end of a sentence, which pointed out to the reader that the author of an article concluding that there is little evidence of CIs conducting propaganda happened to interview CI directors in the course of her research. Fancy that, a journalist interviewing the subjects of their articles. I suppose that it is these unprofessional addenda that fueled the effort to shove everything "controversial" to another page. I have now scanned through the archive and I am confident that we can do a better job of providing a full picture of the institute and the available information about it without resorting to weasel words and editorializing on the quality of sources. In any case, some information can easily be ported, and even temporarily duplicated, and we can later decide what to do with the other page. That's my thought for now. (Just as an example, in the "purpose" section, one would not first provide the official explanation trailed by some dissenting voices, but provide a lead sentence that introduces the different views on what the purpose of CIs are, before moving into a section which elaborates these different views. This would integrate information from the "controversies" while also providing a fuller set of information to the reader. Of course, the official explanation would also be included, but it would not be the default explanation.) The Sound and the Fury (talk) 19:46, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Hey, you're back. Probably should have spoken up months ago, no? There are editorial guidelines governing this issue somewhere. If a controversies section becomes too long, it is appropriate to give it its own page. However, I do think that the controversies page is now more informative as a whole than this one, and would suggest that more of that information be added in where appropriate in throughout the body of this article.Homunculus (duihua) 23:40, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

How is it decided what is a controversy and what is a piece of information about the subject? In every case emphasis should be given to information rather than opinion (with the caveat that yes, it is information that X holds Y opinion); and the "controversies" page, from a cursory look, appears to be mostly information rather than opinion. Perhaps the simplest approach here is to follow Deng Xiaoping's dictum: "Cross the river by feeling the stones." I'll just roll my sleeves up and start doing what I suggest is a good idea, and in the process of its execution I'm confident we will come to some accord. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 03:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I made a very modest change to the opening sentence of one section. That's the idea I'm suggesting: integrate all the information here. Don't make this article the "official version" then shunt the other opinions to a separate page. Academics are actually more of a reliable source on CIs than is the CPC. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 03:21, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

• I just summarized the non-repetitive parts from the "objectives" section on the controversies page. Seriously, the rest of the information wasn't that helpful. What's the point of presenting a quotefarm of different sources and references each with their own pithy sentence saying basically the same thing? Our job is to sum this stuff up and present it in accordance with the reliability of the sources and in rough accordance with the views' representation in those sources. The rest of the useful information from that section on that page would better belong summarized in the controversies section of this page (about Hacienda La Puente, etc.; very short). The fact is that most reports on these institutes highlight its "controversies." We should just sum that up without going on about it in this section. But to business: Any problems with my changes to the "purpose" section? The Sound and the Fury (talk) 03:39, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal

(watch)

