Language Ideology and Order in Rising China

Language Ideology and Order in Rising China

Minglang Zhou

Language Ideology and Order in Rising China

Minglang Zhou

Language Ideology and Order in Rising China

Minglang Zhou University of Maryland College Park College Park, MD, USA

ISBN 978-981-13-3482-5 ISBN 978-981-13-3483-2  (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3483-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018962900 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © [Nadine Westveer/EyeEm] This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Dedicated to Ping Fu and Daoyou for their inspirations and encouragement

Foreword

A few years ago, I was invited to a banquet honoring a distinguished Chinese scientist. The honoree was an accomplished researcher in his field, but he was also urbane and well-read in the humanities, and after the dinner, he gave a short talk. “Unlike English and other Western languages,” he began, “the Chinese language does not change over time.” He went on: “I know, because I speak the very same language as Confucius, from 2500 years ago.” He had our attention. To be sure, our guest that evening was not a professional linguist. But he was philologically sophisticated, a fluent reader of languages East and West—most notably and proudly, of course, of Classical Chinese. And with his talk that evening, our scientist showed starkly how much the Chinese writing system overshadows and is confused with the spoken language, perhaps especially so among the highly educated. Zhou Minglang has written a work of a different kind. His book focuses not on Chinese characters and their use, but squarely on what is actually spoken in China today, the extraordinary variety of Chinese speech, and the political and social issues affecting China’s linguistic future. Issues of writing and literacy take their place in that context (and mostly are covered only in parts of Chapter 3) rather than dominating the larger discussion. At issue, here is also the very basic question: What, after all, is “the Chinese language”? The answer to that question has deep-rooted cultural significance. For virtually all native-born Chinese, the idea that “the Chinese language” includes all related varieties of Han speech is taken as vii

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a given, even though the many unintelligible varieties of that “Chinese language” are at least as diverse as all of the Romance family of languages combined. In the context of Chinese culture, such varieties are all considered to be merely “dialects” of a singular Han Chinese language. And yet, even a glance at the English-language Wikipedia entry for “Chinese Language” reveals the very different position taken by most (Western) linguists, who consider Han Chinese to be not a single language but rather a large and varied family of languages. The variation is that great. Nevertheless, in his narratives Prof. Zhou sticks to conventional lay terminology in Chinese contexts, but he remains the dispassionate linguist in discussing the meaning and importance of non-standard “varieties of Chinese” (Zhou’s term) and the issues created by language standardization policies. But beyond the fraught political and educational issues arising from variation in the so-called Chinese dialects, there is the still greater issue of how China deals with the many non-Han languages and ethnic groups found on at least half of its national territory. In the 1950s, China adopted the Soviet model of the multinational state and began a nationwide survey of all the ethnic groups and languages found within its borders. Through questionnaires, tests, and linguistic research, PRC officials arrived at a list of 55 national minorities, and for over three decades that list of 55 has remained official. Yet, Zhou tells us, China actually has, at the very least, over one hundred thirty languages other than Chinese. If Zhou is right (and he surely is!), why haven’t all those other languages and ethnic groups that linguists continue to discover in the Chinese hinterlands been recognized? Why is the list frozen? The answer is simple: In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the PRC abandoned its original language ideology and replaced it with what the government now calls an “integrationist language ideology.” (See Zhou, Chapter 3.) In other words, the ultimate intent of the new policy is the very pragmatic goal of integrating all Chinese citizens into the Han mainstream, regardless whether they are originally Han, or non-Han. And so now, since the individual identities of minority groups are no longer of primary importance, why would they need to be so carefully and painstakingly identified in the first place? The policy change was quietly put into place, but its effect was dramatic. The book at hand is, first of all, an in-depth report on Zhou’s research into the effect China’s integrationist language ideology is having on all the Chinese citizens who are not native speakers of the

Foreword   

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“Common Language.” The changes he documents (in Chapter 4) are considerable. And they are interesting. It’s perhaps not surprising that progress in school policy implementation has been slow in Tibet and Xinjiang. But in Inner Mongolia, where a shift from Mongolian to Chinese has been going on for a few decades, the transformation of school instruction toward Chinese has been especially dramatic. Even though the ethnic Mongolian population has increased significantly in number, the percentage of students there studying Mongolian has dropped 20–30% as they shift into programs for the study of the Common Language instead. Still more interesting, though—perhaps most interesting of all, I think—is what is happening in the ethnic Korean community. This community in Yanbian in the Northeast, which has long been considered the “model” minority, has the most developed minority school system in China, with Korean instruction offered from elementary all the way through college. But of course, the community also has a complete, parallel system of Chinese instruction as well, and it is excellent. In fact, in his examination of the Chinese proficiency of these students, Zhou found that this Korean minority has the highest levels of literacy and education in China, not only highest among minorities, but also higher even than those of Han Chinese. It was a truly remarkable finding. Bilingual education was so successful in Yanbian in fact; trilingual education (Korean, Chinese, and usually English or Japanese) has been expanded throughout the entire Korean community. Yet, despite serving as the model for minority accomplishment, the Korean community, too, is shifting inexorably toward education in Chinese, with the percentage of students enrolling in the Chinese Common Language track continuing to grow at the expense of Korean. The importance of Common Language fluency in China’s growing market economy is proving too powerful a draw to resist. Facts such as these—and oh so many more to be found in Zhou’s study—show the political and social directions in which modern China and its languages are headed. Drawing on his years of experience and research in China’s schools, Zhou describes in clear and easy-to-understand terms—in English—how an inclusive nation-state is being constructed through education policy. Though official government rhetoric still mentions the ideology of multilingualism, the meaning of the term for today’s youth is largely vacuous. For young citizens coming of age in today’s China, any variety of speech other than the standard

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Common Language is, for all practical purposes, of negligible practical value. In other words, a Chinese citizen may speak whatever language or dialect he or she wishes to at home or in other private settings, but anywhere else, whether in school, business, government, or any other public setting—and especially so in any written form—only the Common Language is acceptable. This integrationist language policy now being implemented is a central part of China’s plans for shaping the future. In this era of a “rising China,” the state’s heady confidence in its ability to shape events can be seen in all of China’s ventures, whether they be for a greater consolidation of internal control, for expanding national territory into the South China Sea, or for influencing affairs on the world stage. Engineering what its citizens speak is very much part of that plan. The ambition often seems limitless. In the latter chapters of the present work, Zhou goes on to describe China’s plans for expanding its linguistic “soft power” beyond China itself, first by increasing the teaching and usage of the Chinese Common Language in countries and territories on China’s borders, meaning specifically countries in Southeast Asia—Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar— which have ethnic populations also found in China. And then, at the same time, China is promoting the Common Language in overseas Chinese communities and, more broadly, the Chinese language worldwide. All of those outreach projects are already well underway, of course. The objective is to make Chinese even more important as an international language, a worldwide medium of commerce, business, scientific research, and culture. A breathtaking goal indeed! Professor Zhou—my friend and longtime Maryland colleague—has done everyone with an interest in modern China a great service. I know of no other work with all the information found in this book, either the data that are presented there, or the easy-to-understand analyses Zhou gives for these data. I am grateful to Minglang for sharing much of this information with me in advance, and I plan to use it in the forthcoming East Asian courses I teach. College Park, MD, USA August 2018

S. Robert Ramsey

Acknowledgements

First of all, I appreciate the RASA scholarship awarded to me by the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park. The award made it possible for me to take a semester off in fall 2017, in addition to my sabbatical leave, for my fieldwork and preparation of the book manuscript. It sped up my slow process for the completion. The research on this book started more than ten years ago. I am indebted to many people who helped me during this long process. My fieldwork took me to many minority communities in China and some Confucius Institutes outside China in Africa, Central Asia, and Europe in the last few years. These field trips would not have been productive without the assistance from my colleagues in the field. This long list of people includes the following who made extra efforts helping me: Ban Zhenlin, Chen Jian, Guo Xi, Liu Weiqian, Lu Hong, Wang Ashu, Wang Yang, Wu Bo, Zhang Jun, and Zhang Xinsheng. In the research and writing process, I have consulted some scholars and experts and discussed with them some of the issues covered in this book. I have benefited a lot from the consultations and discussions with the following people: Acuo, Bolor, Cui Yingjin, Guljennet Anaytulla, Hai Lu, Huang Xing, Li Weiwen, Sun Hongkai, Teng Xing, Wang Hui, Yumkyi, Zhang Kuan, Zhang Xinsheng, and Zhang Zhiguo. I am particularly grateful to my colleagues, S. Robert Ramsey, and Terrence G. Wiley, who read the manuscript and gave me very insightful and helpful feedback. xi

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Acknowledgements

Sara Crowley Vigneau and Connie Li of the Palgrave editorial team are very helpful and resourceful in the final process of the completion of my book. They made the review of my book proposal a smooth process and readily available technical assistance in my manuscript preparation. I am grateful to their flexible accommodation of my schedule. I want to take this opportunity to thank the anonymous reviewer of my book proposal for all the valuable recommendations that helped me improve the quality of the book. I am especially indebted to the reviewer’s recommendation on the coverage of the Chinese language crisis, to which I have devoted a full chapter. Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank my family for their understanding and encouragement during this long process when I did not spend the time that I should have spent with them. Moreover, my wife, Ping Fu, and my son, Daoyou Zhou, are intellectually stimulating in their own ways. I discussed many of the issues covered in this book with Ping when we took a walk in our neighborhood. She always inspired me to consider the issues from the perspectives of cultural studies and media studies. When I finished the manuscript of the introduction chapter, Daoyou was taking my course on Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in China at the University of Maryland. I gave the introduction to him and asked his feedback as an undergraduate reader. His comments, I believe, helped me to write a more attractive introduction for young readers. Many people helped me in some way when I was preparing for and writing this book. I name them here to express my gratitude. However, I am solely responsible for the views and analyses presented in this book. College Park, MD, USA October 2018

Minglang Zhou

Contents

1 Introduction: Rising China 1 1.1 International Perspectives of Rising China 1 1.2 The Cultural Leg of Rising China 4 1.2.1 The Asian Financial Crisis and the Chinese Model 5 1.2.2 China’s Entry into WTO and Its Rise Within the Liberal World Order 6 1.2.3 The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games and China’s Rejuvenation 8 1.3 The Chinese Language and Rising China 11 1.3.1 Traditional Chinese Culture and Language Ideology 12 1.3.2 Traditional Chinese Culture and Language Order 13 1.3.3 Chinese Language and Culture for Rising China and “One World”? 15 1.4 Objective, Approach, and Organization of This Book 17 1.4.1 Objective 17 1.4.2 Approach 18 1.4.3 Organization 18 References 20 2 Defining Language Ideology and Language Order 25 2.1 Introduction 25 2.2 Language Ideology 27 xiii

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2.2.1 Approaches to Language Ideology 2.2.2 My Approach to Language Ideology 2.3 Language Order 2.3.1 Review of Literature on Linguistic/Language Order/Hierarchy 2.3.2 My Approach to Language Order 2.4 The Relationship Between Language Ideology and Language Order 2.4.1 Ideological Representation of Language Order 2.4.2 Materialization of Language Ideology 2.5 China’s Language Ideologies and Orders References

27 35 37 37 41 42 42 44 47 50

3 Synchronizing the Chinese Language 59 3.1 Introduction 59 3.2 Dilemma of the Chinese Scripts 60 3.2.1 Modernization Drive 60 3.2.2 Continuity and Discontinuity 62 3.2.3 Summary 69 3.3 Tension Between Putonghua and Varieties of Chinese 69 3.3.1 Varieties as Problem 70 3.3.2 Varieties as Resource 73 3.3.3 Summary 76 3.4 “Crisis” of the Chinese Mother Tongue 78 3.4.1 Globalization and the “Crisis” 78 3.4.2 Technology and the “Crisis” 81 3.4.3 Summary 84 3.5 Conclusion 85 References 87 4 Harmonizing Linguistic Diversity 95 4.1 Introduction 95 4.2 Multilingualism as Ideology and Order 96 4.2.1 Multilingualism and Multinational State Building 97 4.2.2 Multilingualism and Inclusive Chinese NationState Building 99 4.2.3 Summary 101 4.3 Legacy of the Development of Minority Schools 101

Contents   

4.4 Integration of Minority Schools into Chinese Schools 4.4.1 Integration in Xinjiang 4.4.2 Integration in Tibetan Communities 4.4.3 Integration in Other Minority Communities 4.4.4 Summary 4.5 Bilingual Education Starts with Babies 4.6 Conclusion References

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104 105 112 115 120 121 124 124

5 Evaluating Languages 133 5.1 Introduction 133 5.2 Language Ideology as Value Orientations 134 5.2.1 Defining Linguistic Capital and Market 134 5.2.2 Defining Linguistic Value Orientations 137 5.2.3 Summary 139 5.3 Value Orientations and Localization of the Global Language Order 139 5.3.1 Value Orientations and Allocation of Institutional Resources 140 5.3.2 Value Orientation and Allocation of Societal Resources 146 5.3.3 Summary 149 5.4 Attitudes, Markets, and Varieties of Chinese 149 5.4.1 Attitudes, Values, and Varieties of Chinese 150 5.4.2 Markets, Values, and Varieties of Chinese 153 5.4.3 Summary 156 5.5 Value Orientations and Minority Languages 156 5.5.1 Value Orientations and Ethnolinguistic Vitality 157 5.5.2 Value Orientations and Han’s Learning of Minority Languages 162 5.5.3 Value Orientations and Linking Minority Languages with Poverty 164 5.5.4 Summary 166 5.6 Conclusion 166 References 167 6 Reordering Languages Along China’s Borders 175 6.1 Introduction 175

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6.2 The Dynamics of Language Orders in Border Communities 177 6.3 Language Order and Its Centrifugality in Border Communities 180 6.3.1 Language Order and National Markets on Chinese Borders 180 6.3.2 Language Order and Education Along Chinese Borders 184 6.3.3 Summary 187 6.4 Language Order and Its Centripetality in Border Communities 187 6.4.1 Language Order and Primary Maintenance in Border Communities 188 6.4.2 Language Order and Secondary Maintenance in Border Communities 192 6.4.3 Summary 198 6.5 Conclusion 199 References 199 7 Promoting Chinese Across Borders 207 7.1 Introduction 207 7.2 Challenging the Global Language Order 209 7.3 Strategic and Ideological Issues on the Deep Level 213 7.3.1 Strategic Issues and Distribution of the Confucius Institutes 214 7.3.2 Ideological Issues and Three Chinas 219 7.3.3 Summary 228 7.4 Institutional Issues on the Surface Level 228 7.4.1 Confucius Institutes and Collaboration 229 7.4.2 Politics of Confucius Institutes on Campus 232 7.4.3 Confucius Institutes and Conflict of Interest 235 7.4.4 Summary 238 7.5 Conclusion 239 References 239 8 Outreaching to Overseas Chinese Communities 249 8.1 Introduction 249 8.2 Linguistic Outreach to Overseas Chinese Communities 250

Contents   

8.3 Linguistic Outreach to Taiwan 8.4 Linguistic Outreach to Hong Kong and Macao 8.4.1 Hong Kong 8.4.2 Macao 8.4.3 Summary 8.5 Linguistic Outreach to Ethnic Chinese Overseas 8.6 Conclusion References

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252 257 259 262 265 265 272 273

9 Conclusion 283 9.1 Introduction 283 9.2 Significance of the Conceptual Framework of Language Ideology and Order 285 9.3 China’s Language Ideology and Challenges 288 9.4 China’s Language Order and Challenges 290 9.5 Summary 293 References 294 Index 299

Abbreviations

CC Confucius Classroom CCP The Chinese Communist Party CET College English Test CFL Chinese as a Foreign Language CI Confucius Institute CNPC Chinese National People’s Congress CPPCC Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress CSL Chinese as Second Language DDP The Democratic Progressive Party EU European Union GMD Guomindang (The Nationalist Party) HSK Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (Chinese Proficiency Test) HSKK Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi Koushi (Chinese Proficiency Oral Test) IT Information Technology MOE Ministry of Education MOPHFP Ministry of Public Health and Family Planning NGO Non-Governmental Organization PRC The People’s Republic of China ROC The Republic of China SAR Special Administrative Region UK The United Kingdom UN The United Nations USA The United States of America USSR Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic WTO The World Trade Organization XDF Xin Dongfang (New Oriental) YCT Youth Chinese Test xix

List of Figures

Fig. 7.1 Fig. 7.2

Community SLA model (Zhou, 2006, 2012a). Note Arrows indicate the direction of development or influence 211 Manageable Community SLA model (Zhou, 2006, 2012a). Note Arrows indicate directions of development, influence or management 212

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List of Tables

Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table 4.3 Table 4.4 Table 4.5 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 5.4 Table 6.1

Bilingual teachers in seventeen integrated school in Urumqi 109 Ethnic relations in an integrated school in Turpan 111 Uyghur students’ friendship with Han students in integrated schools 111 Reduction of minority schools and Mongolian studying students in Inner Mongolia, 1980–1995 116 Bilingual education in Liangshan between 1991 and 2014 119 Yiwu natives’ and migrants’ language use and attitudes 155 Percentage of minorities speaking Chinese and minority languages 159 Li villagers’ language attitudes 160 Yi villagers’ language attitudes 161 Languages in Yunjing Village, Ruili, Yunnan 183

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Rising China

It is the 21st century. Can’t you speak Putonghua [Ershiyi shiji, ni hai bu hui shuo Putonghua ma]? —A slogan from the annual national Putonghua Promotion Week (the third week in September since 1998)

1.1  International Perspectives of Rising China The People’s Republic of China (PRC or China) is rising this century, a process that actually started in the last decade of the twentieth century and seems to be moving in full momentum this century. In the current cycle of globalization, China has built the world’s second largest economy that is expected to surpass the USA as the largest in the coming decades (Nye, 2010). At the same time, China has been expanding militarily, challenging the US’s military supremacy, particularly in the South China Sea (Glaser, 2011). What other impacts does rising China have regionally and globally? Answers to this question depend on who are asked. Closer to China, the immediate indication of its rise is East Asian and Southeast Asian neighbors’ uneasy responses to China’s unfolding developments and their anxious expectations of US’s outreach to balance China’s impacts in this region, with either accommodation, realignment, and/or resistance (Kang, 2008; McDougall, 2012). Specifically, tensions across the Taiwan Strait and territorial disputes between China and Japan in the East China Sea and with Southeast Asian countries in the South China Sea reflect China’s stronger military muscles in resolving historical © The Author(s) 2019 M. Zhou, Language Ideology and Order in Rising China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3483-2_1

1

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issues, the resolution of which may alter the world order created after the World War II. Farther away and more broadly, the overriding impressions are the pouring of cheap imports from China, eventually leading to the migration of capital and jobs to China (Shenkar, 2005). Next comes China’s challenge to the West in the clean energy and transportation industries, including such things as solar panels, high-speed railways, and commercial aircraft (Bradsher, 2010; Szepan, 2012). Moreover, intentionally or unintentionally, rising China appears to present a tough challenge to the existing world order. Whether this is a true threat or simply a perception, it brings about a lot of anxieties in the West as well (Goldstein, 2005; Hoge, 2004; House of Representatives, 2015; Kwon, 2012). Seemingly developing in this direction, China officially rolled out two grand strategies in 2015, the Belt and Road Initiative, an official platform to expand through Asia to Africa and Europe (Ploberger, 2017; H. Yu, 2017), and Made in China 2025, a master plan that targets all smart manufacturing in advanced economies in the West (Wübbeke, Meissner, Zenglein, Ives, & Conrad 2016). Fundamentally, China appears to pose a threat to the liberal system that is the foundation of Western democracies and market societies, a system that withstood the challenges by fascism and communism in the twentieth century (Ikenberry, 2008). It is generally believed in the West that the liberal system is invincible, particularly when China is accepted in the world order underpinned by this system (Ikenberry, 2008, 2014). However, the West is not familiar with a story from the sixteenth-century Chinese novel, Journey to the West, in which the Monkey King transforms himself to get into the stomach of the monster, Iron-Fan Princess, and beats her from inside after several failed attempts to attack her from outside. In China, that is considered the most effective strategy to defeat one’s most formidable rivals. When did China pose more economic challenges to Western industries and trade? Before it joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) or after it joined WTO in 2001? The answer is obviously after it joined WTO. Will the same thing happen to the liberal system? Open market societies allow a rather free flow of Chinese goods, thoughts, and institutions into the West. However, China began to close foreign NGOs after the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics and remains gated to Western institutions unless those institutions bow to China’s rules of the game as Cambridge University Press did in 2017

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and Facebook wants to do (Johnson, 2017; Li, 2017). The threat to the foundation of the liberal system appears to be real and close at home, for instance, in America. In October 2017 before the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Nineteenth National Congress, Chinese American members of a Wechat group for retirement finance based in Dallas, Texas were reminded by the group host to follow the Chinese censorship rules, rules that would close a Wechat group account and prosecute the group host if any violation is found. It was chilling to think of the long arm of rising China, under the proletarian dictatorship and via a Chinese tech company, that threatens freedom of speech in the land of freedom. Besides the instant and enormous economic and military growth, what else serves as the foundation of rising China so that it has increasingly broad impact on the international community? Looking from outside, international scholars tend to make inquiries into China’s soft power, but they appear to have some disagreement regarding the scope of China’s soft power. The narrow definition of soft power covers agenda setting and attraction projected through institutions, values, cultures, and policies (Nye, 2004, p. 8). On the other hand, in the eyes of the Chinese at least, the broad definition of soft power involves any influences that are exerted by China, including its carrot and stick approach, but excluding the military (Kurlantzick, 2007, p. 6). China embraces the broad definition of soft power probably because soft power is still its Achilles’ heel, though it may have a long tradition of the conceptualization of soft power (Ding, 2008, pp. 24–29; Huang & Ding, 2006). Chinese culture should be one of the three primary resources of its soft power, the other two being its political values and foreign policies (Nye, 2002, pp. 1–2). However, what is Chinese culture and what is the role of traditional Chinese culture in contemporary China? These have been puzzling questions for the Chinese as well, at least since the May Fourth Movement in 1919. The most recent perplexing case is that China sneaked a Confucius statue into Tiananmen Square and soon took it out within a short period of four months in 2011, even though it has been promoting Confucius Institutes globally since 2004. Thus, how China reconstructs its culture both domestically and internationally as the resource for its soft power is of great interest in our inquiry about rising China and its impact, but it is not examined as closely as it should be (Edney, 2015).

