Celebrating 10 years of Confucius Institute

Tang Chaorong, founder of the Tang Ren school, is giving a lesson to the participants of a mandarin course at the "Tang Ren" Chinese school for language and culture, on february 14, 2006 in Winterthur, Switzerland.[Photo/IC]

Confucius Institute has bolstered the educational cooperation between China and other countries. With its differential operation model of joint cooperation between a Chinese partner university and a foreign host university, Confucius Institute has become an important channel for Chinese universities to step out of the country and go global. During the course of jointly running Confucius Institutes, Chinese partner universities send out teachers and management staff, on one hand to provide convenience for the local people to learn Chinese, on the other increase the reputation of Chinese universities. Through Confucius Institute, Chinese universities have improved themselves by learning the school-running experience from their foreign partner universities. Moreover, Confucius Institute has greatly boosted the exchanges in research, human resources and disciplinary development between Chinese universities and their foreign counterparts.

Confucius Institute is an active contributor to China’s overall national economic and social development and foreign relations, and enhances friendly ties between China and other countries. As an extremely amicable and natural approach of diplomacy, Confucius Institute constitutes a brand new stage and realization instrument for inter-governmental diplomacy, public diplomacy and people-to-people diplomacy. Statistics show that during their overseas visits, Chinese heads of state have attended more than 200 events of Confucius Institutes and over 200 foreign political dignitaries have paid visits to Confucius Institutes. In a word, Confucius Institute has contributed greatly to international friendly cooperation.

With more people learning Chinese, there will be smoother and more convenient exchanges of personnel between China and other countries and broader and more efficient channels for economic, trade and technology cooperation. According to the statistics in some countries, thanks to Confucius Institute, the economic and trade cooperation between the places where the Chinese partner university and the foreign host university are located has been widely strengthened.

The international education of the Chinese language has provided huge convenience for Chinese nationals to travel abroad and foreigner to visit China, providing impetus to the development of tourism both in China and relevant countries. Some foreign scholars think that since its inception, Confucius Institute has contributed to 3 per cent of world tourism. Because they have learned Chinese, students of some countries will set their destination in China and their visit to China will in return help them to know about a real China that is vibrant, enterprising, educated and friendly, and increase their emotional attachment to China.

To sum up, Confucius Institute has become a golden name card of China, and it is, to the real sense, a bridge of language, culture, exchange, and a bridge between the hearts and souls.