Following a brief discussion initiated at the talk page of the subsidiary article, Concerns and controversies over Confucius Institutes, I would seek consensus to merge the two articles. There cannot be any objection as to the size of any potentially combined article. Stripped of duplication, it would be well below 100kb. There are a number of problems that have been highlighted, principally undue weight being given to speculative fears or general anti-PRC sentiment. I have put in substantial work into the other article, but it remains a POV fork; I also still feel that it can never be anything but an attack page. The issues are not really all that complex, in that they principally stem from the involvement of the Chinese party-state and fears over how its record of propaganda and denial of human rights would impact academic establishments hungry for Chinese hard cash. My personal view of the merger outcome would be a further substantial pruning of the content now residing at the latter so that the conclusions of both batches of text would be in political alignment. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:38, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support. I make a case for the deletion of the POV fork at great length here, so I will not repeat myself. Colipon+(Talk) 01:52, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support, though I hope to see the logistics and implementation of the merge handled with a good dose of circumspection. I certainly believe that the informative content of the daughter article can be integrated fairly concisely throughout the body of the main article and, when necessary, in a devoted section on controversies. I agree with the views expressed by TSTF in the above discussion that many of the controversies previously identified can simply be presented in a neutral, informative matter, without the journalistic exegesis (for instance, Hanban's position on hiring FG practitioners and requirements that CIs follow PRC laws can just be presented in a section on the organization and administration, without excessive additional commentary. Similarly, information regarding lack of student demand and financial losses—previously classified as a concern over viability—can be addressed the body of the article under a section on 'operations,' or something). I hope this is done in a manner that both maintains the substance of these concerns while not leading to an unreadable, ponderous document. Finally, I hope that we are not guided in our editing by our own judgements about whether criticisms are fair or not, or whether the result produces unfavorable / favorable views of Confucius Institutes or the PRC generally; that is not the measure of objectivity.Homunculus (duihua) 04:34, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support, I do want to make clear that the vast majority of the content of the Controversies article should be either included as summary or deleted. Most of the quotes and other content are not notable controversies worth discussing in detail in this article. Instead we might simply improve the section on controversies already present in this article, expand a little bit on financing and the relationship with the PRC government insofar as that can be done in a neutral and verifiable manner, and include a few other details that seem important and verifiable. In particular I think the incident in Israel is significant as it is related to the concerns and actually happened instead of just being speculated upon by someone quoted in a local paper. Espionage, for instance, does not merit discussion but rather simply mentioning that some are also concerned that the CIs are used to spy on overseas Chinese and Asia scholars. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 08:20, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support with provisions previously mentioned and again raised by Homunculus & Metal.lunchbox. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 15:24, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support. This article should summarize those controversies that have been widely discussed in outside sources, i.e. not every anti-CI opinion piece that is published in local newspaper. There is enough material to fill a devoted section on controversies, but following Wikipedia best practices, I prefer a more integrative approach. Shrigley (talk) 22:12, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose I strongly disagree with this counterproductive proposal, and am surprised that you would start merging content without even waiting 48 hours for additional comments. The present page was split off (WP:SPLITTING – not WP:POVFORK) the original CI page in July 2011 as a compromise to stop years of wasteful edit warring. If editors were unable to reach NPOV consensus then, it seems improbable that they will now. Criticisms and controversies over CIs – whether one sees them as legitimate free speech or anti-PRC propaganda – will not go away. In fact, they have increased exponentially, which became evident when we tried a chronological arrangement of the Controversies section. Admittedly, I could be wrong, so I suggest interested editors draw their own conclusions from the Article and Talk page histories, which document every constructive and destructive edit. In the meantime, I request that you stop making major C&CCI deletions without allowing discussion. We can disagree on whether the CI criticisms are fair, or whether the article coverage should be throttled to an arbitrary number of paragraphs, but I hope we can all agree that Wikipedia readers should have uncensored access to relevant information. Keahapana (talk) 21:06, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

  Please stop referring to the edits of others as censorship. You have done so on several times in regards to this topic and it is not helpful. Also, no one has proposed an arbitrary limit to the number of paragraphs devoted to the topic. This is not a free-speech issue, it is only that a long list of quotes and repetitive speculation strung together to form some kind of ambiguous argument against the CIs is not appropriate for Wikipedia. Remember that not every type of content belongs on Wikipedia. When someone edits, summarizes, or consolidates that content, it is not censorship, but rather the necessary work of improving this encyclopedia. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 01:56, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

  First, I was referring to dubiously justified WP deletions that I would call censorship —"the process of removing parts of books, movies, letters, etc. that are considered inappropriate for moral, religious, or political reasons" (Macmillan Dictionary). If not censorship, what would you call yesterday's removal of the widely-discussed Hacienda La Puente Unified School District controversy because "rem per WP:UNDUE - storm in a teacup)"? Second, I meant this proposal on 10 January: "all of these concerns can be summed up succinctly in the main article's section on "Criticism and Controversies", in two paragraphs at max." Of course, I could be wrong about the semantics of "censorship" or interpretation of WP:UNDUE, and look forward to any further comments. Keahapana (talk) 03:31, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

