China's soft power in education : measuring confucius institutes by the Fulbright yardstick

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In 2004, the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC or China) created an institute in Seoul, South Korea, to teach Mandarin Chinese language and about Chinese culture. Soon after, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders spread these organizations to many other countries across the globe. These language and cultural centers are known as Confucius Institutes (CIs).1 The CIs follow other governmental educational organizations that have been well established globally for decades. The United States’ version is known as the Fulbright Program. Fulbright was established in 1946 by US Senator J. William Fulbright.2 This program operates various academic exchanges with countries around the world. Programs like Fulbright and the CIs are part of their respective nations’ soft power initiatives. Soft power is the ability to get one actor to do what you want through attraction or co-option, as opposed to coercion or threats.3 This research will attempt to answer why are China’s Confucius Institutes on a path to help the rising state’s soft power similar to what the current leading state’s soft power educational arm, US’s Fulbright Program, has done, but with Chinese characteristics.