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1.2  The Cultural Leg of Rising China Since the Opium War in the 1840s, there has been uncertainty as to whether the Chinese nation should be rejuvenated through westernization, the traditions of Chinese civilization, or a combination of both as well as uncertainty as to what exactly the Chinese nation is in the first place (Leibold, 2004; Lu, 2009). Dr. Sun Yat-Sen (1866–1925) clearly meant the Han as the Chinese nation when he established the Society for Regenerating China (Xingzhonghui) and put forward the slogan “Rejuvenate the Chinese nation” (zhenxing zhonghua) in the 1890s. His thinking had evolved to include all ethnic minorities in the Chinese nation through assimilation by the time he delivered a speech on this topic in Guangzhou in 1924. This concept of the Chinese nation continued and was strengthened during the war against the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s and 1940s, when his successor, Chiang Kai-Shek (1887–1975), viewed the Chinese nation as one blood system being blended with elements from various minorities (Leibold, 2006; Zhao, 2004, pp. 171–172). However, this concept of the Chinese nation was discontinued during the first four decades of the PRC, which had adopted the Soviet model of multinational state construction. But it was readopted and expanded to build an inclusive Chinese nation, incorporating every ethnic minority group as a component of it and every citizen as a member of it, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s (Zhou, 2010, 2016). Thus, Sun Yat-Sen’s slogan of “Rejuvenate the Chinese nation” was not readopted by Deng Xiaoping until the 1980s when it was envisioned as the final goal for China’s four modernizations and economic development. In the last two decades, this slogan has been gradually transformed, first as “the Comprehensive Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation” (Zhonghua minzu de quanmian zhenxing) at the CCP Fifteenth National Congress in September 1997 (see the concluding section of its political report) and then as “the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation” (Zhonghua minzu de weida fuxing) at the CCP Sixteenth National Congress in November 2002 (see the introduction section of its political report). During the transformation process, there are three landmarks, the Asian financial crisis in 1997, China’s entry to the WTO, and China’s hosting of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, that have signified China’s increasing confidence in being a member of the international community and even becoming a leader of it recently. These three

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landmarks eventually led to significant changes in China’s discourses on its rise, discourses that are keys to the understanding of the cultural leg of rising China. 1.2.1   The Asian Financial Crisis and the Chinese Model The first landmark was China’s leadership role in the 1997 Asian financial crisis, a role that was actually forced upon China rather than being actively initiated by China (Halloran, 1998). As a matter of fact, the crisis strengthened China’s self-confidence and emboldened its ambition since its political crisis in 1989 and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. What China did during the crisis is mostly reflexive. China maintained the value of its currency to prevent a worsening of the situation for its neighbors and used its extensive foreign exchange reserve to aid its distressed neighbors. China did not have a better choice to protect its economy from the crisis than the approach it took. On the other hand, in giving up its leadership role, the USA not only failed to see the magnitude of the threat of this crisis, but also failed to provide timely financial relief to its Asian allies, while Japan refused to help too. Unexpectedly, this crisis boosted China’s standing in Asia and the global community while enhancing its confidence in the Chinese nation and culture, inspiring an intense wave of nationalism in China. For the first time after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the PRC began to feel a relief, a relief from the destiny of its former ideological ally. After the financial crisis, in response to the proposal of the Beijing Consensus (Ramo, 2004) and building on China’s initial economic success, Chinese scholars began to extensively elaborate on the Chinese model of economic development that was supposed to have successfully responded to the global challenge brought about by the Washington Consensus (K. P. Yu, 2005; W. Zhang, 2009). They claim that Deng Xiaoping was the first person who introduced the concept of the Chinese model in May 1980, a model that characterizes China’s unique path of development that has led to its continuing ascendancy (Deng, 1994, p. 318). Today there is still a lack of consensus among Chinese scholars about what precisely the Chinese model is, but they generally believe that it consists of several components or sub-models, including the economic, political, social, cultural, and diplomatic ones (Hu, 2010). Of these sub-models, the cultural one is of direct interest here. Hu (2010)

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points out that traditional Chinese culture is underpinned by Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism and has been assimilating minority and foreign cultural elements. He speculates that Chinese culture bears no direct relevance to China’s modernization though it cultivates a Chinese character. Other scholars consider Chinese culture to be the root and the spiritual home of the Chinese nation without which the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and modernization of China would be impossible (Song, 2017). Either due to censorship or constraints in their vision, what these scholars did not mention is that the PRC relied heavily on Chinese culture after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the bankruptcy of Soviet-style socialism. Officially, in his speech to an audience of Chinese social scientists and philosophers in Beijing, Xi Jinping recently made it clear that Chinese culture, along with Marxism and international scholarship on philosophy and social sciences, is the resource for the development of Chinese social sciences, the growth of China’s soft power, and the enhancement of China’s say in international affairs (Xinhua News, 2016). This is the reason that Xi repeatedly stresses self-confidence in Chinese culture since he came into power in 2012. It is apparent that Chinese culture is now expected to serve as a leg, along with the economic and military ones, of the tripartite foundation of rising China. The question is whether Chinese culture is rich enough to provide sufficient resources for rising China in the twenty-first century, and even if it is, how rising China could take advantage of it. 1.2.2   China’s Entry into WTO and Its Rise Within the Liberal World Order The second landmark of China’s rise is its entry into the WTO in 2001 where it began to “beat the devil from the inside.” Before and during China’s entry to the WTO, four types of attitudes arose toward globalization and the Chinese political–economic system, eventually leading to the discourse on China’s peaceful rising. The first kind of attitude is China’s victim mentality that unfolded in its thirteen years of negotiation with the WTO. After it had submitted its application for WTO membership in 1986, China was made to comply with various rules of the WTO and negotiate with Europe and the USA for various trade agreements so that it could move from a state-planned economy to a market economy. During the negotiation from 1986 to 1999, China was fuming that the West had been trying to keep China

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out of the trade organization where it should right full have a place (Fewsmith, 2001). However, after 1999 emerged the second kind of attitude, the anxiety about globalization brought about by China’s entry into the WTO. China cried wolf and worried whether its whole economic system would be crashed by the international market economy and lead to rising unemployment, regional inequalities, and social instability (China, 2011). This undercurrent against globalization would have a lasting impact, more on China’s ideology than on its economic practice. At the same time, the third kind of attitude arose about the advantages of globalization as a member of the mainstream global economy. China believed that membership in the WTO would reduce discriminating measures against China by major trade partner countries, create a fair platform for China to compete in the global market, participate in making trade rules for the twenty-first century, increase China’s exports, and facilitate China’s unification with Taiwan (Beijing Morning News, November 16, 1999). A few years into the WTO came the fourth kind of attitude that embraces the triumph of the Chinese system over the Western system in globalization, as China began to enjoy the benefits of the WTO membership when the global market did not exert pressure on the Chinese economy as hard as had been expected earlier. After a decade of WTO membership, China became more confident that it could play the game by the WTO rules and still win the game, since it became the second largest economy and had 69 Chinese businesses on the Fortune Global 500 list, second only to the USA (Jiang & Zhu, 2011). Actually, as early as 2003, a little over two years into its WTO membership, China began to change the discourse on its global strategy. Deng Xiaoping initially had developed a global strategy for China to maintain a low profile (taoguang yanghui) after it opened its door and returned to the global community in the 1980s. Seeing China’s initial success in the global market in 2003, Zheng Bijian, a leader of the CCP Central Party School, put forward the concept of peaceful rising for China (heping jueqi). According to Zheng (2005): China does not seek hegemony or predominance in world affairs. It advocates a new international political and economic order, one that can be achieved through incremental reforms and the democratization of international relations. (p. 24)

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This idea was immediately embraced by the Chinese leadership who then became ambitious about China’s grand global strategy. Premier Wen Jiabao of the Chinese State Council promoted China’s peaceful rise internationally for the first time when he delivered a speech at Harvard University in Boston on December 10, 2003. About two weeks later on December 26, Hu Jintao, then President of the PRC, advocated China’s peaceful rise for the first time domestically at the celebration of Mao Zedong’s 110 Birthday Anniversary in Beijing. In a word, China was ready to change the world order, the liberal world order, though wishing to do it peacefully. The challenge for China is how to do it peacefully since there is no historical precedent for a power rising peacefully. Even the USA, the current leader and defender of the liberal world order, went through two world wars in the twentieth century to defend the existing world order to prove its ability to lead. To do it peacefully or softly, China snatched the idea of soft power from Joseph S. Nye (2004), but mistakenly or intentionally treated the Chinese language, along with Chinese culture, as its soft power at least initially (Zhou, 2015). Thus, it launched the so-called Mandarin offensive in the form of Confucius Institutes and global promotion of Chinese experimentally in 2003 and officially in 2004 (Ding, 2008; Gil, 2017; Hartig, 2012, 2014). Is the Chinese language, along with Chinese culture, enough to support China’s rise? Why is it expected to play such a crucial role? 1.2.3   The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games and China’s Rejuvenation The third landmark of China’s rise is Beijing’s winning of the bid for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in 2001 and its successful hosting of it in 2008. It is well recognized that the Olympic Games are politically exploited in the process of globalization (Tomlinson & Young, 2006). The Beijing Olympic Games could be considered a good example of the triumph of nationalism in globalization, at least from the Chinese perspective, as witnessed in the evolution of four signature slogans or discourses during and after the bid as well as during and after the Games. After learning from the lost bid to Sydney in 1993, China realized that it had to fight Western hostilities to its new bid for the 2008 Olympics (Brownell, 2008, pp. 1–16; X. P. Zhang, 2007). Thus, whether Beijing could win the bid or not was eventually associated with China’s

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discourse on the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation or the rise of China. It launched two initiatives during the preparation for the bid between 1999 and 2001. First, to mobilize full support domestically as well as from the overseas Chinese communities, China promoted a slogan, “Support China’s Bid for the Olympic Games and Rejuvenate the Chinese Nation!” (zhichi shenao, zhenxing zhonghua). It thought that this slogan might echo deeply in every Chinese’s heart domestically, cross the Taiwan Strait, and globally. The Chinese had been perceived to be weak since the loss of the Opium War in the 1840s. To participate in the Olympic Games as any other peoples do and to host it as a modern nation does had been a dream for the Chinese since 1908 when a Chinese publicly asked “When would the first Chinese athlete participate in the Olympic Games? When would the first Chinese athletic team participate in the Games? When would China host the Games for the first time?” (Shen, Zhang, & Zhou, 2006). Apparently, hosting the Olympic Games in China is symbolic of China’s rejuvenation and the means to unify the factions of the Chinese world, including the Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and various Chinese overseas communities. The second initiative was to design a publicity strategy to promote Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games (Yang, 2007). Domestically, it was to obtain citizens’ full support but not to overheat their nationalism to an uncontrollable degree as it did in for the failed bid in 1993. Internationally, in anticipation of continued Western hostilities, it took seven specific approaches to China’s first large-scale public diplomacy to bolster its global image. First, it was to promote, through multimedia, a modern and open Beijing with a long history and a rich civilization. Second, it was to take advantage of the Chinese leadership and celebrities in selling Beijing to the international and Olympic communities. Third, it was to take a non-political approach focusing on every aspect of Beijing but not the political aspect of it. Fourth, it was to outreach actively to foreign media and create opportunities for them to promote Beijing. Fifth, it was to take advantage of Beijing’s rich cultural resources for every Olympic-related event, domestic or international, such as dispatching a troupe of singers to a concert on Olympic Day (June 23). Sixth, it was to hire international consultants who had experience with the Olympic Games and to connect with past Olympic sponsors offering them opportunities for the potential market to be created by Beijing’s successful bid so that they would positively influence the West’s view of Beijing’s bid. Last but not least, it was to connect

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and communicate with every member of the International Olympic Committee so that they would understand, like, and vote for Beijing. Measured by its successful bid, it was China’s first successful public diplomacy on a global scale, one that it would build on to continue its showcase of rising China. In 2001, what rising China looked like remained little known to the international community as Beijing won its bid for the 2008 Olympic Games and its entry to WTO. Nevertheless, the Beijing Olympics provided the best platform to display rising China through what it called “Green Olympic Games,” “Tech Olympic Games,” and “Humanities Olympic Games” (lüse aoyun, keji aoyun, renwen aoyun). After eight years of preparation, the combination of these elements was best demonstrated, as a spectacle to the global audience, in its opening ceremony, which started at 8 pm on August 8, 2008, the most ideal time with a series of four fortunate eights, according to Chinese culture, and showcased the essence of the Chinese civilization with the aid of high-tech equipment. With 204 teams participating, for the first time in two centuries, China felt once again to be the center of the world when every country under Heaven (tianxia) came to pay its tribute to the Middle Kingdom. All these may be summarized in Beijing’s slogan for the Games “One World, One Dream” (tong yige shije, tong yige mengxiang). Whose world it is? Whose dream it is? The world and dream are no doubt questionable to the West (Price & Dayan, 2008). Even within China during and after the Beijing Olympics, there may be different interpretations. Some guessed that the dream is like the American dream, but others speculated that it is an entirely different dream. Some believe that China will be more open to the world while others think China will be more influential in the world. It took four years after the Beijing Olympics for China finally to define the dream. In 2012, Xi Jinping, President of China and Secretary General of the CCP, formally named it “the Chinese Dream” (zhongguo meng) and began to elaborate on it (Leng, 2013). The Chinese dream is the dream of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Specifically, China will develop into a prosperous society by 2021 (100 years’ anniversary of the CCP) and rise as a superpower by 2049 (100 years’ anniversary of the PRC) through strategies such as Made in China 2025. It is supposed to be a dream shared by the Chinese state, the Chinese nation, and individual Chinese citizens. Still, in Xi’s own words to President Obama in California in 2013, the Chinese dream is comparable to the American

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dream (Zhou, 2016). The world will benefit from the Chinese dream. In Xi’s words, in making the dream become a reality, China will not only contribute to the happy life of the Chinese people but also benefit that of the people of every country (Leng, 2013). However, how rising China will do this remains unclear to the outside world. It took China another five years, a total of nine years after the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, to define “One World” formally. At the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland in January 2017, President Xi Jinping (2017) proposed to build a community of shared future for humankind (rennei mingyun gongtongti). In this One World of China, Xi Jinping envisioned a dynamic, innovation-driven model for economic growth, a well-coordinated and inter-connected approach to a model of open and win-win cooperation for relationships among states, a model of fair and equitable governance, and a model of balanced, equitable and inclusive development. According to the Chinese experience, this One World could be reached by taking a path based on a country’s realities, a path of pursuing reform and innovation, and a path of pursuing common development through opening-up. The Chinese path to the One World is embodied in China’s early Belt and Road Initiative, which calls for policy collaboration, infrastructure connection, free trade, financial collaboration, and people-to-people communication. Some scholars consider the Belt and Road Initiative as China’s greatest economic ambition (Huang, 2016), while others see its potential in economic, political, cultural, and strategic realms (Swaine, 2015). Regardless of the varieties of China’s ambitions, the initiative’s success depends mainly on people-to-people communication which must be conducted in a language within a cultural framework. In what language and what culture should this communication be carried out?