  The removal and its comment are appropriate. If you think that the removal is for moral, religious or political reasons as you are suggesting then you should explain what evidence you have for this. Otherwise WP:AGF would suggest that removing a paragraph about an editorial in a local paper saying some sensational things about a local CI and a few reactions should be assumed to be done in a good faith effort to avoid giving undue weight to not-notable controversies as described at length in WP:UNDUE. Much of the controversies article suffers from the same problem. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 03:42, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

  You are talking about the Hacienda episode. It's as much about WP:SUMMARY and WP:GNG as anything else. Censorship doesn't come into it, because not everything belongs in an encyclopaedia. Just because it's a criticism doesn't necessarily mean it should be listed. Half the content that was in that deletion was placed there by me in the first place because it was totally unbalanced and contributed strongly to its reading like an attack page, but I decided to take it all out because I felt on balance it is a rather local issue, which clearly ought not to carry as much weight as anything that took place at a university. And even some of the university stuff can and ought to be judiciously summarised. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:56, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Keahapana, from what I can gather you have been working on this page longer than any of us (the possible exception being Metal.lunchbox). I can believe that the page has been subject to attempted censorship before (I've encountered enough of this elsewhere on the encyclopedia[3] to recognize the potential for it), and although I never fully supported the split page, I can also appreciate that the controversies page was an attempt to cool things down. That said, there are more editors involved now, and there may be potential for positive collaboration if we all agree to some basic guidelines (ie. stick to discussions of content, refrain from being especially bold...?). Your warnings may turn out to be prescient, but merging the pages again could be worth a try.Homunculus (duihua) 17:20, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support, though the editors should find a way to collaborate first. Until then the merge will only fuel the dispute. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 09:52, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. While I confess I haven't read either of the articles in their entirely, the criticism article looks detailed and well-developed enough that it works as a stand-alone article. If it works as a stand-alone, there's no need to merge it. I'm not concerned about information being 'hidden' because the important points of the argument can be summarized in the main article, with a link to the more detailed article, just like there is now. If all this content were merged into the main article, it seems like it would be giving undue weight to the criticism (even if for example 80% of the sources about Confucius Institutes are regarding the criticism, I still think it would be disproportionate to devote 80% of the article to that, since it can be summarized more succinctly and there is more to say than just that). rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:06, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. If you bear in mind the long history of this article edit and the good outcome of the July 2011 split compromise, it ones more confirms that this is an established and proven policy to help to end edit wars. I think we should keep the two articles separately and try to keep them as NPOV as possible. I also think that in recent years the criticism over CIs has become more noticeable than the CIs themselves, so it is a good solution to have two separated articles. --AdminiMax 22:54, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Discussion about proposed merger

I am making this request for comment because the numerous accusations of serious political interference and censorship on both sides of this debate seem to demand further comment by neutral parties if this article is ever to meet Wikipedia standards. John Hill (talk) 22:30, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

AFAIK, John, the only accusations of "serious political interference and censorship" have come from user Keahapana. You will notice in my lengthy proposal for deletion, I do not make a single comment against any user personally or makes a judgment on the motives of anyone. I focus on content only, and it would seem to me like almost every other editor here sticks to that as well (regardless of which 'side' they are on). So that said, I do not think such loaded words are appropriate to describe the situation, but I do welcome third party opinions on this issue. Colipon+(Talk) 05:14, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

As an addition, I would caution any third party observers to this debate against characterizing anything here as an edit war with two distinct 'sides'. It seems to me like all the editors can agree that criticism of CIs is notable and warrants inclusion on WP. What we cannot agree on is simply how much of it is notable, how much of it should be included, and on what article it should be written; and even on these issues, there is a continuum of opinions, not a distinct 'for' and 'against' pattern of discussion. Colipon+(Talk) 05:20, 14 January 2012 (UTC)