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Taiwan Language Learning Center Enters the U.S. Chinese Language Learning Market

China’s Confucius Institutes have been investing heavily overseas to promote foreigners being able to learn Chinese and Chinese culture. It is viewed as Beijing’s measure to enhance its “soft power.” In recent years, Confucius Institutes have been accused of interfering in academic freedom, conducting intelligence collection and other unwanted tasks. Since 2017, many Confucius Institutes in the U.S. have closed down.

This year, Taiwan began to explore the international Chinese language teaching market very actively. The Overseas Chinese Affairs Committee under the Taiwan Executive Yuan announced in June that it will set up 20 “Taiwan Chinese Language Learning Centers” in the U.S., Great Britain, Germany, France and other countries. Seventeen of them will be in the United States.

According to the statistics from the National Association of Scholars (NAS), in 2017, there were 103 Confucius Institutes in the U.S. As of July 9 of this year, the number had dropped to 41. Many other schools will also close Confucius Institutes later this year or next year.

Last October, the U.S. switched the cover of its official language learning website to the landmark Taipei 101 building in Taiwan. Last December, the U.S. signed the “Taiwan-U.S. Education Initiative” and launched the language teaching cooperation. It also increased the quota of the number of teachers from Taiwan who would teach in the United States.

In March,  21 U.S. congressmen wrote to the Secretary of Education. They stated that, after the U.S. closed Confucius Institutes, there was still a high demand for learning Chinese and Chinese culture. They suggested that the U.S expand Taiwan-U.S. education initiatives. The letter stated that the cooperation between Taiwan and the U.S. in education can limit the influence of communist China and ensure freedom of speech. It will be an alternative option to be used instead of the Confucius Institutes.

Source: BBC, August 13, 2021
https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/world-58170293

Editors Resigned to Protest Scientific Journal Publishing Unethical Papers from China

Eight out of the 25 board members of the scientific journal, “Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine,” resigned recently to protest the journal’s publishing many articles that Chinese authors had written and which could lead to unethical or discriminating DNA profiling. The journal is published by Wiley, a world premier scientific publisher based in New Jersey.

Yves Moreau, a bio-information expert at the University of Leuven in Belgium found that, earlier this year, the journal published 18 papers with ethical issues. Some of the papers described genetic differences between ethnic groups, which the Chinese police could use for DNA profiling. Other papers relied on samples that Moreau suspected were taken without proper consent. Beijing wants to build a genetic library for all of the 700 million males in China and thus has collected DNA from all males, some with people’s consent and some by force.

In March, Moreau raised the issue to Suzanne Hart, the journal’s editor-in-chief. After not getting a meaningful answer, he raised the issue to the full board in June. Some board members also inquired of Suzanne Hart and eventually, eight out of the 25 board members resigned in protest.

Sources:
1. Radio Free Asia, August 7, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/9-08072021152536.html
2. The Intercept, August 4, 2021
https://theintercept.com/2021/08/04/dna-profiling-forensic-genetics-journal-resignations-china/

Propaganda: The Non-Existent Swiss Biologist Who Said China’s Lab Did Not Leak the Virus

In early August, Many of China’s state media, including Xinhua, People’s Daily, China News Agency, and Global Times, quoted Facebook about a Biologist named Wilson Edwards from Switzerland who stated that it is extremely unlikely that China’s lab leaked the COVID-19 virus. He worried that the World Health Organization lacks an independent scientific judgment and has become a political tool of the U.S. government.

However, on August 10, Switzerland’s Embassy in China issued an official statement that this was fake news. The statement said that Switzerland does not have a citizen whose name is Wilson Edwards, that no academic article was ever published by an author with that name, and that his Facebook account was created on July 24, 2021, with only one posting and three friends. This indicates that this account was not created for a social networking purpose.

Source: Liberty Times, August 11, 2021
https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/world/breakingnews/3634411

Pandemic: COVID-19 Is Spreading in China (August 11, 2021, Update)

The COVID-19 virus keeps spreading in China. During the latest round of the outbreak, a total of 17 provinces have reported COVID-19 cases. Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has hidden the real information, the actual number of those infected is unknown.

On August 9, Yangzhou City, Jiangzu Province reported 48 cases, with a cumulative total of 394 cases. Jiangsu Province sent 653 medical doctors and nurses and 2,260 COVID testers from other cities to Yangzhou. On August 11, Sun Chunlan, the Vice Premier of China, visited Yangzhou to check on the COVID-19 outbreak.