1.3  The Chinese Language and Rising China In traditional Chinese culture, there are works on language and its role in political power and social order. However, such resources have long been buried in history since China’s May Fourth Movement in 1919, a movement that attempted to cut the connection between modern China and traditional China (Spencer, 1990, pp. 310–319). Now as Xi Jinping proposed, China began to make use of its cultural resources for its rising. What kind of resources may be adopted from traditional China, and how could these resources be used regarding the Chinese language? It is

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essential to grasp China’ tradition in this regard for a full understanding of the role of the Chinese language in rising China. 1.3.1   Traditional Chinese Culture and Language Ideology At least as early as the Warring States period (770–221 BCE) in Chinese history, Chinese philosophers, such as Zhuangzi, began to make a distinction between language and reality while recognizing that language had power and might influence reality. Zhuangzi (c.a. 369–c.a. 286 BCE) appears to recognize speech act in terms of locution (saying), illocution (meaning conveyed), and perlocution (the result) as illustrated in one of his essays on all things equal: When the monkey trainer was handing out acorns, he said, “You get three in the morning and four at night.” This change made all the monkeys furious. “Well, then,” he said, “you get four in the morning and three at night.” The monkeys all were delighted. (Zhuangzi, 2013, p. 11)

Regardless of the constant reality of the numbers of acorns per day, the first utterance appeared to convey the message of less meal to the monkeys and received an undesirable result from them. However, the second utterance seemed to pass a message of more meal to the monkeys and was welcomed by the monkeys. Speech may get things done so that it should be appropriately used. Speech receives value judgment in traditional Chinese culture. Thus, the expression “three in the morning and four at night” is conventionalized as an idiom which means “too many changes” or “too easy to change.” Chinese cultural beliefs are commonly found in this kind of expressions, underpinning Chinese and its use (Sun, 2006, pp. 115–145). In addition to speech act, Zhuangzi’s fable demonstrates that how a speech is framed may make a difference in reality. Framing a speech from one perspective would influence the audience one way while framing a speech in a different perspective would shape the audience differently. That is the topic of discourse studies in contemporary linguistics. Discourse is now considered to represent and construct social entities and relations (Fairlough, 1992, pp. 3–4). Discourse studies engage the contemplation of a discourse producer, its action, its context, its link to ideology, and its power (van Dijk, 1997). These concepts of modern discourse studies are found in traditional Chinese discourse practices also

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during the Warring State period. For example, Confucius (c.a. 551–c.a. 479 BCE) had an illuminating conversation on this topic with a disciple. The disciple asked Confucius what he would do first if he were appointed by the prince of Wei to serve in the administration of Wei. Confucius responded with firm conviction in the role of language, as documented in the Analects of Confucius (Book 13): When the language is not right, then what is said is not what is meant. When what is said is not what is meant, then it cannot achieve what is meant. When what is meant cannot be achieved, then the rites do not flourish. When the rites and ceremonial music do not flourish, then the law/order cannot be maintained. When the law/order cannot be maintained, then people do not know what to follow. (Ming bu zheng ze yan bu shun, yan bu shun ze shi bu cheng, shi bu cheng ze li bu xing, liyue bu xing ze xingfa bu zhong, xingfa bu zhong, ze min wu suo cuo shouzu.) (Translation mine; for another version of the translation see Confucius, 1938, pp. 171–172)

Unlike modern deconstructive approaches to discourse, Confucius discussed a constructive approach to discourse (Zhou, 2015). In his view, there is first a proper match between a social entity and a right term in the construction of an identity. Only when that match is successfully represented in discourse, the intended goal may be achieved. Sharing with his disciple how to rule through proper language use, Confucius showed how hegemony is constructed in discourse to maintain the intended social values and order. Clearly, Confucius realized that there is an ideology behind and in language use. Zhuangzi’s fable and Confucius’ teaching illustrate that traditional Chinese culture recognizes the potential of language in shaping reality and maintaining social order through a value system built in a language and in the use of that language. Does this ideology play a role in rising China? 1.3.2   Traditional Chinese Culture and Language Order It is generally recognized that a standard version (Yayan) of the Chinese language was established by the time of the Zhou dynasty (c.a. 1100–256 BCE), though its original might be traced all the way to the Xia dynasty (c.a. 2200–c.a. 1700 BCE) and the Shang dynasty

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(c.a. 1700–c.a. 1100 BCE) (Chen, 1999, pp. 7–10; Guo, 2011; J. Zhang, 2014). How did the imperial courts of those dynasties establish a standard language and maintain its use in the early days of the development of the prototype of the state for governance? It appears that they managed to do this in four ways. First, the use of the standard and proper language (Yayan) appears to be guided by laws and decrees in ancient China. According to the Classics of Filial Piety (Xiaojing), one of the thirteen Classics of Confucius, it was then considered a duty for the aristocracy to speak the language sanctioned by former kings and to speak it in ways approved by former kings (Rosemont & Ames, 2009, pp. 106–107). It suggests that there were language laws and/or decrees in the Zhou dynasty or even as early as the Xia dynasty. The sanctioned language was expected to enjoy continued use after a former king passed away or even after a dynasty was overthrown. The continuity of the standard language indicates its heritage and legitimacy in authority. Second, the use of the standard language appears to be institutionalized in some specific domains. As documented in the Analects (Confucius, 1938, pp. 126–127), “Confucius often speaks the standard language and uses the standard language when he lectures on and recites the Song and the Book as well as when he performs rituals” (translation mine). Clearly, teaching and rituals must be carried out in the standard language. It deserves particular attention here. The standard language of the Zhou capital (Luoyang) was middle-stream of the Yellow River while Confucius’ hometown (Qufu) was down-stream during his lifetime. It was about five hundred kilometers apart between the two locations. Within that radius, at least, the standard language was still expected to be used in teaching and rituals at a time when the authority of the Central Government of the Zhou dynasty was declining. By using the standard language on these occasions, Confucius strived to maintain the authority of the Central Government. Third, the Chinese script was standardized and used in official domains, such as rituals and government communications. The earliest scripts are found on oracle bones and bronze wares (Boltz, 1996; Coulmas, 1989, pp. 91–94; Mair, 2001; C. F. Sun, 2006, pp. 14–15; Zhao & Baldauf, 2008, pp. 1–6). It appears that these scripts were first used in tribes’ official rituals in making sacrifices to the Heaven, Earth, and Ancestors. The scripts were later used in government when any form

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of government appeared. For the convenience of governance, the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE) standardized various scripts in its style and decreed its use in all official communications after it unified the Warring States (Zhao & Baldauf, 2008, pp. 25–26; Zhou & Ross, 2004). It was not the first time that any imperial court in China or event in the Qin did it (Zhao, 2014), but it is definitely the most influential in the Chinese history. Unbelievably, the standardized script was then used to maintain the unification of every county and state under Heaven, the equivalence of today’s “One World” in antiquity. Last but most importantly, the use of the standard language and particularly the standard script was institutionalized through a civil service examination established at the end of the Sui dynasty (581–618 CE) or the early Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) and abolished only in 1905, a few years before the collapse of the Qing dynasty (1616–1911) (Ebrey, 1999, pp. 112–114 and 264). The examination used the standard language and script for both the written part and oral part so that it effectively set up the language standard for education in the whole country. It also facilitated the standardization of publications since only authorized classics might be covered in the examination. The standardization of classics had a rippling effect on all publications used in schools and read by scholars in preparation for the examination. The scholars who successfully went through this examination system and were appointed to imperial positions brought the standard language and script to the whole bureaucracy from the imperial court down to numerous counties. In a word, in traditional China, a language order was installed and maintained by laws, decrees, administration, and civil service examination. Such a language order, in turn, assisted the establishment and maintenance of social and political orders. Given this function of a language order, what kind of language order does rising China envision for itself and for “One World” under Heaven? 1.3.3   Chinese Language and Culture for Rising China and “One World”? China appears to have answers to the questions that we raised in the previous sections, as shown in two significant projects since the turn of the twenty-first century. These two projects are the passage of the legislation on the Chinese language and the initiative to promote Chinese globally.

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These two projects should be examined in relation to the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the rise of China. In 2000, the Chinese National People’s Congress (CNPC) discussed and passed a legislation, which became effective since 2001 and is now known as the PRC National Common Language and Script Law (for an English version of the law, see Rohsenow, 2004). This law defines Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese) as the national common language and standardized and simplified Chinese characters as the national common script. It stipulates citizens’ rights and obligations to learn and use the common language and script, specifies the domains of their compulsory use, and requires proficiency measurements in education and for certain professions. The impact of the law needs to be viewed in the context of the evolution of the role of Putonghua in China (Zhou, 2015). From the 1950s to the1970s, Chinese citizens were expected to learn and use Putonghua on a voluntary basis, since it was promoted by the state without any legal standing. By the 1980s, Chinese citizens were encouraged to learn and use Putonghua, and students were required to learn and use it in elementary and secondary schools, since it was given the status of the national commonly used language in the 1982 constitutional amendment. Since 2001, every Chinese citizen is required to learn and use Putonghua in compulsory education and beyond, because it becomes a citizenship requirement as stipulated by the common language and script law. However, China is linguistically diverse. It has, at least, over one hundred thirty languages other than Chinese (Sun, Hu, & Huang, 2007). These languages belong to five large families, including the Sino-Tibetan, Altaic, Austroasiatic, Austronesian, and Indo-European (Ramsey, 1987, pp. 157–172; Zhou, 2003, pp. 21–27). Even with the Chinese language, there is extensive diversity (Norman, 1988, pp. 1–6; Ramsey, 1987, pp. 10–18). There are at least eight major dialects and numerous minor dialects, many of which are not mutually intelligible. What impacts does the common language law have on the social linguistic life of every Chinese citizen who has a mother tongue different from Putonghua? What is the place for their mother tongues in a Putonghuadominated society? What is the ideology underpinning this drive for Putonghua? And ultimately how is this drive related to the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the rise of China? Two years after the common language law came into effect and one year after China’s entry to the WTO and successful bid for the 2008

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Beijing Olympic Games, China began to explore its global promotion of Chinese in 2003 and formally launched the project in the form of Confucius Institutes in 2004, the mission of which is to teach the Chinese language and culture to non-native speakers on every continent. The timing of the launch is not incidental, but crucial. The proposal of the Confucius Institute project was delivered along with China’s discourse on its peaceful rising. Apparently, China made a direct connection between its global promotion of the Chinese language and culture and the projection of its soft power (Ding, 2008; Gil, 2017; Hartig, 2012; Zhou, 2015). What language order does China envision for “One World”? How is this global vision related to its domestic vision? How will China’s global promotion of Chinese affect its neighboring countries, far-away countries, and rivals as China rises to the status of a superpower?

1.4  Objective, Approach, and Organization of This Book Every book has an objective at least, but in each case, the objectives are reached through different approaches. In this section, I will clearly state my objective for this book and spell out the approach as the backdrop for a better understanding of it. I will also lay out the organization of the book as the path for readers to follow to its conclusion. 1.4.1  Objective First of all, my objective for this book is to answer the series of questions that I raised in the previous sections of this chapter. Specifically, I will examine the role of the Chinese language in the domestic context of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and in the global context of the rise of China as a global power player. I will treat the two contexts as two sides of the same coin within the conceptual framework of language ideology and language order and demonstrate that the Chinese language, along with Chinese culture, indeed serves as the cultural leg of the tripartite foundation of rising China. In the process of searching for answers to the above questions, I will uncover the conflicts, problems, dilemmas, and challenges, created by rising China’s vision of its language order and underpinning ideology for “One World,” in the sociolinguistic

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life in both domestic and international communities. From the look into rising China’s linguistic vision, I eventually attempt to answer the question of whether China’s “One World” is the same world shared by the global community. 1.4.2  Approach In writing this book, I will not rely on a single discipline, such as linguistics, sociology, anthropology, or political science, but on the hybridity of sociolinguistics, policy analysis, ethnography, and area studies in a cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary manner, because the issues that I try to investigate are complex and cannot be fully addressed from a single discipline. For instance, the conceptual framework of language ideology and language order to be adopted in this book is an extension of the concepts of ideology and order from political science to the sociology of language. I will depend on this conceptual framework for my analysis of the information and data throughout this book. In this book, I will utilize information and data from multiple sources. First, I will take advantage of published scholarly work both in English and in Chinese for scholarly analysis. Second, I will use data from my fieldwork in Xinjiang, Qinghai, Ningxia, Guangxi, and Yunnan between 2007 and 2017. The data include local documents, class observations, and informal interviews of students, teachers, and administrators. Third, I will use data from my fieldwork in the USA, the UK, Kirgizstan, Zimbabwe, and South Africa in 2017. The data consist of local Confucius Institutes’ information sheets, class observations, informal interviews of Confucius Institutes’ administrators and instructors, informal interviews of local students and local teachers as well as information from the local Chinese communities. Fourth, I will employ Chinese government’s documents, data, and news reports that are open to the public online or on paper. Fifth, I will occasionally rely on the information from my personal communication with China’s language policy makers, practitioners, and researchers. I believe that multiple sources of information and data allow more perspectives and add more insights into my analysis. 1.4.3  Organization I organize this book into nine chapters. This chapter introduces three landmarks and their accompanying discourses that characterize China’s

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rise and raises a series of questions about the role of the Chinese language in this context. Chapter 2 reviews various disciplinary approaches to the concept of language ideology and adopts the concept based on the sociology of language. It also points out the inadequacy in the development of the concept of language order and provides an operational concept of language order for this book. Chapter 3 examines the script dilemma, the Chinese mother tongue crisis, and Putonghua-Chinese dialect conflicts, in the conceptual framework of language ideology and language order, in relation to the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Chapter 4 investigates how, guided by its current language ideology, the Chinese government is establishing a language order with Chinese at the top in harnessing its linguistic diversity. Specifically, it looks into the development of Chinese-minority bilingual preschools, the integration of minority schools/classes into Chinese schools, and the transition from minority-language medium to Chinese medium in classroom instruction in China’s attempt to build a unified Chinese nation. Chapter 5 explores how, guided by the dominant language ideology, the Chinese government and citizens evaluate languages, both domestic and global languages, mostly in terms of the material value orientation instead of the non-material value orientation, in contribution to the establishment of the planned language order in China. Chapter 6 studies the dynamics of the interaction between the Chinese national language order and local language orders along Chinese borders. It finds that, by means of its centrifugality, the national language order spreads its top language to its border communities and sometimes across the border to the other side, while, via the centripetality, local languages are maintained through family and community social networks across the border as reactions to China’s borderization. Chapter 7 examines the globalization of Chinese, which is characterized by the rapid spread of Putonghua in Chinese overseas communities, the global adoption of the Putonghua standard in schools at all levels, and the mushrooming of Confucius Institutes and Classroom worldwide. It evaluates the success and failure of the Confucius Institute Project, focusing on the ideological confrontation, institutional conflicts, power struggle, and politics of interest. Chapter 8 explores how China reaches out, with its version of the standard Chinese language, to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and the global Chinese overseas communities and why such efforts are not always welcome or successful. It examines the dilemma, in the relationship between language ideology and language order, confronted by these overseas

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communities. Chapter 9 assesses the value of the conceptual framework of language ideology and order for this study, gives a general evaluation of China’s initiatives in promoting its language ideology and establishing its language order domestically and globally, and concludes with some prospects.

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Guo, M. L. (2011). Confucius’ contribution to the unification of the Chinese language [Kongzi dui zhonghua gudai yuyan tongyi de gongxian]. Dongyue Tribune [Dongyue luntan], 32(10), 42–43. Hallonran, R. (1998). China’s decisive role in the Asian financial crisis. Global Beat, Issue No. 24. Hartig, F. (2012). Confucius Institutes and the rise of China. Journal of Chinese Political Science, 17, 53–76. Hartig, F. (2014). The globalization of Chinese soft power: Confucius Institutes in Africa. CPD perspectives on public diplomacy (Paper 3, 47–66). Los Angeles, CA: Figueroa Press. Hoge, J. F., Jr. (2004). A global power shift in the making: Is the United States ready? Foreign Affairs, 83(4), 2–7. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific and Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs. (2015). China’s rise: The strategic impact of its economic and military growth (Serial No. 114-72). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Publishing Office. Hu, J. (2010). The contested Chinese model: Properties, characters, and significance [zhenglun zhong de zhongguo moshi: neihan, tedian he yiyi]. Social Sciences [Shehui kexue], 6, 3–11. Huang, Y. H., & Ding, S. (2006). Dragon’s underbelly: An analysis of China’s soft power. East Asia, 23(4), 22–44. Huang, Y. P. (2016). Understanding China’s Belt & Road Initiative: Motivation, framework and assessment. China Economic Review, 40, 314–321. Ikenberry, G. J. (2008). The rise of China and the future of the West: Can the liberal system survive? Foreign Affairs, 87(1), 23–37. Ikenberry, G. J. (2014). The illusion of geopolitics: The enduring power of the liberal order. Foreign Affairs, 93(3), 80–91. Jiang, A. L., & Zhu, G. H. (2011). Ten years in WTO: Make a change to engage the world. China WTO Tribune, 12(101), 35–38. Johnson, I. (2017). Cambridge University Press removes academic articles on Chinese site. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/ world/asia/cambridge-university-press-academic-freedom.html. Kang, D. C. (2008). China rising: Peace, power and order in East Asia. New York: Columbia University Press. Kurlantzick, J. (2007). Charm offensive: How China’s soft power is transforming the world. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Kwon, E. (2012). Invisible anxiety: Would the rise of China really be a security threat to the United States? Pacific Focus, 27(3), 369–392. Leibold, J. (2004). Positioning “minzu” within Sun Yat-Sen’s discourse of minzuzhuyi. Journal of Asian History, 38(2), 163–213. Leibold, J. (2006). Competing narratives of racial unity in Republican China: From the Yellow Emperor to Peking Man. Modern China, 32(2), 181–220.

22  M. ZHOU Leng, R. (2013). What is the Chinese dream? And how it is understood? [Shenme shi zhongguo meng, zenme lijie zhongguo meng]. Retrieved from http://opinion.people.com.cn/n/2013/0426/c1003-21285328.html. Li, A. J. J. (2017). Mark Zuckerberg’s China dilemma: To kowtow or not? Retrieved from https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/columns/2017/10/02/markzuckerberg-china-dilemma-kowtow-not/9P4ZpkrKBnhZDEXQCCL9KO/ story.html. Lu, A. G. (2009). China and the global economy since 1840. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Mair, V. H. (2001). Language and script. In V. H. Mair (Ed.), The Columbia history of Chinese literature (pp. 19–57). New York: Columbia University Press. McDougall, D. (2012). Response to ‘rising China’ in East Asian region: Soft balance with accommodation. Journal of Contemporary China, 21(73), 1–17. Norman, J. (1988). Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nye, J. S. (2002). The paradox of American power: Why the world’s only superpower can’t go it alone. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Nye, J. S. (2004). Soft power: The means to success in world politics. New York: Public Affairs. Nye, J. S. (2010). The future of American power: Dominance and decline in perspective. Foreign Affairs, 89(6), 2–12. Ploberger, C. (2017). One Belt, One Road—China’s new grand strategy. Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, 15(3), 289–305. Price, M. E., & Dayan, D. (Eds.). (2008). Owning the Olympics: Narratives of the new China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Ramo, J. C. (2004). The Beijing Consensus: Notes on the new physics of Chinese power. London: The Foreign Policy Centre. Ramsey, S. R. (1987). The languages of China. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rohsenow, J. S. (2004). Fifty years of script and written language reform in the P.R.C.: The genesis of the language law of 2001. In M. Zhou & H. K. Sun (Eds.), Language policy in the People’s Republic of China: Theory and practice since 1949 (pp. 21–43). Boston: Kluwer. Rosement, H., Jr., & Ames, R. T. (2009). The Chinese classics of family reverence: A philosophic translation of the Xiaojing. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Shen, G. Q., Zhang, H. X., & Zhou, D. (2006). The contemporary Chinese national spirit embodied in Beijing’s bidding for the Olympic Games. Journal of Physical Education Institute of Shanxi Normal University, 21(1), 46–47. Shenkar, O. (2005). The Chinese century: The Chinese economy and its impact on the global economy, the balance of power, and your job. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Wharton School Publishing. Song, J. (2017). On three important dimensions of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation [Lun zhonghua minzu weida fuxing de sange zhongya weidu].

