Xinhuanet.com on August 18, 2005, China is alerted about the phenomenon that Chinese language is on the curriculum of language courses in the U.S. military. The article, titled "Be alert: U.S. military learning Chinese, reflecting its strategy intention," believes that the foreign language initiative in the U.S. military is part of an ambition to infiltrate and control the respective country. Below is the translation of the article.
"Americans have shown more and more interest in learning Chinese. ‘The hot wave of Chinese’ has reached the military barracks. If an officer or a soldier could get a good score in the language test, not only could he or she gain an advantage for promotion, but also a subsidy of US$ 1,000. In addition to encouraging learning Chinese, the languages that the U.S. military promotes most are mostly those used in Asian region."
"Encourage Learning Asian Languages"
"According to a U.S. military publication, services of the U.S. military have received a notice from the Department of Defense (DoD) that a new foreign language test program will begin in all services this October. If officers or soldiers who are bilingual have good scores, they get a raise in salary as reward. The languages in the program are as many as 31 and include the Chinese language, which is relatively difficult to learn.
"DoD Deputy Under Secretary McGinn stated in a speech that the test for the entire military is titled ‘Fifth Generation of the Defense Language Proficiency Test.’ Its goal is to understand the foreign language level of service members, which is significant for the U.S. military to fulfill its missions all over the world.
"Through this test the military hopes to know how many service members have foreign language skills at what levels, and to encourage them to learn one or more foreign languages, said McGinn.
"McGinn also announced that, under a request from the DoD, U.S. Congress recently authorized increasing the cap on the language proficiency award from US$300 to US$1,000, depending on their proficiency level in foreign languages."
"Foreign Languages Are Just Like New Weapons"
"A U.S. DoD official said the function of language specialists, especially those who have skills in languages spoken by small populations, is in no way inferior to certain new weapons. Having experienced the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War, the Pentagon discovered that soldiers with foreign language skills not only could carry out tasks more smoothly behind the enemy’s back, but also could easily escape from a dangerous situation. More important is that the skill in a local language would help the U.S. military obtain important information from local residents"
{mospagebreak}
"Reflecting the U.S. Military’s Strategic Intention"
"To meet the needs of U.S. troops in Iraq, students studying the Arabic language in the U.S. Defense Language Institute have increased by 40 percent. Meantime, the Defense Language Institute also increased the number of students studying Persian languages by 70 percent.
"The U.S. DoD scheduled the first test to be held in October for six foreign languages including Hindi, Persian-Dari, Afghan Pashto and Pakistani Urdu. Tests for Russian and Iraqi are slated for December. Tests in 2006 are planned for Chinese, Spanish and Korean. Test dates for other languages are to be determined.
"Obviously, of the foreign languages that the U.S. military is required to learn, there is not even one African language although there are many ‘small’ languages in Africa. All ‘key foreign languages’ are basically those of the Middle East, Central Asia and East Asia, particularly the Middle East and Central Asia.
"In fact, U.S. military is deploying the troops under this approach. the ‘Foreign Languages Study’ program indicates that the U.S. military’s ambition in the Middle East and Central Asia is far beyond the ‘achievement’ they have obtained now. There might have already been ‘an arrangement’ of a bigger plan to infiltrate and control."
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2005-08/18/content_3370570.htm