The friendly dragon
Pallavi Aiyar
The Indian Express
Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Let China sleep, for when she awakes, the world will tremble,’’ said Napoleon famously, and indeed as the sleeping giant rouses, tremors are being felt throughout the world. From East to West, the seemingly inexorable rise of the Middle Kingdom, is drawing other nations to it, as a model for development, source and destination for investment and trading partner. The fear and distrust with which many used to regard the mainland is increasingly being replaced by admiration, so that from Vietnam to India, through to far away Brazil, China is now being seen as presenting more of an opportunity than a threat.
Growing apace with its rising economic and diplomatic strength is Beijing’s cultural clout or soft power. Soft power, a term coined by Harvard professor Joseph Nye, refers to a country’s ability to influence others by the attractiveness of its ideas and values. For decades it is a term that has primarily been associated with the US, given the ability of Hollywood glamour and Mickey Mouse cuteness to attract across borders and the importance of English as a global language.

However, as in the economic and political realms, the supremacy of US soft power is gradually being challenged by the might of Chinese culture and language. Across Asia, China’s cultural power is on display, exported through linguistic and gastronomic ties and consolidated through its overseas communities. Chinese tourism is burgeoning and it is visitors from the mainland, rather than Japan that now constitute the dominant tourist group in Southeast Asia. Chinese cinema, art and traditional medicine are all booming globally.

The escalating popularity of Mandarin Chinese is a case in point. Chinese is already the most spoken language in the world, with three times as many native speakers as English. Far from being geographically restricted to China’s immediate neighbourhood, its spread across the globe is being ensured by the Chinese diaspora. Thus, for example, Chinese is now the third most spoken language in Canada, following English and French. It is widely predicted that within a decade or so Mandarin will have overtaken English as the most used language on the Internet.

According to the National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (NOCFL) in Beijing, there are approximately 30 million people learning Chinese around the world and it is the mainland’s stated purpose to ensure that this number grows to 100 million by 2007. Currently, more than 2,300 universities in nearly 100 countries offer courses in Chinese and thousands are flocking to China’s shores in the hope of mastering the language. There are now more foreign students in China (estimated at over 86,000) than Chinese students abroad.

Not surprisingly, interest in the HSK, a standardised exam to test proficiency in Chinese, similar to the TOEFL test for English, has surged. From 2000, when only some 4,500 people appeared for the exam, the number of test takers leaped to almost 22,000 in 2004. Significantly, the profile of those taking the HSK has also changed from comprising largely academics and linguists to include large numbers of entrepreneurs and white-collar professionals.

Driving this boom in learning Mandarin is the perception of the economic opportunities that China offers and a concomitant sense that the future firmly belongs in the Middle Kingdom’s hands. Indeed, multinational businesses across the mainland now routinely require foreign employees in China to be fluent in Mandarin.

Choo Shuo Yen, a Singaporean student currently studying International Relations in Beijing, observes the sea change in attitude towards Mandarin that has taken place in Singapore over the last few years. ‘‘In the ’70s, it was all about English because our government saw English as the most important language of the future,’’ he says. As a result many Singaporeans, even those of Chinese ethnicity, could no longer communicate adequately in Chinese. ‘‘But now, it’s slowly being seen as a disadvantage to not be fluent in Mandarin,’’ says Shuo Yen. Thus, last year the official language policy of Singapore was reformed to place greater emphasis on Chinese. Adds Shuo Yen, ‘‘It’s not only ethnic Chinese, but even Malays and Indians who are taking a greater interest in learning Mandarin.’’

That the Chinese authorities see language as a foundational pillar in the projection of soft power is evident from a recent statement made by the Chinese Vice Minister for Education, Zhang Xinzheng at a conference in Beijing. Zhang said, ‘‘The demand for a language represents the country’s overall national power and image in the world. More importantly, it forecasts the country’s future.’’

And to ensure that the demand for Mandarin continues to grow, Beijing is planning to establish a series of ‘‘Confucius Institutes’’ to promote the teaching of Chinese language and culture abroad. Agreements to establish these institutes have already been reached with countries as diverse as the United States, Uzbekistan, Kenya and Sweden.

It remains unlikely that Mandarin Chinese will replace English as a global lingua franca. Mandarin has four tones and thousands of characters, making it difficult to master. And while millions are now learning it as a second language, the numbers pale in comparison to those learning English, an estimated 375 million in China alone.

Nonetheless, there seems no denying the increasing muscularity of China’s soft power that both reinforces and results from the country’s economic rise. China is now the third largest film producer in the world, after the United States and India. Mainland directors like Zhang Yimou and actress Zhang Zi Yi, whose film Hero made for very happy box-offices around the globe last year, have become household names. Chinese influence on directing style and camera work on Hollywood films is visible from blockbusters like The Matrix and Kill Bill. The latter, star director Quentin Tarrantino’s latest movie, was in fact partly filmed in Beijing.

Last year, as France celebrated the official ‘‘Year of China in France’’, the Eiffel Tower was bedecked with red lights and silk lanterns to celebrate the Chinese New Year. It would require a fertile imagination indeed to imagine the French celebrating the Fourth of July with similar enthusiasm. America might still be the world’s greatest power, but with its continued focus on the war on terrorism and blunt ‘‘you-are-either-with-us-or-against-us’’ tone, it’s ironically China, despite its authoritarian political system, that is being able to project a comparatively soft touch.


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