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School Party Construction and Moral Education [Xuexiao Dangjian yu Sixiang Jiaoyu], 555, 4–12. Spence, J. D. (1990). The search for modern China. New York: Norton & Company. Sun, C. F. (2006). Chinese: A linguistic introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sun, H. K., Hu, Z. Y., & Huang, X. (2007). The Languages of China. Beijing: Commercial Press. Swaine, M. D. (2015). Chinese views and commentary on the “One Belt, One Road”. China Leadership Monitor, 47, 1–24. Szepan, M. (2012). Changing the rules of the game: The commercial aircraft industry in China. Harvard Asia Quarterly, 14(1 & 2), 112–122. Tomlinson, A., & Young, C. (2006). Culture, politics, and spectacle in the global sports event—An introduction. In A. Tomlinson & C. Young (Eds.), National identity and global sports events: Culture, politics, and spectacle in the Olympics and the Football World Cup (pp. 1–14). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. van Dijk, T. A. (1997). Discourse as interaction in society. In T. A. van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse as social interaction (pp. 1–34). London: Sage. Wübbeke, J., Meissner, M., Zenglein, M. J., Ives, J., & Conrad, B. (2016). Made in China 2025: The making of a high-tech superpower and consequences for industrial countries (2016, #2). Berlin: Mercator Institute for China Studies. Xi, J. P. (2017). Jointly shoulder the responsibility of our times, promote global growth. Retrieved from https://america.cgtn.com/2017/01/17/ full-text-of-xi-jinping-keynote-at-the-world-economic-forum. Xinhua News. (2016). Xi Jinping’s speech at the forum on philosophy and social sciences [Xi Jinping zai zhexue shehui kexue gongzuo zuotanhuishang de jianghua]. Retrieved from http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2016-05/18/c_1118891128.htm. Yang, Z. Q. (2007). Beijing’s application for the 2008 Olympics and its international publicity promotion [Beijing shen ao yu duiwai xuanchuan]. China Broadcasting [Zhongguo guangbo], 12, 60–65. Yu, H. (2017). Motivation behind China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiatives and establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Journal of Contemporary China, 26(105), 353–368. Yu, K. P. (2005). Reflections on the Chinese model [Guanyu “zhongguo moshi” de sikao]. Exploration and Free Views [Tantao yu Zhengming], 19, 13–15. Zhang, J. (2014). The development of Yayan in pre-Qin China and its impact on the identity of the speakers [Xianqin yanyan de xingcheng jiqi rentongxing yingxiang]. The Journal of Yindou [Yindou xuekan], 2, 94–98. Zhang, W. W. (2009). The Chinese model responds to the global challenge [Zhongguo moshi huiying shijie tiaozhan]. Retrieved from http://theory.people.com.cn/GB/49150/49152/9658513.html.

24  M. ZHOU Zhang, X. P. (2007). The politics of Beijing’s bid for the 2008 Summer Olympics [Beijing shenao de zhengzhi jiaoliang]. Leadership Science [Lingdao kexue], 4, 50–51. Zhao, A. P. (2014). On three times of the standardization of the Chinese script in the Qin [Shilun Qinguo lishi shang de sanci “shutongwen”]. Hebei University Journal, 3, 81–84. Zhao, S. H. (2004). A nation-state by construction: Dynamics of modern Chinese nationalism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Zhao, S. H., & Baldauf, R. B., Jr. (2008). Planning Chinese characters: Reaction, evolution or revolution? Dordrecht: Springer. Zheng, B. J. (2005). China’s ‘peaceful rise’ to great power status. Foreign Affairs, 84(5), 18–24. Zhou, M. (2003). Multilingualism in China: The politics of writing reforms for minority languages 1949–2002. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Zhou, M. (2010). The fate of the Soviet model of multinational-state building in China. In T. Bernstein & H.-Y. Li (Eds.), China learns from the Soviet Union, 1949–present (pp. 477–503). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Zhou, M. (2015). Nation-state building and rising China: PRC’s discourse on the Chinese language since the turn of the 21st century. In L. Tsung & W. Wang (Eds.), Contemporary Chinese discourse and social practice in China (pp. 59–80). London: Continuum. Zhou, M. (2016). Nation-state building and multiculturalism in China. In X. W. Zang (Ed.), Handbook on ethnic minorities in China (pp. 111–137). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Zhou, M., & Ross, H. (2004). Introduction: The context of the theory and practice of China’s language policy. In M. Zhou & H. K. Sun (Eds.), Language policy in the People’s Republic of China: Theory and practice since 1949 (pp. 1–18). Boston: Kluwer. Zhuangzi. (2013). The complete works of Zhuangzi (B. Watson, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.

CHAPTER 2

Defining Language Ideology and Language Order

Speak fluent Putonghua and become an authentic Chinese citizen [Shuo yikou liuli Putonghua, zuo yige zhenzheng zhongguoren]. —A slogan from the annual national Putonghua Promotion Week (the third week in September since 1998)

2.1  Introduction Chapter 1 shows that the ideology underpinning the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation envisions a language order for rising China and “One World” under Heaven. However, “Ideology is the most elusive concept in the whole of social science” (McLellan, 1986, p. 1). For this reason, in this chapter, I will start with a clear understanding of the concept of ideology as the departure of this chapter, then explore the scholarship on the concepts of language or linguistic ideology in literature, and clarify how my concept is related to those in literature before I define language order and investigate the relationship between language ideology and language order in rising China. In the West, the term ideology is usually understood as something negative, but seldom positive (McLellan, 1986, pp. 1–9). Thus, in Western politics, only our opponents have an ideology while we do not. On the contrary, in China, like in any former communist countries, the term ideology is always viewed positively and as the cornerstone of its utopian society. This practice comes from the Marxist and Leninist traditions. In the Marxist tradition, ideology is considered to seek to represent or © The Author(s) 2019 M. Zhou, Language Ideology and Order in Rising China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3483-2_2

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mirror reality correctly or distortedly, while it may have the potential to transform reality (Eagleton, 1994). In the Leninist tradition, ideology’s potentiality to transform reality is deemed overwhelming, and its class marking is universal: An ideology is either proletarian or bourgeois. The proletariat or socialist ideology needs to be promoted to the working class, which otherwise tends to develop a trade union ideology, primarily influenced by the hegemony of the bourgeois ideology (McLellan, 1986, pp. 24–26). Following the Leninist tradition, the CCP designated a propaganda subcommittee, along with the financial and organizational ones, within its local committees as early as July 1921 when the CCP was first founded (China, 2017a). Three years later in 1924, the CCP decided to establish a propaganda department along with the organizational and labor departments in its central and local committees (China, 2017b). The subcommittees or departments were then set up to educate the working class and poor peasants about the socialist ideology and to raise their class consciousness in their fight for class power. Today, as one of the two oldest existing offices within the Party, the CCP Propaganda Department oversees the Ministries of Education, Culture, and Radio and TV as well as a number of central state agencies in charge of the press, Internet, and social media, and recently has even integrated some of these agencies into its office. After the CCP gave up class struggle as the guiding principle in the late 1970s, the department’s job remains to develop, promote, and coordinate ideological work serving the ultimate Chinese socialist ideology, whatever it is conceived as in contemporary China. Thus, China is proud to publicize its ideology and committed to promoting it publicly, though its ideology is also embedded in its discourses, culture, and practice as hegemony or soft power, the latter of which has gained currency lately (Zhou, 2015). In the Marxist tradition (Marx & Engels, 1846/1947, pp. 1–78; McLellan, 1986, pp. 21–34), ideology has the following characteristics. First, ideology is a system of ideas, presuppositions, and beliefs that are representations of a society’s views of realities or, in Marx and Engels’ term, echoes of a society’s material life. Second, ideology belongs to the superstructure of a human society while reality is the base or substructure. Third, the relationship between ideology and reality is dialectical, the latter predominating the former while the former reacting upon the latter, though this relationship is not exactly casual. This nature of the relationship shall be found between language ideology and language order as well.

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The two points made above are intended to show the reason why it is meaningful to look into rising China’s language ideology in the context of globalization, and why it may be productive to investigate the relationship between language ideology and language order in rising China and the global context. It will help us understand better the significance of language ideology and language order for China as a rising global power. With the Marxist definition of ideology, I will first review the scholarship on language ideology and language order respectively, then refine my early definitions of these two concepts, and finally, adopt these two concepts in my analysis of the case of rising China that still follows the Leninist tradition.

2.2  Language Ideology The definition of language ideology is as elusive as that of ideology itself in relevant literature in linguistics and the politics of language. Scholars often use the term with too much assumption but without sufficient definition, while some use language ideology, linguistic ideology, ideology of language, or ideology of linguistics alternatively without a commitment to a specific one of them. Why are there different terms? How are these terms related in the investigation of ideology regarding language? I believe that answers to these questions rest on the approaches to this field or fields of inquiry. I will review existing major approaches and clarify how my approach is related to them. 2.2.1   Approaches to Language Ideology Generally speaking, studies of language ideology originate from four subfields of linguistics, namely, the politics of linguistics, anthropological linguistics, cognitive linguistics, and sociolinguistics or the sociology of language. Given the diversity of their origin, it appears reasonable that they use different terms and adopt different definitions because they are theoretically grounded differently. In the politics of linguistics as a science, there isn’t a lack of conflicts of ideologies as in the history of any science, since science is not just science, but it is also an intricate part of our human society. However, when Newmeyer (1980, 1986a) started to review how the generative linguistics overturned the then dominant structural linguistics in the so-called Chomsky revolution in the 1950s and 1960s, he did not use the term,

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ideology, at all, and nor did he use the term in the revised second edition, though there was indeed an ideological struggle in the field of linguistics. A few years later when Newmeyer (1986b) comprehensively examined the history of the politics of linguistics, he began to use the terms, ideology and ideology of linguistics. He used the first term in the general sense, for instance, referring to bourgeois ideology or Marxist ideology in his analysis of the politics of linguistics in the former Soviet Union. He used the second term, referring to the different schools of linguistic thought. For example, the generative school maintains that language is autonomous, whereas the functional school holds that language is sociological. Such a difference between two schools of linguistics was considered ideological by some linguists (Newmeyer, 1986b, pp. 10–12). Further along this line, the terms, linguistic ideology and ideology of language, are employed in an edited volume on the conflict of linguistic thoughts, the involvement of linguists as professionals in the conflicts of cultural or racial ideologies, and the engagement of linguists as experts in politics (Joseph & Taylor, 1990). Reviewing the conflicts of linguistic thoughts, for instance, the scholars took a step further from Newmeyer, analyzing how prominent linguists, such as Bloomfield and Chomsky, misread Saussure by interpreting or stretching his work only in the frameworks of their respective ideologies. Other scholars investigated how linguists as individuals brought their personal ideologies into their profession and thus aligned linguistics along with certain social ideologies (Joseph, 1990). For example, some South African linguists tried to write or rewrite the history of Afrikaans according to the South African racial ideology by denying the fact that Afrikaans is a semi-creolized variety of Dutch with roots to language contact between Europeans, the aboriginal Khoikhoi, and slaves of African and Asian origin (Roberge, 1990). Still, some scholars studied the implications of linguistic theories for our societies and examined how linguistic practice promoted by linguists may affect freedom, dominance, and culture. In this respect, Mühlhäusler’s work (1990) shows that in the South Pacific Islands vernacular literacy advocated by the Summer Institute of Linguistics in the name of preserving local cultures and languages actually resulted in a more rapid loss of them since literacy or even vernacular literacy is underpinned by the ideology of modernization that promotes change. Thus, vernacular literacy is only transitional, eventually leading to the literacy of metropolitan languages. Clearly, studies in the politics of linguistics indicate that it is difficult to draw a line between ideological issues regarding linguistics as a

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science and ideological issues regarding language and society in large. In this approach, the use of the term, linguistic ideology, could be viewed as referring to schools of linguistic thoughts that result in the politics of linguistics, whereas the use of the term, ideology of language, might be alluded to social ideologies concerning a language or languages that give rise to the politics of language in a society. The anthropological linguistic approach to this issue may be traced back to as far as Franz Boas and Benjamin Lee Whorf early in the twentieth century, but it is Silverstein who brought attention to the problem by explicitly using the term, linguistic ideology, and making an explicit claim on the dialectical relationship between language structure and ideology in the late 1970s. According to Silverstein (1979, pp. 194–196), Boars outlined a dichotomy between structure and ideology. He treated the former as cultural patterns, which is the primary and is generally not subject to speakers’ consciousness while considering the latter as a rationalization of cultural patterns, which is the secondary and is within speakers’ consciousness. In contemporary linguistics, the primary belongs to grammar, but the secondary may be viewed as metalinguistic awareness. Boas’ tradition was extended by Whorf who is well known for the SapirWhorf hypothesis, in the strong version of which language is the cultural container prescribing the way the speakers look at reality, while the weak version of which treats language as the representation of culture reflecting the way the speakers view reality (Duranti, 1997, pp. 57–67). As far as the relationship between structure and ideology is concerned, Whorf first made a significant distinction between overt categories, such as gender marking of nouns in some languages, and covert categories of grammar, such as (in)transitivity of verbs in many languages (Silverstein, 1979, pp. 198–200). The fact that an overt category is susceptible to ideology is clearly shown in the change of the use of pronouns in English brought about by feminism in the last few decades. Secondly, among others, Whorf made a distinction between form and function. A form may have multiple functions, such as the referential and the indexical, which are underpinned by what is known as native ideology in Whorf’s work (Silverstein, 1979, p. 194). From these pioneering works, Silverstein saw a dialectical relationship between structure and ideology in the scope of linguistic ideology. This approach of research on the relationship between language and ideology is furthered by scholars in anthropologic linguistics. For instance, Alan Rumsey (1990) studied direct speech, indirect speech,

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and discourse cohesion for the distinction between wording and meaning and their underlying ideology. He claimed that in English or more broadly in European languages direct speech is associated with wording while indirect speech is related to meaning, a difference that is underpinned by an ideology of the distinction between language and reality. Meanwhile, he did not find any grammatical difference between the two speeches nor such an underlying ideology in Ungarinyin, an aboriginal language in Western Australia. This comparison shows that linguistic ideology may shape linguistic form or vice versa, though the exact nature is not determined. However, could the dominant Western ideology of dualism of form/words and content/reality affect linguistics as a science? More broadly could social ideology have an impact on linguistics as a science? Moreover, what is precisely ideology in anthropologic linguistics? These questions are of general concern to anthropological linguistics and are explored extensively in two edited volumes edited by Kroskrity (2000b) and Schieffelin, Woolard, and Kroskrity (1998). The first question investigated is the relationship between language and culture/ society. Some scholars found that grammatical markings, registers, and discourse may be utilized to represent local dominant conceptions of language and to regulate local social and speech behavior. For instance, comparing grammatical honorifics in four languages across continents from Asia to Africa, Irvine (1998) found a general operation of linguistic ideology in regulating rank and power, though each society has its unique cultural model. The second question studied is whether there is a site where linguistic ideology is produced. In the Marxist tradition, there should be no such sites since ideology is mainly implicit. However, scholars did discover that linguistic ideology is produced and maintained both implicitly and explicitly in ceremonial events, classrooms, radio programming, etc. in different societies, from the traditional to the advanced. In American law school classrooms, for example, students were drilled to instill the ideology of taking a position as a winner or loser or as a plaintiff or a defendant without a human look at the case (Mertz, 1998). This kind of practice is not strange since in the Leninist tradition ideology is often raised to consciousness. It seems that American law school performs this function of ideology production. Thus, the third question examined by scholars is whether linguistic ideology is constructed for the interest of a specific social or cultural group (Kroskrity, 2000a). This question is answered from two perspectives. From the perspective of the ideology of linguistics as a science, Irvine and Gal’s study

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(2000) of the Senegalese and Macedonian cases indicates that linguists’ ideological biases may influence the outcomes of their linguistic work in favor of certain groups. From the perspective of language ideology, speech may be evaluated as good or bad morally or even legally (Philips, 2000). When such an evaluation system is enforced, the social or cultural group who are associated with bad language suffers whereas the group who speak good language benefits. The fourth question of interest to scholars is whether linguistic or language ideology has multiplicity. Language ideologies, even the dominant ones, are seldom uncontested locally, nationally, or internationally. For example, Collins’ study (1998) of a native Indian language revival program in northern California shows that parties involved, such as the program administrators, teachers, the community, and even the linguist researching the program, all have their own beliefs of what the target language is, and the target language is perceived differently in these beliefs because they have different stakes, instead of the same stake, in this program. In this sense, the third question and the fourth one may be related, since the multiplicity of language ideologies essentially mirrors the multiplicity of interest of diverse social or cultural groups. Up to this point, we see that the anthropological linguistic approach covers a wide range of issues from linguistic structures to language policies. That is probably why a group of terms, such as linguistic ideology, language ideology, ideology of linguistics, and ideology of language, are used in this field. Many scholars use these terms individually in specific contexts, though some scholars use them alternatively (Woolard, 1998). For example, Silverstein (1979, 1998) appears to have persistently used the term, linguistic ideology, when he discusses the relationship between language structure and ideology. Silverstein’s use of the term, ideology, in the 1970s signals a shift away from Boas’ and Whorf’s term, culture or cultural patterns. I believe that it remains a question where the distinction between linguistic ideology and culture should be drawn in anthropological linguistics (Philips, 1998). Cognitive linguistics approaches the problem differently from the above two subfields of linguistics. First of all, it uses a different set of terms, such as language and ideology, language as ideology, linguistics and ideology, and linguistics as ideology. The juxtaposition of language and linguistics, on the one hand, and ideology, on the other, informs us how cognitive linguistics treats the relationship between language and ideology. Cognitive linguistics adopts the term, language and ideology because

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it considers language as something that mediates between ideology and reality, and thus essentially treats language as ideology (Hawkins, 2001). With linguistics being viewed as the meta-language of language, cognitive linguistics considers itself a cultural neutral meta-language while other linguistic approaches are usually culturally biased (Hutton, 2001). In this sense, linguistics is ideology and the term, linguistic ideology, concerns the politics of linguistics as a science. Cognitive linguistics postulates ideology as the conceptual level of linguistic analysis. At this level, there are prototypes, metaphors, iconographic frames of reference, and cultural-cognitive models that represent or organize our ideologies linguistically (Dirven, Frank, & Ilie, 2001; Hawkins, 2001). Ideology may be organized via any of these modes grammatically. For instance, age and gender are organized by suffixation and discourse in English and Spanish (Howard, 2001). At the lexical level, age may be marked by the diminutive, such as John and Johnny in English and Juan and Juanito in Spanish, for proper nouns. At the discourse level, the gender-unmarked pronoun usually grammatically agrees with a masculine pronoun, as everyone and he/his in English. The markedness and unmarkedness in grammar and discourse represent not only the categorization of age and gender but also the hierarchy of age and gender in societies. Cognitive linguistics considers the existence of a paradigm of a course of cognitive growth which is reflected in semantic and/or grammatical growth (Sego, 2001). This course develops from the enactive stage to the iconic stage, and finally to the symbolic stage in representing reality more and more in abstraction in cognition. In semantics and grammar, this development may be a two-way course, development to abstraction and (re)analysis to concrete experience. Lakoff suggests that ideology has both conscious and unconscious aspects (Pires de Oliveira, 2001). Beliefs are usually the conscious aspect of ideology, but the generalization of these beliefs in language is often unconscious to the speakers. For example, sexist beliefs are usually conscious, but the grammaticalization of sexist beliefs is not necessarily conscious, such as the a-declension in Russian (Nesset, 2001). Given the nature of the two-way course, the grammaticalization of sexism in many Western languages is often raised to consciousness since the feminist movement in the second half of the twentieth century. In short, the cognitive linguistic treatment of ideology is similar to the above approaches in the distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness regarding the relationship between language

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and ideology, though they differ in where the locus of ideology is and what terms are used. The sociolinguistic approach to language ideology started with the relationship between language and nationalism in the 1950s and 1960s because the politics of language is tightly interwoven with the latter in a modern society (Smith, 2010, pp. 5–8). Nationalism as an ideology includes beliefs, values, and attitudes (Fishman, 1972, pp. 4–10; Hutchinson & Smith, 1994). Nationalism in its early development in Western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries fought against localism in the development from ethnicity to nationality when one vernacular emerged over others as the national language (Fishman, 1972, pp. 58–62). Elsewhere in the twentieth century, nationalism following the Western European model of the trinity of one state, one people, and one language confronted both colonialism and localism when developing countries had to entertain multilingualism domestically and internationally (De Francis, 1950, pp. 55–84; Fishman, 1972, p. 44, 1968). Thus, it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate nationalism from language from the very beginning. Nationalism as language ideology is seen in three primary forms. First, it appears as an ideology of modernization (De Francis, 1950, pp. 31–54; Fishman, 1971/1972). Modernization is utilized to revitalize a decaying empire or a developing country that was colonized in the past. Its first effort is often the modernization of the language, including script reform for better literary and creating new terms for science and technology. In Europe, for instance, Turkey engaged in its language modernization by changing from the Arabic script to the Roman script, in an attempt to replace its Ottoman tradition with a modern Turkey identity in the early twentieth century. In Asia, for example, China tried both Romanization and simplification of the Chinese script to modernize the Chinese language to arise from the ashes of the Manchu empire as the Republic of China (ROC). Second, nationalism as language ideology frequently emerges as a standard language ideology. It is usually known for specific languages, such as the standard English ideology, the standard Chinese ideology, and the standard French ideology. A standard language ideology may involve localism in a power struggle. In China, for example, Southern Mandarin and Northern Mandarin fought to be the standard during the first half of the twentieth century with the latter winning convincingly after 1949 (Chen, 1999, pp. 13–23). In the USA, the debate on Ebonics shows how the standard English ideology draws

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a boundary between races regarding who are considered more American or less American (Collins, 1999; Milroy & Milroy, 1999, pp. 153–156). Moreover, how much accent one speaks English with is also used as a measurement of Americanness (Lippi-Green, 2012, pp. 255–300). Third, nationalism as language ideology often demonstrates as monolingualism. Monolingualism as an ideology is regularly associated with specific languages too. In America, for instance, monolingualism is well known as English-Only which is the modern continuation of English monolingualism originated since its early years (Fishman, 1988; Wiley, 1996, 2000). Overtly English-Only uses the language to measure how American and patriotic residents are in the USA, but covertly EnglishOnly fights against immigration and ethnic and linguistic diversity (González & Melis, 2000/2001; Ricento, 2000). Nationalism as language ideology is mostly seen in any modern nation-state building that strives for the trinity of one state, one people, and one language. Regardless of these different forms of nationalism as language ideology, a broad spectrum of values and attitudes is often found along an orientation with language as problem at one end and language as resource at the other (Hornberger, 1988; Ruiz, 1984). At one extreme, language as problem is often associated with monolingualism that is viewed as a unitary force while at the other extreme language as problem is usually linked with multilingualism that is considered divisive. Thus, nationalism seeks to promote and maintain monolingualism at the expenses of minority languages and local dialects (Galindo, 1997; Kasuya, 2001; Macias, 1985). At the resource end, language may be deemed as citizens’ right, if not by domestic laws, definitely by international laws (De Varennes, 1999). Citizens have the right to receive access to their native languages in education, service, governance, and other public goods. Constructively language as resource may be accepted by both ends. Even nationalism may sometimes accept limited multilingualism when it is packed as either as national competitiveness for economic globalization or linguistic competence for national security during the age of globalization (Kelly-Homes & Mautner, 2010; Ricento, 2005). Making a distinction between the ideology that accepts limited multilingualism for effectiveness of communication, operation, and governance, on the one hand, and the ideology that stresses the triumph of the national language over other languages, on the other hand, Fishman (1968) called the former nationism while only referring to the latter as nationalism.