Zhengzhou City, Henan Province which just suffered a severe flood due to the government releasing water from a dam without informing people, also reported COVID-19 cases.

The CCP has been using an extreme lockdown method to create “zero” cases. Zhang Wenhong, the lead medical expert on the COVID-19 virus in Shanghai, recently suggested that more and more people feel the pandemic will not end soon. Therefore the world should learn to live with the virus. However, Gao Qiang, formerly of the Minister of Health, criticized this viewpoint.

Sources:
1. China.com.cn, August 11, 2021
http://news.china.com.cn/2021-08/11/content_77685454.htm
2. China’s State Council Website, August 11, 2021
http://www.gov.cn/guowuyuan/2021-08/11/content_5630831.htm
3. VOA, August 11, 2021
https://www.voachinese.com/a/China-weighs-whether-to-abandon-zero-tolerance-approach-on-Covid-20210810/5997594.html

Related postings on Chinascope:

Pandemic: COVID-19 Delta Variant Is Spreading in China Since July

“Xi Jinping Thoughts” A Required Course in Shanghai Elementary and Secondary Schools

On August 3, the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission issued the “Shanghai Elementary and Secondary School Curriculum Plan for the 2021 School Year.” The Plan specifies that the elementary school version of “Xi Jinping’s Thoughts on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” will be taught in the first semester of the 3rd and the 5th grades. The middle school version will be taught in the third semester of junior high school; and the high school version will be taught in the first semester of senior high school. The course is mandatory. Each course is to be taught for one hour per week.

The notice emphasized that the city’s primary and secondary schools should not use the original or modified version of foreign teaching materials without getting approval from the city’s educational authorities. At the same time, the notice requires that the “revolutionary culture and the socialist culture” be incorporated into the whole process of primary and secondary education.

Source: Central News Agency, August 7, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202108070070.aspx

CCP’s Central Propaganda Department Launches Campaign against Fake News

The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) is China’s government agency in charge of news media and all publication platforms. On August 3, SAPPRFT published an article reporting that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) Central Propaganda Department recently held a teleconference on launching a special campaign against news extortion and fake news. The special campaign includes a focus on cracking down on news agencies and their personnel who use “illegal news activities,  online communication platforms, public accounts that use illegal news activities, and social organizations and individuals who use illegal news activities.”

Ten CCP and government agencies, including the Central Propaganda Department, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the State Administration of Taxation, the State Administration of Market Supervision, SAPPRFT, and the All-China Journalists Association jointly organized he campaign.

Political scientist Chen Daoyin told Radio Free Asia (RFA) that the campaign is related to the upcoming politically sensitive period before the 20th CCP National Congress next year. “The Politburo believes that the current domestic and international situation is complicated and severe, and that the economy has yet recovered and become balanced. In addition, this is a sensitive period before the 20th National Congress. It is the CCP’s usual practice to eliminate all the noises and ensure that only the voice of the Party is heard, so as to achieve unity of thought and the authority of the Party.”

Source: Central News Agency, August 5, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202108050263.aspx

Chinese Think Tank Report Finds Fault with U.S. Covid-19 Response

On August 9, three Chinese think tanks published a report titled, “‘America Ranked First’?! The Truth about America’s fight against COVID-19.” The three think tanks were The Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, and the Taihe Institute and Intellisia Institute – in Beijing.

The report was developed into five chapters as follows: “For partisan competitions, not for people’s lives,” “Anti-science and against common-sense measures,” “System failures result in the pandemic being difficult to control,” “The pandemic exacerbated the social gap,” and “The Willful destruction of global resistance to the pandemic.”

The report criticized the U.S. response in several areas, including political infighting, monetary policy, hatred against Asians, “allowing” the spread of the virus, and the “creation” of international conflicts.

The portion ‘America Ranked First’ refers to Bloomberg’s June 28 report. “The U.S.’s Stunning Turnaround in the Pandemic,” which claimed that the U.S. has surged to No. 1. in Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking.

The report concluded, that “the U.S. well deserves to be called the world’s No.1 anti-pandemic failure, the world’s No. 1 country of political blaming, the world’s No. 1 country of virus spreading, the world’s No. 1 country of political division, the world’s No. 1 country of abusive currency issuance, the world’s No. 1 country of turmoil during the pandemic period, the world’s No. 1 country of disinformation, and the world’s No. 1 country of origin for tracing terrorism.”

Source: China Central Television, August 9, 2021
http://m.news.cctv.com/2021/08/09/ARTIsfOioJpzCdUoxLzKie9V210809.shtml