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In short, the sociolinguistic approach may generally treat language ideology as (language) nationalism, monolingualism underlining language as problem, and/or multilingualism underpinning language as resource, with specific reference to a variety of brands of ideologies, such as English-Only, standard language ideology, and language as rights. The sociolinguistic approach mainly concerns itself with the politics of languages in local, national, and/or international contexts (Zhou, 2017a). This approach is different from the politics of linguistics approach that focuses on the historiography of linguistics as a science. It is more limited than the anthropological approach that covers the politics of linguistics, the politics of languages, and the relationship between ideology/culture and linguistic structure. It has some overlap with the cognitive linguistics regarding the conscious aspect of ideology. These differences are conceptually underlined by these approaches’ respective philosophical, ontological, and methodological groundings. 2.2.2   My Approach to Language Ideology Given the above background of the diversity in approaches to ideology regarding language, it is necessary for me to clarify where I stand in my treatment of language ideology. In this book, I will follow my early methodology that makes a distinction between the macro-approach to ideology and the micro-approach to ideology, referring to the former as language ideology while terming the latter linguistic ideology (Zhou, 2017a). The concept of language ideology concentrates on the conscious interplay of ideology and language, covering the sociolinguistic approach to ideology, linguists’ alignment of personal ideologies with social ideologies in their professional work for social goals (the politics of linguistics approach), the conscious aspect of the cognitive linguistic approach, and the conscious dimensions of the anthropological linguistic approach. Language ideology is fundamentally about the conscious interaction between ideology and language, and about the politics of language. On the other hand, the concept of linguistic ideology enfolds the (subconscious or unconscious) relationship between ideology and linguistic structure, most of the politics of linguistics as a science, and the subconscious or unconscious aspect of cognitive linguistics. Thus, my approach is essentially within the tradition of the sociolinguistic approach to the relationship between language and ideology, though there may be some extension to areas covered by other approaches.

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However, my approach has some differences from the established sociolinguistic approach since mine focuses on China’s language ideology that is generated, promoted, and practiced in the Marxist–Leninist traditions. My approach needs to take this perspective to obtain a thorough understanding of China’s language ideology. From this perspective, I emphasize the distinction between ideology and reality as well as the dialectical relationship between the two. First, I think that it is essential to define what is language ideology before I elaborate on the concept of linguistic reality. Following the Marxist tradition (McLellan, 1986, pp. 21–34), I define language ideology as a system of ideas, presuppositions, beliefs, attitudes, and values regarding languages, their status, and their use in society (Zhou, 2009b, 2011, 2017a). Here I add attitudes and values, which are often not included by other scholars and which I consider as specific forms of language ideology. Values are encompassed in ideology, though the boundary between the two may be unspecific, and values may be shaped by both ideology and culture (Ralston, Holt, Terpstra, & Yu, 1997; Ripberger, Song, Nowlin, Jones, & Jenkins-Smith, 2012). Similarly, attitudes are specific beliefs that are molded by ideology or closely associated with an ideology if no causal relationship can be established (Crandall & Biernat, 1990; Federico & Sidanius, 2002). They share a common character: They are all views or beliefs. The primary forms of language ideology are monolingualism and bi/ multilingualism. These terms usually refer to both individual and societal linguistic competence and practice (Baker, 2006, pp. 1–17). However, I think that they also stand for respective ideologies (Zhou, 2006, 2009a). Thus, monolingualism as an ideology represents the language ideology that espouses the beliefs in the maintenance and use of a single dominant language, usually the national language, in public life in a multilingual community. On the other hand, bilingualism or multilingualism as an ideology stands for the language ideology that endorses the maintenance and use of two or more languages in public life in a multilingual society. These two ideologies exemplify the two extremes of a value continuum, which may show as different value orientations from the cohesive to the collaborative, such as language-as-problem, language-as-right, and language-as-resource (Cummins, 2000; Hornberger, 1988; Ruiz, 1984). In addition to the two primary forms, language ideology may also appear in specific forms, depending on the contexts. In the USA, for example, monolingualism takes the shape of English-Only that favors English as the sole official language at both local and federal levels and attempts to limit or eliminate the use of other languages (González & Melis, 2000/2001).

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After language ideology is defined, the next question is what its corresponding linguistic reality looks like? Without a comprehensive investigation of this reality, it is almost impossible to gain a full understanding of language ideology since a dialectical relationship exists between ideology and reality.

2.3  Language Order Unlike the concepts of language and linguistic ideologies which are rather extensively investigated, the concept of language order as the corresponding linguistic reality is seldom investigated rigorously in relevant literature, though similar terms, such as (socio)linguistic order, linguistic world order, and (socio)linguistic hierarchy, is usually mentioned in passing or used without full definition. Thus, I will first review these terms in literature, then define the concept of language order, and explore its relationship with language ideology. 2.3.1   Review of Literature on Linguistic/Language Order/Hierarchy In the literature on this topic, inquiries of linguistic order or hierarchy appear to be pursued mostly from the structure-function perspective and sometimes also from the ideological or political perspective. From the structure-function perspective, the earliest term used in this field is diglossia, which Ferguson (1959) created for the situation in a community where a High variety of the language is used for education, religion, and government while a Low variety is used at home and workplaces for the working class. Ferguson mainly focused on the structure and function differences between the two varieties. In this tradition, Fishman (1964, 1968/1972) further examined diglossia in relation to language maintenance and shift regarding nationalism and other social factors and extended the concept to bilingualism that designates a High language and Low language in social functions. Fishman did not specifically use the terms, linguistic order or sociolinguistic hierarchy, to refer to diglossia, but his work is recognized as such. Claiming that power is primary in a linguistic order, for instance, Martin-Jones (1988) criticized Fishman’s treatment of the structure-function of diglossia as the primary but power only as secondary in his analysis of diglossia. In the 1980s scholars began to use the term, (linguistic or language) hierarchy, to describe diglossia and bilingualism or multilingualism. In a

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study of multilingualism in Indonesia with a focus on Javanese, Siegel (1986) examined the use of High and Low Javanese as well as native speakers’ social and moral judgments of these two varieties together with other languages in terms of hierarchy, a term that he did not define. Rather than dealing with the reality of diglossia and multilingualism, his work is mainly concerned with speakers’ attitudes and values, such as proper speaking, language (one’s own) vs. nonlanguage (others’), and ownership of a language. For other scholars, a linguistic hierarchy appears to involve both ideology and reality. Smalley (1988) outlined a hierarchy of multilingualism in Thailand with an interaction of external/ international and internal/domestic hierarchies, which was underpinned by the Thai’s worldviews of unbounded categories, categories that facilitate a harmony of the hierarchy. In the domestic hierarchy of multilingualism, languages were categorized as the standard/national, regional, displaced, urban, marginal, and enclaved. In the categorization, Smalley mentioned population, domains of use, location, policy, and other realities, though he did not define the hierarchy conceptually. In the 1990s, Patrick Harries (1995) examined European missionary linguistic work on Tsonga in South Africa in the late nineteenth century and found that they conceived a linguistic hierarchy in terms of standardization which placed the standard version of Tsonga above its dialects. The missionary use of standardization as a criterion to rank languages appears to rely on reality more than on ideology, though standardization is ideologically motivated. More recently, new critical perspectives are gained in studies of diglossia. In terms of sociolinguistic hierarchy, for instance, Makihara (2004) investigated colonial diglossia of Spanish and Rapa Nui in Easter Island, where the conflict of the two languages have been unfolding in local political and economic process in recent decades, and found the native language was thriving. Reine Meylaerts (2006) studied literary heteroglossia which is defined as the presence of foreign loans and/or social, regional, and other varieties of the otherwise standard language and used the term, sociolinguistic hierarchy, in characterizing how those varieties are functionally used for the creation of the characters and association with their identities, but the term was not fully defined. Since the 1990s, the term, linguistic order or sociolinguistic order, began to gain more currency in the literature, but its nature is still unclear. For instance, Gifreu (1996) juxtaposed linguistic order and political order in examining language use in media under the Maastricht Treaty that is responsible for the creation of the European Union.

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Without defining the concept, probably he assumed that linguistic order is similar to that of political order. Similarly, Hassanpour (1999) first adopted the term linguistic order in his presentation of a paper in 1997, which was published two years later in 1999. Using the case of MedTV’s Kurdish channel that was broadcasted via satellites from Europe to Turkey, Hassanpour demonstrated in a postmodernist approach how the state of Turkey lost some control of its genocide language policy against the Kurdish language during globalization and technical revolution. In his approach, linguistic order appears to be the interaction of sovereign power and extra-sovereign power in local language management for public access and the use of minority languages. This case shows that international organizations, such as the European Union, and communication technologies, such as satellite television, may conveniently interfere with the linguistic order in a sovereign nation-state, suggesting that linguistic order is an international reality rather than just a national reality in globalization. More extensive treatment of linguistic order is seen in Fishman (1998/1999) who used the term without an explicit conceptual definition either. However, Fishman explicitly outlined three levels of languages within the hierarchy, which include super languages, like English, regional languages, like Arabic and Chinese, and numerous local languages. In this categorization of languages within an order, Fishman clearly used at least four criteria in the ranking. First, the number of speakers, including both first language speakers and second language speakers, was considered. Second, the domains of language use, such as education, banking, and international trade, were adopted as a measurement of the ranking. Third, the status of languages, whether a language was formally designed as the national language of a nation-state or an official language of international organizations, such as the World Bank and European Union, was taken into account. Fourth, a language’s access to resources, such as the Internet, cultural (re)production, and official empowerment, was included in his ranking of languages. Unfortunately, Fishman did not elaborate on how linguistic order was related to language ideology, though he mentioned examples of the latter, such as beliefs, views, and values. Fishman’s concept of linguistic order includes almost every aspect. What is needed is some theorization of language order and its relationship to language ideology. A similar spelling of linguistic order is found in Jacques Maurais (2003), though Fishman’s work was not cited. Using the term, linguistic

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world order, the author treated the order in terms of numbers of speakers, Internet users, and students during globalization, but did not define the term conceptually. On the other hand, a more precise conceptual definition of linguistic world order is seen in Aronin, Fishman, Singleton, and Laoire (2013), and Aronin and Singleton (2008). Following the definition of world order, these scholars see linguistic world order of multilingualism as patterns of human activity that sustains primary goals of the social life of humankind as a whole. Conceptually, this approach to linguistic order is footed on reality than on ideology. More recently, studies began to concentrate on (socio)linguistic hierarchies in Chinese overseas communities. Based on ethnographic interviews, Li and Zhu (2010, 2011, 2014) analyzed Chinese overseas communities’ perceptions and beliefs of the market values and symbolic power of Putonghua and other varieties of Chinese. Their approach reveals some essential dimensions of the hierarchy, but their use of the term is more associated with ideology than reality because the ranking is based directly on the interviewees’ views, not on the reality of the hierarchy of languages in China and abroad. Similarly, Tan (2012) investigated sociolinguistic hierarchies regarding Mandarin and Chinese dialects in Singapore’s state discourse on language ideology in its hegemonic nation-state building as well as the public’s acceptance of and resistance to this ideology in Internet forums and blogs. Grounded on public comments, such a hierarchy is ideologically constructed rather than being reality-based. At the same time, the inquiry of multilingualism in China in terms of the linguistic hierarchy is also initiated recently. Tsung (2014) extensively investigated multilingual education through ethnographic work in China’s minority autonomous regions and analyzed her findings within the framework of linguistic hierarchy. She defined linguistic hierarchy in terms of language legitimacy and market (p. 17), the first of which may be understood as languages’ legal statuses, such as the national, the regional, and the local, and the second of which may be known as domains of language use, such as education and government. She also discussed the role of language ideology in the formation of China’s linguistic hierarchy, though she did not fully explore the dialectical relationship between the two. In short, most previous studies either treat (socio)linguistic order/ hierarchy as an ideological construct or simply as facts, being structural, functional and/or social, without a full consideration of the conceptual

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distinction between ideology and reality and their dialectical relationship in a multilingual society. The closest to my approach are Fishman’s (1998/1999) linguistic order and Tsung’s (2014) use of the term of linguistic hierarchy. 2.3.2   My Approach to Language Order My efforts are directed at a conceptual distinction between language ideology and language order (Zhou, 2006, 2009a, 2009b, 2011, 2017a). I believe such a distinction is necessary for more insights into how language ideology functions, how language order operates, and how the two interact in a multilingual society. I use the term language order instead of linguistic order, not only to pair it with language ideology but also to avoid the confusion of linguistic order being associated with the grammatical order in linguistic analysis. Following the Marxist tradition in contrast between ideology and reality, I consider language order as linguistic reality in a multilingual society and treat it as an institutionalized hierarchical relationship among languages in a local community, a nation-state, a regional community, or the global community. This hierarchical relationship is defined by languages’ access to resources, including official status, domains of use, legal protection, financial support, channels of spread, number of native speakers, number of second language speakers, and technical support. Language order ranks languages by their allocated access to these resources. The more access to these resources a language has, the higher its rank is in the order. Thus, the language that obtains the most access to the resources is placed at the top of this order, while a language that has the least access to these resources is sunk to the bottom of this order. Access to these resources is usually regulated first by local and national governments, via policies and laws, that create and govern local and national language orders within their borders. Access to these resources is also regulated by regional and global institutions, such as the EU, the UN, and the World Bank, that support and maintain regional and global language orders across borders by regulating the access of working languages and non-working languages to resources. Access to these resources may also be granted by institutions in a local community. Conflicts may be found in a language order as well as between language orders (Zhou, 2017a). For instance, existing local and national language orders may come into conflict with a rising local or national

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order, as seen recently in Hong Kong and in the last two decades in Singapore. National language orders may interfere or be interfered across borders, as evident in newly founded nation-states in Central Asia. Meanwhile, local and national language orders may clash with regional and global language orders during de-colonialization and globalization (Zhou & Wang, 2017). More interesting is China’s push for Chinese as a rising global language. How will the new order with Chinese as a global language envisioned by China get along with the existing global language order where English is dominant? Alternatively, how will Chinese be accommodated within the existing global language order? Thus, the relationship among local, national, regional, and global language orders should be an essential dimension of inquiry in the study of both local and global multilingualism.

2.4  The Relationship Between Language Ideology and Language Order Now with both language ideology and language order conceptually defined, the most critical question of all the unanswered is the relationship between language ideology and language order. In the Marxist tradition, as stated at the onset of this chapter, language ideology is supposed to mirror language order correctly or distortedly. On the hand, in the Leninist tradition, language ideology is assumed to have an overwhelming potentiality to transform language order. Thus, there is a two-way transaction process, from language order to language ideology, from language ideology to language order, and back and forth. It is a dialectical process in which a language order always seeks an ideological representation while a language ideology always seeks to create a corresponding language order as its base. I will first examine how a language ideology mirrors a language order, and then investigate how a language ideology materializes as a language order or dimensions of it. 2.4.1   Ideological Representation of Language Order As discussed above, language ideology may occur in many forms, but, since the nineteenth century, the ideology’s most stable and dominant form is the trinity of one state, one people, and one language. This ideology may grow natively, mirroring the language order of a nation-state or it may be superimposed from outside in the construction of a modern

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nation-state. Moreover, this dominant ideology may appear in different forms in different countries, and there are also non-dominant language ideologies that contest this dominant ideology. The ideology of the trinity seems to have correctly represented the linguistic realities of the rising European nation-states, which wrestled away from various falling empires for independence and then underwent nation-state construction and industrialization in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It reflected the modernization process in Europe in several ways (Blommaert & Verschueren, 1992; Houben, 1996; Wright, 2015). First, for instance, European countries have done with monarchy or left it only in name since the nineteenth century. The ideology of the trinity symbolized the consolidation of the concept of a people in the replacement of a monarch in the development of democracy. Second, more mutually intelligible languages rose in Europe in the last three centuries than on any other continents, though the linguistic criterion for the distinction between a dialect and a language is supposed to be their mutual intelligibility or unintelligibility. Nation-state building involves external language classification rather than internal language classification (Zhou, 2018). Thus, the ideology of the trinity embodied the process that standardized a dialect into a national language in order to demarcate linguistic and territorial boundaries in the legitimization of the sovereignty of a nation-state. Third, the national language was used in mass education, playing a central role in the construction of a national identity with a nation-state. The ideology of the trinity epitomized the linguistic categorization of peoples in their enjoyment and representation of political power in terms of citizenship in a nation-state. In this sense, the ideology of the trinity correctly mirrored the language orders in Europe in the nineteenth century. However, it is now challenged by the linguistic realities in Europe in the twenty-first century, after two world wars, the collapse of colonialism, the fall of the Soviet Union, and globalization (Barbour & Carmichael, 2000). The ideology of the trinity has been borrowed from Europe to other continents since the late nineteenth century as Westernization in terms of modernization (De Francis, 1950; Errihani, 2007; Zhou, 2017a). In Asia, its success or failure depends on how much it mirrored the local linguistic realities since it did not arise natively from local language orders. For instance, the ideology rather successfully reflected the nationalization of the Japanese language during the Meiji movement in the late nineteenth century, though it overlooked the linguistic heterogeneity in Japan

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(Heinrich, 2012). The Japanese success inspired the Chinese as the Qing Empire (1644–1911) was falling apart at the turn of the twentieth century. When the ideology of the trinity was loaned to China, there was a mismatch between the ideology and the linguistic reality in this empire at that time. First, the ideology was then expected to unify a declining empire through the standardization of a national language and script reform in China, instead of the construction of a new nation-state in its independence from a collapsing empire in Europe (De Francis, 1950, pp. 31–55). Second, unlike the Japanese case, the ideology’s expectation of linguistic homogeneity could not be stretched to accommodate linguistic heterogeneity in China since, even over a century later, this country still has over one hundred thirty languages officially or scholarly recognized (Sun, Hu, & Huang, 2007). Third, various empires in the Chinese history never recognized all its subjects as one people, though the Han majority developed a consensus on their cultural and linguistic unity in the last two thousand years. Consequently, China has experienced a rapid evolution of language ideologies, varying from monolingualism to different degrees of multilingualism since the early twentieth century in order to accommodate the linguistic reality in China (Zhou, 2012, 2017b). The ideology of the trinity is the dominant language ideology, which may occur in other forms that represent correctly or distortedly dimensions of linguistic reality in our societies. For instance, the ideology of English-Only is a variant of the trinity that largely mirrors the linguistic reality in the USA where English is the only language of government, education, and press/media. However, it attempts to roll back the progress made in multilingualism since the 1960s and takes a preemptive strike against multilingual advances brought about by the civil rights movements and globalization (González & Melis, 2000/2001). On the other hand, for example, the linguistic reality of the USA where many languages were used at home and in communities also pursues multilingualism as an ideology in its fight against English-Only. It appears that language orders seek ideological representations while language ideologies attempt to expand their bases in linguistic reality by transforming language orders. 2.4.2   Materialization of Language Ideology It is recognized that language ideology is not language order (Fishman, 1998/1999), but the question of how language ideology materializes as language order currently does not draw enough scholarly attention.

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I believe that this question is critical to the inquiry of the relationship between language ideology and language order. From my observation, the materialization of language ideology generally proceeds through the following four major mechanisms. First, language ideology may be realized as language policy that mandatorily allocates resources for some languages or deprives from other languages of resources in a multilingual society. As I have defined, language ideology is a system of beliefs, presuppositions, values, attitudes, etc. It becomes language policy only when it is adopted by the government, institutions, communities, and even families as the guidelines, principles, or plans of action with specific procedures for specific goals. For example, most minority families have a supporting ideology for their home languages, but few of them have a language policy for these languages. A minority family has a family language policy supporting the home language only if it decides when and where the parents consistently speak the home language, instead of the dominant language, at home so that their children will maintain their home language. Thus, the family may invest time and money, and reward their children for speaking their home language or punish them for using too much of the mainstream language at home. This situation is true for minority families in China, the USA, and elsewhere where many families do not follow their beliefs because they do not have a language policy. The recognition of this mechanism complements Spolsky’s (2004) approach which treats language ideology, along with language management and language practice, as one of the three components of language policy. This mechanism clarifies that only a language ideology that is materialized becomes an underpinning component of language policy. Second, language ideology may be institutionalized as language planning that designates a variety of a language or a language among languages as the standard, national, or official, codifies this variety or language and specifies its domains of use (Eastman, 1983; Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997). In literature, language planning and language policy, abbreviated as LPLP, is either non-distinguishable (Wright, 2004, pp. 8–9) or too difficult to separate (Cooper, 1989, pp. 29–45) while language policy is sometimes considered as a component of language planning (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997, p. 3) or vice versa (Hornberger, 2006). Making a distinction between language policy and language planning, I think that the former focuses on the speakers while the latter targets the language. These two may be different sides of a coin, involving

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different resources and affecting different linguistic realities. For example, we may identify both implicit and explicit language policies in the USA, but we find little language planning there. On the other hand, we may find plenty of language planning for minorities in China where there is little language policy sustaining such planning (Zhou, 2003). Language planning and language policy dispense resources for languages in different ways. Thus, I treat them as separate venues for the materialization of language ideology. Third, language ideology may be materialized as language legislation and legal cases that allocate or reallocate resources for languages in a multilingual society. I view legislation and policy as different venues of the materialization of language ideology because these two means of governance are of entirely different weights in different countries with different social systems. The legal approach is the most effective in some countries, such as the USA. For example, after the Bilingual Education Act was signed into law in 1968, the budget for bilingual education increased from 15 million dollars in 1968 to 200 million dollars in the early 1980s (Coulmas, 1992, pp. 98–101). On the other hand, policy is more effective than the law in other countries, such as China. For instance, the PRC Constitution guarantees ethnic minorities the right to develop and use their languages in government and education, but minority language education and bilingual education have been on roller-coastring in the last six decades (Beckett & Postiglione, 2012: Tsung, 2014; Zhou, 2001, 2017b; Zhou & Sun, 2004). In China where the government often rules by instructions and policies rather than law, the central and local policies may delimit constitutional rights and other legal rights when deemed necessary. Thus, I see the legal approach as a unique mechanism for the materialization of language ideology. Fourth, language ideology may materialize as a political movement that changes language laws and policies as well as political institutions and their leadership, resulting in the reallocation of resources for the desired variety or language and deprivation of resources from the undesired ones. For example, the ideology of English-Only has turned into the Official English Movement in the USA since the 1990s. The movement mobilized citizens to vote for English-Only ballots, such as Proposition 227 in California in 1998 and influenced political and legal institutions by electing legislators and judges who were deemed to favor English-Only (González & Melis, 2000/2001). Consequently, for instance, Proposition 227 as a statewide mandate strengthened English

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education while limiting or eliminating bilingual education in California (García & Curry-Rodríguez, 2000). More broadly, we also see how the language ideology for Catalan, una bandera, una patria, una lengua (one flag, one nation, and one language), led to the political movement first for Catalonian autonomy and eventually for Catalonian independence from Spain today (Conversi, 1990). Thus, a political movement is an effective channel for the materialization of a mass ideology, bringing about the reallocation of resources for a language. The above discussion shows that language ideology does not transform language order until it is materialized as language policy, planning, legislation, and/or political movements. These four mechanisms allocate and reallocate resources for languages and thus upgrade or downgrade a language’s status in a language order. However, it does not mean that the ideology materialized as language order may not be contested by ideologies not yet materialized. In summary, after investigating the ideological representation of language order and the materialization of language ideology, we have a better picture of the dialectical relationship between language ideology and language order and the two-way transaction process between the two.

2.5  China’s Language Ideologies and Orders Now with the concepts of language ideology and language order well defined and the relationship between the two fully explored, I am ready to have a closer look at the PRC’s language ideology and language order as it rises as a global power. Following the Leninist tradition, the PRC does not wait for a language ideology to be nurtured from China’s linguistic reality, but always superimposes it in order to transform the linguistic reality and create the desired language order. This process involves a choice of language ideology and an evaluation of its match with China’s overall goals instead of its current linguistic reality since it is believed that ideology can transform reality. This process is divided into two major stages, an evolutionary language ideology for Chinese-centered multilingualism and an integrationist language ideology for Chinese-dominant multilingualism since the PRC was founded in 1949. In the 1950s, following the Soviet Union, China adopted the communist evolutionary language ideology to transform its linguistic reality into a Chinese-centered language order in its multinational

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state-building project (Zhou, 2003, 2010, 2012). Based on the ideology of social evolution, the evolutionary language ideology believes in a parallel between social and linguistic evolutions. Societies are expected to evolve from clans in the primitive to tribes in the feudal, then to nations in the capitalist, and finally to one single people in the communist. Parallel to the social evolution, languages are anticipated to evolve from many clan ones in the primitive society to many tribal ones in the feudal society, then to fewer national ones in the capitalist society, and finally to a single one spoken by one people in the communist society. With this ideology, China envisioned a mirroring language order of Chinese-centered multilingualism in which Chinese was to act as the anchor exerting a centripetal force and minority languages as the satellites that would be eventually pulled to the center of the anchor. In this Chinese-centered language order, Putonghua was to develop as the common language of the Han majority at first while numerous minority languages were to integrate into fewer ethnic national languages within the parameter of the officially recognized 55 ethnic nationalities (Mullaney, 2011, pp. 42–68; Zhou, 2003). Meanwhile, Putonghua was projected to loan more and more lexical and grammatical elements as well as its Roman script-based Pinyin spelling to minority languages so that Chinese and minority language would become more and more integrated in the future (Zhou, 2010). At the same time, the language ideology also acted as the pacemaker that fast-forwarded the linguistic evolution when it saw a fast evolution to communism or maintained the tempo when it assumed a slower evolution to communism, eventually leading to the roller-coaster between monolingualism and multilingualism in the first four decades of the PRC (Beckett & Postiglione, 2012; Zhou, 2003, 2012; Zhou & Sun, 2004). Since the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, China has gradually abandoned the communist evolutionary language ideology and replaced it with an integrationist language ideology (Zhou, 2010). This ideology has been an essential component of the construction of the inclusive Chinese nation initiatives, which include Three Cannots (san ge li bu kai; minorities cannot live without the Han, the Han cannot live without the minorities, and the minorities cannot live without each other.) during the Jiang Zemin regime (1989–2004), Inclusive Chinese Nations Cohesion (zhonghua minzu ningjuli) during Hu Jintao regime (2004–2014), and the Chinese Dream and the Commonwealth of the Inclusive Chinese Nation (zhonghua minzu gongtongti) since Xi Jinping

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came into power in 2014. Corresponding to the initiatives to build the inclusive Chinese nation that demotes minority nationalities to ethnic groups and focuses on individual citizenship more than on their collective rights, the integrationist language ideology includes the idea of linguistic citizenship and the association of the former with economic citizenship (Zhou, 2016). First, it stresses the unifying role of Putonghua in Chinese citizens’ identification with the Chinese state, the inclusive Chinese nation, and Chinese culture so that it is their citizenship obligation to learn Putonghua, and it is also the state’s duty to facilitate their learning of Putonghua (China, 2017c; Zhou, 2015). Second, it sees linguistic citizenship as a venue to economic citizenship for greater integration of minorities into the Han mainstream. Specifically, the ability to speak Putonghua is considered a shortcut to socioeconomic integration into the mainstream society and an effective approach to the realization of citizen’s Chinese Dream. For example, many local governments in minority communities include Putonghua promotion in their poverty elimination campaigns because the lack of the ability to speak Putonghua is deemed to limit minorities’ mobility, access to education and information, career opportunities, and overall quality as Chinese citizens (Yunnan, 2016). In this integrationist language ideology, proficiency in Putonghua is treated as an essential Chinese citizenship requirement for all. Corresponding to this integrationist language ideology, a language order of Chinese-dominant multilingualism is being constructed. This ideology was in effect materialized as the PRC National Common Language Law which was passed in 2000 and has been enforced since 2001 (Rohsenow, 2004 for an English version of the law). In this order, Putonghua must be learned and spoken by all Chinese citizens, and Putonghua must be predominantly used in all public domains while minority languages and various Chinese dialects are considered transitional between home and school, and are used at home and in few assigned domains. I will investigate specifically the impact of this integrationist language ideology and the transformation of the language order of Chinese-centered multilingualism into that of Chinese-dominant multilingualism in Chapters 3–6. Of equal interest is PRC’s global projection of this integrationist language ideology and language order in the last two decades as China arises economically. In the Marxist tradition, it is expected that China’s rapidly and extensively expanding material base, its economy, will naturally seek an ideological representation. China has taken two steps in

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the construction of this ideological representation. The first is the production of the discourse on China’s peaceful rise (heping jueqi) in 2003. The concept of its peaceful rise leaves China’s power projection with the only choice of soft power, which China considers includes language and culture (Ding, 2008; Zhou, 2015). Through global promotion of Chinese, this ideology is attempting to reshape the global language order and envisioning Chinese among the top global languages, if not the super language like English, in the global language order. The second step is the production of the discourse on a community of shared future for mankind (renlei mingyun gongtongti), an extension of the commonwealth of the inclusive Chinese nation, which was initially delivered by Xi Jinping at the World Economic Forum at Davos in January 2017 and was further expanded by Xi at the CCP Nineteenth Congress in October 2017. The latter version of the ideology supports both hard power projection and soft power projection. China’s hard power projection is currently included in its grand strategy, the Belt and Road Initiative, launched in 2015. Its soft power projection is the continuation of its global promotion of Chinese. Undoubtedly, these two initiatives reinforce each other in China’s global outreach and have broader and farther global impacts, as I will explore in Chapters 7 and 8.

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CHAPTER 3

Synchronizing the Chinese Language

Speak Putonghua to welcome guests from every corner of the world. Write in the standard script to parade the spectacle of the Chinese civilization [Shuo Putonghua, ying sifang binke; yong guifan zi, xian huaxia wenming]. —A slogan from the annual national Putonghua Promotion Week (the third week in September since 1998)

3.1  Introduction The passage of the PRC National Common Language and Script Law by the CNPC in 2000 is a historical landmark in the institutionalization of the dominant language ideology or language nationalism into a ruling language order in China. This ideology has been prevailing since the late nineteenth century (P. Chen, 1999, pp. 13–16; DeFrancis, 1950, pp. 55–84; Zhou, 2003, pp. 153–156). The ideology supposes that a standardized and modernized national language would be necessary for China’s modernization and unification, rejuvenating otherwise a declining China. This ideology as a whole is not contested, but its aspects have long been challenged when politically or technically possible. Even after it has been materialized as the language order of China since 2001, some aspects of the ideology are still questioned or challenged. On the other hand, its supporters believe that it is not only the ideology but also the language order that faces challenges as globalization intensifies in this century.

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In this chapter, I will examine three areas of contests, within the conceptual framework of language ideology and order, so that we will see how the ideology of language nationalism in different brands and forms attempt to shape the language order. These three areas of contests may be covered by the broad idea of “the crisis of the Chinese language” that first arose at the turn of the twentieth century. The first area is the dilemma of the three scripts in concurrent use by Chinese. The second is the delicate relationship between Putonghua and other varieties of Chinese. The last is a cry of wolf, a recent cry of the crisis of the Chinese language at the turn of the twenty-first century. These three issues are of particular interest at a time when the Chinese language is supposed to serve as the cultural foundation of China’s rejuvenation and to project soft power globally for rising China. Behind the crisis is the apparent worry whether Chinese is up to the magnificent job.

3.2  Dilemma of the Chinese Scripts Chinese is the only language in the world that currently uses three scripts concurrently. This trigraphia includes the traditional Chinese characters, simplified Chinese characters, and Chinese Pinyin, the latter of which is the Romanization of Chinese. The common language law requires the use of the simplified characters and Pinyin (Articles 13, 14, 15, and 18), whereas restricting the use of the traditional characters to a number of limited contexts, such as cultural relics, names, calligraphy, publications for research, and special authorization by the State Council (Article 17) (for the law in English, see Rohsenow, 2004). However, the legal recognition of the simplified characters and Pinyin does not stop the politics of the three scripts, since the fight has been going on for over a century and is recently heightened by globalization and China’s resort to its traditional culture for resources to support its rising. 3.2.1   Modernization Drive Two significant factors, a technical one and a political one, drove the modernization or reform of the Chinese script from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. The first one is the evolutionary view of script development, while the second one is the association of the script reform with nationalism.

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Typologically speaking, there are three general categories of scripts in the world of writing, namely logography, syllabary, and alphabet, which may also be known as the ideographic or logographic script, phonographic or syllabary script, and alphabetic or phonetic script, depending on the perspectives (Coulmas, 1989; Daniels, 1996; Sampson, 2016). In the West and elsewhere, the dominant view about writing before the middle of the twentieth century was that the evolution of writing in the world was unidirectional, developing from the logographic script to the syllabary script and then from the latter to the alphabetic script, a view that persisted to the second half of the twentieth century (DeFrancis, 2002; Gelb, 1969). According to this view, the logographic Chinese characters were primitive, while the alphabetic writing of English and other Western languages was advanced. Thus, Chinese characters must reform to join the ranks of the advanced writing systems, according to this evolutionary view. Technically, the Chinese script may be reformed in an evolutionary way to the syllabary script, as the Japanese was, or in a revolutionary way to the phonetic script, as the Vietnamese was. The question for China was which road it was going to take and how soon it was going to take it in the twentieth century. On the other hand, molded after the holy trinity of the holy people, holy land, and holy language, a Chinese language nationalism surged after China was defeated by Japan in the first Sino-Japanese War in 1894 (Fishman, 1973, p. 44; Zhou, 2017). Inspired by Japan’s rise after its Meiji reform that transformed the way to write Japanese among a number of modernizations, this ideology was first materialized as three language movements: the movement to phonetize Chinese, the movement to standardize Chinese as the national language, and the movement to vernacularize written Chinese (L. J. Wang, 2003, pp. 1–9). The ideology underpinning the movement to phonetize Chinese held that traditional Chinese characters were difficult to read, recognize, and write because the script lacked a phonetic representation and a transparent association between form and meaning, and had too many strokes per character (China, 1955, pp. 11–19). For these reasons, Chinese characters were considered barriers to literacy, mass education, and modernization, and blamed for China’s problems, such as illiteracy, poverty, and weakness. Within this ideology, there was a consensus for the reform of the script, but there were evolutionary and revolutionary views (Zhao & Baldauf, 2008, pp. 31–40). The evolutionary view supported the development

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already taken place in Chinese writing, which is the simplification of Chinese characters by reducing the number of strokes in a character. However, the revolutionary view insisted on the total replacement of the Chinese characters with a phonetic script. Both the evolutionary and the revolutionary proposed a number of schemes since the last decade of the nineteenth century (P. Chen, 1999, pp. 123–201). The evolutionary insisted on the simplification of the traditional characters, though they disagreed as to how much Chinese characters should be simplified and how extensively variant characters should be reduced. On the other hand, struggling between a native phonetic script and a borrowed phonetic script, the revolutionary finally settled on the Roman alphabet as the ideal script for Chinese. After more than a half-century of conflicts and compromises, the problem was first resolved in the first decade of the PRC. In 1956, the State Council published the first scheme of simplified characters and began to enforce its use on all publication, except of classics, on that February. Two years later, in 1958, the CNPC promulgated the scheme of the Romanization of Chinese, known as Pinyin, and decided on the experimental use of Pinyin in elementary, secondary, and normal schools as well as in the promotion of Putonghua outside schools. Nearly a half-century later, both the simplified characters and Pinyin were legally recognized in the national common language law in 2000. In summary, the ideology to modernize the Chinese script was materialized as a political movement at the beginning of the twentieth century, institutionalized as administrative rules and orders in the following decades, and finally legislated as a law, a century later, at the beginning of the twenty-first century. That is how a language ideology gradually becomes a language order through struggles among different brands of views. It takes time for an ideology to change reality and to become reality if it does so. 3.2.2   Continuity and Discontinuity Like any ideology, even if a dominant one, there may be an opposing ideology or conflicting ideologies. Even within the dominant ideology, they may be different brands. This situation applies to a language order as well, which may face challenges before and after it is established. The ideology to modernize the Chinese script went through these situations in the past century and is still experiencing them in this century. These ideological fights and infights essentially involve the question of

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the continuity and discontinuity of Chinese culture, a question that has perturbed China in its interaction with the West since the nineteenth century (Teng & Fairbank, 1979). The revolutionary view came with the most punch a century ago, but gradually declined since the middle of the twentieth century and is at loss in this century as Chinese rises as a global language. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, as China was struggling with the breakaway with its tradition and the embracement of Westernization, the extreme view as expressed by Lu Xun was that “either the Chinese characters be abolished, or China perishes” (Hanzi bu mie, Zhongguo bi wang) (Zhao & Baldauf, 2008, p. 32). However, even during the decade of the height of the breakaway marked by the May Fourth Movement (1919), the extreme version of the revolutionary view was rejected by the mainstream. The first phonographic writing of Chinese promulgated by the Chinese government in 1918 represents two compromises. First, it used a native or kana-like script system, instead of the Roman alphabet. Second, the phonographic scheme was officially designated as a pronunciation assistant system, instead of a writing system. A decade later in 1928, when the first Romanization scheme was officially promulgated, it was still delegated as a supplementary system (for both schemes, see P. Chen, 1999, pp. 182–185). The opposition to the phonetic writing of Chinese came from three different groups (Qian, 1999, pp. 392–394). First, the traditionalists insisted on the maintenance of China’s traditions with or without any rationales. Second, another brand of nationalism rejected the phonetic script on the ground that it would cut the ties with China’s four thousand years of civilization. Third, the pessimist view considered the replacement impossible for technical reasons, such as the difficulty in the representation of Chinese homophones and the confusion in the representation of a monosyllabic word with a phonetic script. The opposition was so strong that it extended from the ROC to the PRC, though the CCP used to be a strong supporter of the revolutionary approach to the script reform. In 1955, Hu Qiaomu, a CCP official in charge of the task, assured the opponents during the national conference on the script reform: The transition from Chinese characters to a phonetic script will be a long process. If the transition from China’s new democratic society to a socialist society takes fifteen years, the transition for the scripts will probably be longer. Eager supporters of the maintenance of the Chinese characters

64  M. ZHOU don’t need to be worried. Neither the State Council nor the CCP Central Committee has made any decision on the transition, and are still studying the issue. (Q. M. Hu, 1999, p. 84; translation mine)

This statement explains why the enthusiasm to create a phonetic script to replace the Chinese script was dampened and ended with Pinyin as a pronunciation assistant in the 1950s. After some chaos during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), amid debates on the role of Pinyin, this view was reaffirmed by the Chinese government in 1986 (Feng, 2008). After its peak, the revolutionary view saw two mirages of opportunities for the phonetic script to surge again. The first is during the early years of the digitalization in the 1980s and 1990s. In IT at that time, word processing of the Chinese characters experienced some ­technical problems and was much slower than the processing of a phonetic script like the Roman script (Zhao, 2005; Zhao & Baldauf, 2008, pp. 111–135). The revolutionary view considered this an urgent need and opportunity for the revival of the phonetic script as an alternative writing system. An extreme view along this line believed that China’s four modernizations would be dragged by the Chinese script if it was not replaced with the phonetic script (Ba, 1996). This view went as far as claiming that computers would be the gravediggers for the Chinese characters and the nursery for the phonetic script for Chinese (S. C. Xu, 2009). On the other hand, realizing the impracticality to replace the Chinese script then, a moderate view proposed that both the Chinese script and the phonetic script be used as a two-track system in word processing (Y. Zhou, 2004, pp. 75–94). This view argued that, because of the Chinese script, China lost the age of typewriters, but could not afford to lose an age of computerization and digitalization (Y. Zhou, 1992, p. 205). Today, not to mention the extreme view, even the moderate view is problematic since technical progress in IT has successfully resolved the problems for Chinese character input and word processing (S. C. Xu, 2009). IT is no longer an excuse to replace the Chinese script with a phonetic one. Actually, some begin to assert that the Chinese characters are superior to the Roman script in the digital age. The second mirage is a rising expectation of the role of a phonetic script as a writing system envisioned in the globalization of Chinese. The high expectation is that Pinyin could become a writing system, instead of being a supplementary system for pronunciation only, as Chinese spreads globally. This view was encouraged first by the International

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Organization for Standardization’s (ISO) acceptance of Pinyin as ISO 7098 in 1982 and subsequently by ISO’s acceptance of the revised ISO 7089 in 1991 and 2015, respectively (Feng, 2018). ISO 7098 has not only ensured a place for Pinyin in the global language order but also revolutionized the nature of Pinyin. These revisions have gradually changed Pinyin from a supplementary system for pronunciation to a full-fledged writing system. For example, as a pronunciation assistant, Pinyin needs only to separate syllables in spelling when necessary, but as a writing system and following the orthography of any alphabetic system, Pinyin must separate words, not syllables, in writing. In a broader sense, the revised ISO 7089 standards create, in effect, a Pinyin-based orthography for writing Chinese in the Roman alphabet. Thus, justifying on the legal basis of the national common language law, some scholars argue that Pinyin should be fully expanded to a full-fledged writing system and used along with the Chinese script as a two-track system in China’s global promotion of Chinese since it is an international standard and actually used in the international community (Q. Li, 2015). However, other scholars see only the function of Pinyin as a pronunciation assistant in teaching Chinese as a second language within and outside China (Wan, 2013; J. M. Zhao, 2009). Undoubtedly, the latter view will prevail given the larger context of Chinese nationalism. Global promotion of Chinese is considered by both scholars and the Chinese government as the projection of China’s soft power. Chinese culture is treated by Xi Jinping as the resource for the growth of China’s soft power (Xinhua News, 2016). It is difficult to convince any Chinese speaker that Pinyin is better than the Chinese script in the global promotion of Chinese culture, since only Chinese characters, not Pinyin, is seen as the carrier of Chinese culture in China’s global outreach (Q. W. Wang, 2010). As a matter of fact, since the turn of this century, there has been a downplaying of the role of Pinyin in the Chinese language education in elementary education (Y. M. Li, 2005, p. 40). The downplay is seen in three facts. First, influenced by the idea of Pinyin as a pronunciation assistant, elementary school students almost forget Pinyin by the third grade. Second, Chinese language teachers generally pay little attention to the pedagogy of Pinyin in elementary schools even if they have sufficient knowledge of it. Third, most critically, a comparison of the Ministry of Education’s 1993 national curriculum for the elementary Chinese and its 2001 version finds that the latter version has significantly reduced the requirement for Pinyin teaching and learning (Bai, 2011). Some event

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opposed the teaching of Pinyin in elementary schools (X. F. Zhang, 2003, 2009). This phenomenon is underpinned by a view that sees many deficiencies in Pinyin’s representation of Chinese (Ma, 2013). These deficiencies include, for example, ambiguity in representing homophones, inability to represent classic Chinese poetry, slower input speed than the Chinese-script-based approach to word processing, inability to represent Chinese culture such as the Chinese calligraphy, harm to national unity and stability, and barrier to communication within the Sino-sphere. Given the current context where Chinese characters are treated as the embodiment of the Chinese nationalism (Wang & Quan, 2017), it is hard to imagine that Pinyin would have any chance to become a fullfledged writing system in China in the near future. On the other hand, the evolutionary view faces the same challenge of continuity and discontinuity, since the simplification of Chinese characters as an approach to script reform also came from the background of modernization against tradition. Supporters argued that simplification is a script-internal development that is found in the transition from the oracle script to the bronze script all the way to the Kai-style characters (Qian, 1999, pp. 85–92). By the time of the Song dynasty (960–1279), some variants of the traditional and simplified characters began to be used concurrently in printing. Thus, today’s simplification of Chinese characters is just another step down the road. On the other hand, opponents claimed that the simplification would create barriers to the heritage of Chinese culture. Specifically, the simplified script would sabotage the aesthetics of Chinese characters as traditional art, create problems for dictionary compilation and use, and lead to difficulty in access to classics (China, 1955, pp. 20–36). However, these two opposing views were politicized during the Cold War. To justify the simplification, the PRC mainly encouraged supporters’ views while suppressing the opponents’ opinions. Across the Taiwan Strait, the ROC predicated, on its use of traditional characters, its legitimacy as the authentic heir of Chinese culture. The conflict between these politicized views lingers beyond the Cold War into the twenty-first century and become an issue in the unification of China, an essential goal of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Thus, the last few decades have seen two waves of calls for the return to the traditional script, calls that led to heated debates on the choice of the traditional script or the simplified one in the context of China’s rise.

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The first wave occurred in the late 1980s, when a retired UN employer, named Yuan Xiaoyuan, started the journal of the Culture of Chinese Characters [Hanzi Wenhua] after she settled down in Beijing (Peng, 2009). Stressing the importance of the traditional script in the inheritance and maintenance of traditional Chinese culture, Ms. Yuan proposed a practice of “reading the traditional script and writing the simplified script,” which was first interpreted as a practice of printing in the traditional and writing in the simplified (Yuan, 1992). Her view was immediately accused as one that intends to subvert the PRC’s language order with the ROC’s language order, because “reading the traditional and writing the simplified” was the ROC’s practice. She was forced to reinterpret this practice as one that is encouraged outside the Mainland in 1992. Regarding the unification of China, this debate was politically sensitive and volatile, though it did not involve the mass of the Chinese citizens. As a result, Jiang Zemin, then President of the PRC and Secretary General of the CCP, intervened, instructing that the simplification of Chinese characters will remain its course of development, both sides of the Taiwan Strait will maintain their respective practices, and creative authors may use either forms in their artwork as they like (M. Wang, 2010). The top CCP leader’s intervention did not stop the ideological conflict, though it watered down the debate for a while in the 1990s. Before and after China showed, to the world, the spectacle of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, the debate was heated again as the second wave, since the choice of the script involves the cultural foundation of rising China. In 2008, several members of the Chinese National Political Consultative Congress (CNPCC), which is an advisory body for the CCP and the Chinese government, proposed to add the teaching of the traditional script in elementary education so that the younger generation might maintain the root of Chinese culture. A year later in 2009, a member of CNPCC proposed to restore the use of the traditional script nationally. The proposed act was to phase in the traditional script in a ten-year time frame in order to embrace China’s unification (Jiangxi, 2018). Unlike the first wave, this wave involved the participation of the mass of Chinese citizens on the Internet, mostly through social media on their cell phones. For example, one survey had 9000 responses to this proposal. The responses were categorized as supporting, opposing, and neutral, and both the supporting and opposing sides were reported to be balanced, though no percentage of the three was provided. The supporting view believed that restoring the use of the traditional script

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would increase the cohesion of the Chinese nation. However, the opposing view contended that, as long as the simplified script is easy to learn and use, there is no need to spend the time and funds to redo everything in the traditional script. The neutral view maintained that the simplification is a natural development, but the use of the traditional should be allowed. Since then, the representatives have made similar proposals at the annual meeting of CNPC and CNPCC, challenging the legal status of the simplified script enshrined in the national common language law. Meanwhile, across the Strait, Ma Yingjiu, the President of the ROC, proposed a policy of “reading the traditional script and writing the simplified” in 2009, struggling to maintain the status of the legitimate successor of Chinese culture and adding more political color to the script debate when the issue of the unification of China overshadows otherwise sky-high Chinese nationalism (Q. Xu, 2009). Moreover, IT and the globalization of Chinese do not seem to give the simplification of the Chinese script an edge either. By the turn of this century, some people began to believe that the simplification actually creates problems for IT by increasing the total number of characters and the difficulty in conversion between the two script systems (Zhan, 2002). In the global promotion of Chinese, it is often argued that traditional Chinese characters should have a significant role because they carry more messages of Chinese culture, though how they are actually used in the classroom may vary locally, depending on the pedagogy (J. L. Li, 2016). At least, more respect should be given to the tradition script because it is irreplaceable in the global context where its use is associated with local communities’ cultural traditions and identities (Juan, 2014). In practice, many Chinese-as-a-second-language (CSL) classrooms outside China follow the practice of “reading the traditional script and writing the simplified.” Realizing that it is difficult to change the current legislated language order, most scholars and activists strive for a common ground by recognizing the legal status of the simplified script as well as simplification as the script-internal development, while hoping to expand the space for the traditional script by reinterpreting Article 17 of the national common language law (Dong, 2012; Xinhua News, 2015). It is not apparent how successful this approach will be, but a legal accommodation of the two scripts seems to be necessary for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Otherwise, the conflict between the views would inflict more damage than creating any harmony as indicated in a new development in Hong

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Kong where the use of the traditional characters and the simplified ones become a political divider between an independent Hong Kong and a unified China (Wang & Li, 2016). It is a challenge for China to accommodate the two Chinese scripts in its language order as a unifier before a consensus is reached on a healthy relationship between the two. 3.2.3  Summary The trigraphia of Chinese is currently a difficult situation. The language modernization measures that were taken over a century ago to rejuvenation the Chinese nation are now haunting rising China that relies on the Chinese language as its cultural supporter. Pinyin may still find its role as a pronunciation assistant for both native speakers and CSL learners. Limiting Pinyin to this role will probably pacify its supporters as well as its opponents. However, the conflict between the traditional Chinese characters and the simplified one is more troublesome. Politically it becomes a divider rather than a unifier when the latter role is expected the most in the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Practically it becomes a barrier to the access to traditional Chinese cultural resources that China urgently needs for its materialized society and its global soft power projection. However, it will take a revolution for China to resolve this problem since it has to change its existing language ideology and order to do so.

3.3  Tension Between Putonghua and Varieties of Chinese Chinese is known as the Sinitic languages, a family of languages, instead of a single language in the international linguistic community (Norman, 1988, pp. 1–6; Ramsey, 1987, pp. 1–19). However, Chinese is always considered as one single language by Chinese linguists and the Chinese society. Their difference is underlined by their different approaches to the classification of Chinese, an internal approach and an external approach (Zhou, 2018). Outside China, linguists treat Chinese in a linguistic internal approach that classifies Chinese into different languages in terms of linguistic DNAs, such as phonology, lexicon, and syntax. On the other hand, Chinese linguists treat Chinese in a linguistic external approach that categorizes Chinese as a single language in terms of non-linguistic factors, such as culture, society, nation, and state/dynasty.

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Thus, Chinese as one single language is both an ideology and a desired language order, regardless of whether varieties of Chinese are mutually intelligible or not. This ideology is what I call “big-language view,” following Myhill’s (2006) term of big language. In this section and hereafter, I will use the term variety to refer to members of the Chinese family instead of the terms dialect or language, since both of them may be ideologically loaded in this context, unless I present a Chinese view, for which I will use dialect. How many varieties of Chinese are there is not an easy question to answer. It mostly depends on the methodology. Traditionally, Chinese varieties are divided into three levels: major dialect (fangyan), subdialect (cifangyan), and local dialect (tuyu), but more recently they may be categorized into five levels: regional dialects (daqu), area dialects (qu), subarea dialects (pian), district dialect (xiao pian), and community dialect (dian) (R. Li, 1985). These approaches to the classification of Chinese demonstrate how diverse Chinese is. Chinese linguists generally categorize Chinese into five to twelve major or regional dialects (Cao, 2008; Liu, 2004). Chinese linguists often adopt the classification of seven or ten. The classification of seven includes the Northern, Xiang, Gan, Hakka, Yue, Min, and Wu dialects, but the classification of ten subdivides the Northern dialect into Guan and Jin, and adds Ping and Hui. Down the ladder, for example, the Wu dialect has six major subdialects, such as Taihu area and Taizhou area. Within Taihu area is Suhujia district that includes Shanghainese. If the five-level system is used, there are hundreds of varieties of Chinese, some of which are not mutually intelligible at all and many of which have very little mutual intelligibility. 3.3.1   Varieties as Problem The diversity of the Chinese language was not considered a problem or a serious one until the last days of imperial China. The imperial language order was centered on Mandarin Chinese used by the bureaucratic system and a unified Chinese script used by the larger society. This imperial language order was underlined by a big-language view which supposed that a unified Chinese script could ensure imperial law and order across dialects and languages under Heaven (Zhou, 2018). The imperial language order and the big-language view appear to have worked well until the introduction of the trinity of one language, one people, and one state as a means to save the falling imperial Qin dynasty (Fishman, 1973,

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p. 44; Zhou, 2017). Unlike the imperial big-language view that relied on the unified Chinese script, China’s modern language view predicates, on a national standardized oral language, a new language order for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. It was considered the panacea for all of China’s problems, including the language problem of course. The extreme view contended that a standardized Chinese would abolish all Chinese dialects, while a moderate view believed that a standardized Chinese would be used across dialects and languages in China (Qian, 1999, pp. 49–58 and 156–157). The modern language view was first materialized as a political movement, the movement to standardize Chinese as the national language in the late nineteenth century (L. J. Wang, 2003, pp. 1–9). As a miracle, this view was institutionalized as law right before the collapse of the Qing dynasty. In 1911, the Imperial Ministry of Education (Xuebu) passed the Resolution on Methods of National Language Standardization (Tongyi guoyu banfa an). It included five major measures to standardize China’s national language: 1. Set up a national agency under the Ministry of Education with branches in every province to survey standard Chinese (Mandarin) vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and its use; 2.  Compile national language textbooks, dictionaries, and comparative handbooks of Chinese dialects based on the data from the above survey; 3. Decide on the standard pronunciation for the national language; 4. Decide on a phonetic system for representing the standard pronunciation; and 5. Establish national and provincial national language training institutes to provide in-service standard Chinese training to all teachers and use standard Chinese as the medium of instruction in all subject classes in schools throughout China (Fei, 1997, p. 2; translation mine). This law set up the infrastructure and mechanisms for the standardization and promotion of Chinese as a national language. However, it left out two critical issues: What the standard Chinese is and what the relationship between the standard Chinese and various Chinese varieties should be. Probably, it was assumed that the standard Chinese was Guanhua (Mandarin), which was already used by the imperial

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bureaucratic system. However, there are different varieties of Mandarin too. Thus, there were ideological and pragmatic fights and compromises between the Northern Mandarin based on Beijing and the Southern Mandarin based on Nanjing before it was finally settled in 1956 when the PRC promulgated the standards for the national language (P. Chen, 1999, pp. 13–30; D. J. Wang, 2014). Even so, ideological skirmishes between the two Mandarin varieties continue to surface now and then. As recently as in June 2018, a debate on whether “waipo” (maternal grandmother, used more often in the South) or “laolao” (maternal grandmother, used more often in the North) is standard became public when Shanghai Educational Press replaced “waipo” with “laolao” in a text in Chinese textbook for the second grade (Xinhua News, 2018). Officially, the national standard Chinese, which is now known as Putonghua, uses the Beijing phonological system as its standard pronunciation, the Northern dialect as its base, and the exemplary vernacular literary language as its grammatical norm (China, 1996, p. 12). As it is officially defined, Putonghua did not have any native speakers in the 1950s. Even people in Beijing who spoke with the standard Beijing pronunciation did not speak the exemplary vernacular literary language. It is estimated that 70% of the Chinese population (close to one billion people) spoke Putonghua by 2016, and the goal is to spread Putonghua to rural China and the world by 2020 (MOE, 2016a). The promotion of Putonghua as the national language is the largest language engineering project in the establishment of the desired language order however it is measured. Between the 1950s and the 1970s, the relationship between Putonghua and varieties of China was treated within a framework of a limited big-language view. Influenced by Stalin’s view on the four criteria, common territory, economy, language, and culture, in defining a modern nationality, Putonghua was then considered the common language of the Han ethnic group only (Zhou, 2015, 2016). According to Stalin, clan languages develop into tribal languages, which in turn merge into a national language (Zhou, 2010a, 2010b). Following this trajectory, Putonghua was supposed to unify various Chinese dialects in phonology, lexicon, and syntax so that Chinese become a unified language for a unified Chinese nation (China, 1955, pp. 37–47 and 240–246). In other words, Putonghua was expected to wipe out Chinese dialects as the ultimate goal of the unification of the Chinese language. This view was not changed until a national conference on language and script work

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in 1986. At this conference, it was officially made clear for the first time that the promotion of Putonghua is not intended to wipe out Chinese dialects, but only to eliminate the barriers in communication created by Chinese dialects (China, 1986, p. 28). This change is interpreted by some scholars as a policy of the coexistence of Putonghua and Chinese dialects, though four years earlier in 1982 an amendment was made to the PRC Constitution, adding an article on Putonghua as the nationally-used common language (Guo, 2004). As far as their functions are concerned, Putonghua and Chinese dialects are deemed complementary with the former as the language of the public domains and the latter as the language of private domains (Y. M. Li, 2012). However, that is not the end of the exploration of the relationship between Putonghua and varieties of Chinese. The common language law passed in 2000 stipulates a new role, linguistic citizenship, for Putonghua (Zhou, 2015). Two different terms are used in the law, not alternatively, but purposefully. When referring to the standard language proper, it uses “Putonghua,” but when referring to citizens’ rights and obligations in learning and speaking the standard language, it adopts “the national common language” (guojia tongyong yuyan (wenzi)). For the first time, linguistic citizenship is stipulated for citizens to establish a stronger identification with the state. How the relationship between Putonghua and Chinese varieties works out in this new version of big-language ideology is examined in the following section, and how that between Putonghua and minority languages evolves in this view will be investigated in the following chapter. 3.3.2   Varieties as Resource On the orientations of language ideologies about the standard and nonstandard varieties, at one extreme is the view of nonstandard varieties as problems discussed above, while on the other extreme is the view of nonstandard as resources (Hornberger, 1988; Ruiz, 1984). Under both domestic and international pressures since the turn of this century, China began to view language as resource as well (Tian, 2015). Two major views were proposed for the Chinese government’s consideration (Cao, 2009; Y. M. Li, 2012). One view is to protect the vitality of Chinese dialects and minority languages so that they may exist and develop in their respective communities. In this broad approach, language resources include the number of languages, the number of dialects, language

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status, planning, functions, vitality, culture, information, population, education, and capacity (Z. T. Chen, 2009). The other view is to preserve those endangered dialects and languages so that they may survive in protection zones or preserve in language museums. In this practical approach, language is considered linguistic resources, cultural resources, and economic resources (Y. M. Li, 2015, pp. 7–9). The practical approach is currently prevailing, probably because it is more manageable or ideologically more acceptable or both as long as the state is concerned. Regardless of the approaches, this is a fundamental change in the official language ideology that always treats Chinese dialects as problems. First of all, Chinese dialects are treated as linguistic resources. This treatment essentially reflects the CCP’s recent stand: “Promote and use the national common language and script with great efforts and with care to the standards, and scientifically protect languages and scripts of all ethnic groups,” which is the policy basis for China’s long-term and mid-term plan for language and script work (MOE, 2016b). Based on this plan for the period from 2012 to 2020, it is encouraged to engage citizen volunteer programs and activities to spread the ideas of language as resource and scientific protection of it. It is also encouraged to build digital databases for the preservation, sharing, and exploitation of Chinese dialects. Specifically, these ideas began to be materialized as a national project with specific objectives since 2015 (Cao, 2015; Tian, 2015). The objectives include surveys, digital platforms, and research. The surveys involve field surveys in about 500 Chinese dialect communities, online surveys beyond those designated communities, and surveys of existing literature on Chinese dialects. The Chinese dialect digital platforms serve as digital language museums that preserve, process, and exhibit language data digitally. The research covers ethnography of major and sub-major Chinese dialect communities and endangered dialect communities, an atlas of Chinese dialects based on counties and dialectal distribution, sorting and preserving dialects as intangible cultural heritage, and exploration for future use. All these programs of the project are expected to be completed with the thirteenth five-year plan (2016– 2020). Their impact on the protection and preservation of Chinese dialects remains to be seen. Second, language is culture and culture is language for the humanity (Y. M. Li, 2012). This is not the first time that Chinese dialects as cultural resources are discovered. The first time was during the war against the Japanese invasion between 1937 and 1945. In order to mobilize the

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mass to save China from Japanese colonialization, Chinese dialects were utilized to outreach the less educated mass through folk literature and local operas (L. M. Zhao, 2007). Now, this is the second time that Chinese dialects are given the great mission to rejuvenate the Chinese nation and to support rising China. For this mission, Chinese dialects are not treated as intangible cultures but perceived as the carriage of intangible culture. China declined to include languages and dialects themselves as intangible cultures in its negotiation with the UNESCO regarding relevant treaties (personal communication with Sun Hong Kai, 2014). Thus, the Intangible Cultural Heritage Law of the PRC does not include language or dialects as such heritage (China, 2011). In this spirit, dialects are generally considered in terms of folk songs, folklore, folk music, and folk opera (R. L. Li, 2008; Xie, 2014). Nationally, the state’s prevailing ideology guides the orientation of the national project on the preservation of Chinese dialects as resources (Tian, 2015). The project decides which programs it would fund and which it would not. Funded programs mainly focus on folk culture rather than on local dialects. However, a few local governments did take a brave step in the first decade of the twenty-first century before the Intangible Cultural Heritage Law was passed in 2011. For instance, Fuzhou Municipality included the Fuzhou dialect, a northern branch of the Minnan dialect, on its intangible cultural heritage list, Xiangtan Municipality did so for the Xiangxiang dialect, the oldest variety of the Xiang dialect and Lianyungang Municipality did it for the Haizhou dialect, a variety of the hybrid of Northern and Southern Mandarin (Zhuang, 2017). More recently, some representatives also began to raise this issue at annual meetings of the national and local congresses, which attracted media attention. In response, some concerned citizens launched volunteer programs, among which stand out Wang Han’s Responding Plan (Xiangying jihua) in Hunan Province, Chen Yu’s Zurong Village Chinese Dialect Film Festival in Guangdong Province, and Internet broadcasting program One Point Three Billion Decibel sponsored by an Internet company, Iqiyi (Ling, 2017). Among these leading activists, Wang Han, a well-known TV host, donated nearly one million dollars for the Responding Plan in 2015, the Chinese pronunciation of which is the homophone of Hometown Tongue Plan, because no distinction between yin and ying is made in the Xiang dialect. This project engaged about eighty linguists, information technologists, and other volunteers. They started a field survey of fifty dialect communities in Hunan

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and planned to build a database and publish a series of books for these dialect communities (Li & Wang, 2016). These initiatives taken by the representatives, celebrities, scholars, private companies, and ordinary citizens are currently accommodated by the state that usually does not like NGOs and citizen activism. How big a dent these civil efforts will make on China’s official language ideology and order immediately is not as significant as the long-term awareness they will bring to the Chinese society. Third, Chinese dialects are considered economic resources (Y. M. Li, 2015, pp. 76–83). They are expected to be fully employed in the language service industry, but this industry itself is still underdeveloped, despite a forecasted bright future, in China (J. Su, 2014). For example, translation, education, and IT are the main areas of language service, but the market demand is on global languages, such as English and Putonghua (He, 2012). On the other hand, non-market public service is dominated by Putonghua as required by the national common language law. Currently, there are two industries where scholars see market potentials for dialects. First, tourism is where dialects may play a role (Chen & Hu, 2010). Dialects may be integrated into the local landscape as public signs, calligraphy, and couplets at a tourist site. They may also be part of the local entertainment as folk songs and folk opera. Local tourist resources may be created out of local dialectal literature and folklore. In practice, some tourist sites have already employed these market tools, but improvement is in great need. Second, trade is an industry where dialects may play a role. For example, the Minnan dialect is expected to facilitate the Belt and Road Initiative in Southeast Asia where there are sizable Minnan speaker communities (X. Wang, 2016). However, the Minnan dialect is a special case. There are very few Chinese dialects that are spoken dominantly in Chinese overseas communities. Besides, this approach may create political problems for the local Chinese diaspora communities in the context of rising China. In short, it is difficult to imagine the economic potential of Chinese dialects in the current linguistic market in China, a market that I will examine in depth in Chapter 5. 3.3.3  Summary The treatment of dialects as problem or resource essentially involves two critical questions. What is precisely the relationship between Putonghua and dialects? Are dialects to be protected or preserved? Representing the ideology that only a unified Chinese language could rejuvenate China,

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the movement to promote a standardized national language aimed the abolishment of Chinese dialects since the turn of the twentieth century. It treated dialects as a tool, instead of a Chinese unifier, to mobilize the mass against the Japanese invasion in the 1930s and 1940s. It finally recognized dialects as complementary to Putonghua in the 1980s, but in reality, Putonghua’s status has been upgraded twice, enshrined as the common language in the PRC Constitution in 1982 and as the national language in the language law in 2000. The language law specifies Putonghua use in all domains except the family domain. The supremacy of Putonghua in current Chinese language ideology and order appears to be unchallengeable, but a few dialects have still attempted to do so legitimately or illegitimately. The extreme case is illegal demonstrations to protest the proposed reduction of Cantonese programming for radio and television in Guangzhou in 2010, but this exception reflects the social and political tension between Putonghua and some dialects in unique contexts (Qu, 2011). Dialects have had a legal channel to maintain their use and intergenerational transmission since 1999 when China launched a teaching and curricular reform. The Ministry of Education released some of its control of the curriculum for compulsory education in 2001 (MOE, 2018). The new distribution of the curriculum is 80–84% national and 16–20% local. Usually, the provincial department of education regulates about eleven to fifteen percent, leaving about 5% for schools. Almost two decades have gone, but very few local governments and schools took advantage of the local and school curriculum in teaching dialects. A few cities and counties, such as Shanghai, Xiamen, and Zhangzhou, experimentally introduced local dialects into their local curricula, not as live languages but as local cultures in the form of folklore, folk songs, etc. (Gao, 2017; Kang, 2011). This status of dialects reflects three views: (1) dialects are still doing well, (2) dialects are losing their vitality and dying, and (3) this is a natural development of languages. These views are found in both teachers’ and students’ attitudes toward the use and teaching of dialects in schools (Su, Yin, & Sun, 2017). Some opposed the introduction of dialects into classrooms, while others welcomed it in class or on campus. However, even among this group of supporters, some wanted to wait until laws or regulations on dialect use are promulgated, while the rest believed that the transmission of dialect is mainly the job of families, not schools. It is now apparent that that state does not want to change its language ideology and order while the citizens generally do not intend to

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challenge them. Given this overall context, varieties of Chinese are not to be protected as live languages but to be preserved merely as cultural heritage.

3.4   “Crisis” of the Chinese Mother Tongue The resurgence of the cry of the crisis of Chinese began when China was prepared to join the WTO in the late 1990s and got stronger after it became a WTO member and proclaimed to rise peacefully since the turn of the century. The cry of the crisis was a nationalistic response to intensified globalization and rapid evolution of technology at first, but it increasingly appears to reflect views underlined by language nationalism about China’s rejuvenation domestically and rise internationally. 3.4.1   Globalization and the “Crisis” This cycle of globalization is characterized by expansion of international institutions and technology as well as free flow of people, capital, goods, jobs, services, information, ideas, and values that create what are known as a knowledge economy, new democracies, and a new world order (Coatsworth, 2004). Fortunately to some or unfortunately to others, China was able to catch this train of globalization by joining the WTO in 2001, during which anxiety arose, and some cried wolf (see Sect. 1.2.2). Accompanying this anxiety is one of the views underscoring the “crisis” of Chinese brought about by globalization. In preparation for the challenges after joining the WTO, China began to increase English in the reform of its nine-year compulsory education curriculum in 1999. Recognizing the global language order, the new compulsory education curriculum, which was experimentally implemented across China between 2001 and 2005 and finalized since then, requires English to be taught from the third grade to the ninth grade, depending on the availability of qualified English teachers. The foreign language curriculum (mostly English) takes 6–8% of the total curriculum, whereas the Chinese language curriculum is 20–22% (MOE, 2018). English become an essential element in admission tests for high schools and colleges. At the same time, for professionals, such as teachers, doctors, and engineers, promotion from the entry level to the intermediate level and the senior level all requires the passage of an English proficiency test appropriate for their level. The increased

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English requirements for schools and professional immediately ballooned an already substantial English market for after-school and continuing education needs. To meet the needs of the increasing consumption of English, the New Oriental School, the Crazy English, and other English programs, which rose in the early 1990s, developed into a billion-dollar training industry in early 2000s (B. Y. Chen, 2003; Zhou, 2009). Meanwhile, as China was preparing for the 2008 Olympic Games, Beijing alone planned to train five million of its 16 million residents to speak some English to host the Games. Shanghai followed this approach in its preparation for the Expo 2010. In this context, three major views arose against the spread of English in China, leading to what is called the “English threat” to the Chinese mother tongue (Pan & Seargeant, 2012). First, some claim that students spent too much time learning English so that their Chinese proficiency reduced, citing incidental news and studies (Gong, 2007). For instance, in December 2004, a piece of new on an English to Chinese translation competition organized by Shanghai led to a local debate and later a national one on the crisis of Chinese caused by English (Oriental Morning Post, 2004). This translation competition was intended for both domestic and overseas Chinese speakers younger than 45 years old and attracted participants from China and abroad, whose accurate understanding of English and skillful representation of it in Chinese were assessed. No participant was qualified for the first place, but a Singaporean was given the second place, not because of the candidate’s English proficiency but his Chinese proficiency. The result caused an uproar because a foreigner scored the highest in Chinese in this contest. Five years later in 2009, a survey of students’ Chinese proficiency at four universities in Beijing found unsatisfactory results, which also led to another local and national debate on the crisis of Chinese (C. L. Chen, 2014). The debate started in the academic circle, but extended to the local and national congress meetings, during which emerged three views, opposing English, supporting English, and neutral (B. R. Hu, 2013). The opposing view blamed English for the so-called deterioration of Chinese students’ Chinese proficiency because English not only consumed students’ precious time and energy from elementary schools to colleges but also spread to Kindergartens and took a priority seat in professional life. Some went as far as accusing English of cultural invasion and English-Chinese bilingual teaching of a threat to China’s sovereignty and national security because the teaching of English

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violated the common language law and sabotaged the existing language order in China (C. L. Chen, 2014; Peng, 2005). On the other hand, the supporting view contended that there is no crisis of Chinese at all while Chinese is promoted globally. The deterioration of young people’s Chinese proficiency, if there is any, is not caused by English, and English is good for China to open to the world. At the same time, the neutral view held that there needs some balance between English and Chinese and improvement in the pedagogy for the teaching of English may help the balance. Second, the contact between English and Chinese is considered an endangerment to Chinese in three significant ways. The first way is the introduction of English loans into Chinese with semantic translation, such as cunyoulun (ontology), yuyisu (semantic element), and zaiyouxing (existential), which are considered to be meaningless and opaque to Chinese readers (Hong, 2005). This situation is believed to become worse in recent year as more English terms are introduced in Chinese, and increasingly believed to have polluted the Chinese language. The second way is the Westernization of the Chinese grammar, phonology, and vocabulary which makes the communication between modern Chinese and classical Chinese as well as between modern Chinese and Chinese dialects impossible (Z. Wang, 2005; W. Z. Zhang, 2005). For example, Chinese is believed to be Westernized from a predominantly monosyllabic language to a disyllabic and multisyllabic language as well as from a language with few modifiers to lengthy modifiers or from a semantic language to a grammatical language. The Westernized modern Chinese is blamed for the change of Chinese writers’ values and views because language is a mold and a change of the mold alters what is molded. Most controversially, the third way is the mix of Chinese with English abbreviations and letters, such as NBA, VCR, SIM, and IP, a mix of codes that is considered pollution of the beauty of the Chinese language, and moreover the violation of the common language law. The above views erupted in 2012 when the sixth edition of the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (Xiandai Hanyu Cidian), one that is used by secondary school and college students, was published. There was a protest against its appendix of 239 English abbreviations (Lu, 2013; Sina, 2012). Over one hundred scholars signed a petition to the State News and Publication Agency and the State Language Commission, accusing the publisher of violation of the common language law and the State Council’s publication regulations, and asking the state to ban this

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practice. This dictionary started this appendix with 39 such items in its second edition in 1996, and increased to 138 items in its fourth edition in 2002, to 178 items in its fifth edition in 2005, and finally to 239 items in the sixth edition in question. Thus, the appendix did not appear to be problematic, nor did the increase of the English items. It is the context when China attempts to resort to its traditional culture as a resource for its rejuvenation, that nationalistic views and emotions surged against such an appendix. Third, English or Western discourse is accused of invasion or infiltration of Chinese discourse and abduction of native Chinese thinking in modern Chinese (Fu, 2012; Yue, 2007; W. Z. Zhang, 2005). Discourse is linked to ideology and power (van Dijk, 1997). Thus, Western ideology is considered to have infiltrated Chinese values, lifestyle, and thinking not only through English learning but also through the Westernization of Chinese and most importantly the Westernized Chinese discourse. As a result, the Chinese people are not able to speak, write, and think in the Chinese way in modern Chinese. Chinese speakers are led to talk about guoji shehu (the international community), minzhu (democracy), falü (law), and quanqiuhua (globalization), instead of native discourses on tianxia (under Heaven or One World), datong (harmony), and heer butong (harmony with differences). More specifically, for instance, ren (man) in modern Chinese discourse is now more related to ziyou (freedom), quanli (rights), and renquan (human rights), but in traditional Chinese discourse it is associated with zhong (loyalty), xiao (filial piety), ren (altruism), and yi (righteousness) (W. Z. Zhang, 2005). This line of views argues that self-confidence cannot be built on Chinese culture, nor can Chinese culture serve as the foundation for China’s rise if Chinese discourse is infiltrated by Western discourse and Chinese thinking is abducted by the Western way. 3.4.2   Technology and the “Crisis” IT revolutionized the way we communicate and creates new developments of Chinese in the age of globalization (Liu & Tao, 2012). Thus, its impact on Chinese is perceived as a critical aspect of the crisis of Chinese. It is blamed for two problems, the loss of the ability to handwrite Chinese and the innovative use of Chinese. Reports of the loss of the ability to handwrite Chinese became top news in the last few years (Y. X. Yang, 2012). The loss is reflected on two

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levels. The first level of loss is the inability to handwrite Chinese characters because people type Chinese using word processors on computers or cell phones. A 2010 survey indicated that about 42% people had problems recalling how to handwrite Chinese characters when they were asked to do so, and about 14% handwrote the wrong characters or characters wrong (C. L. Chen, 2014). A well-cited example is an embarrassing situation on live TV program broadcasted by the Chinese Central TV Station (Gong, 2007). In the program on the Chinese language, the hostess invited a high school student, a college student, and a doctoral student in Chinese studies (Guoxue) to handwrite the word ganga (尴尬, embarrassment). The result was indeed an embarrassment because all three of them were not able to write it correctly. This incident was cited as an outstanding example of the younger generations’ overall loss of ability in their mother tongue because of IT. The second level of loss is the loss of writing formalities. Like any language, Chinese writing has different formats and styles for different purposes. For business, there are business formalities, while for personal communication there are differences depending on the relationship between the writer and the receiver. The younger generation is used to write casually in social media and adopt templates from their word processors for their writing. However, when they are asked to handwrite something on the spot, they are usually at loss about the appropriate formats. One piece of the top news on this issue in recent year is about handwriting something on the spot at job fairs (Y. X. Yang, 2012). College students always bring beautifully designed and printed resumes to job fairs. Sometimes interviewers wanted to see their handwriting ability, an ability that was traditionally valued as a representation of one’s ability, personality, and cultivation, and asked student interviewees to handwrite some supplementary materials on the sport. Some handwrote characters wrong in inappropriate formats while a few asked to write on computers. Technology is generally blamed for these difficulties though it is still hotly debated in China whether technology should be blamed indeed (Y. Liu, 2011). As perceived by Chinese language purists, a more severe problem is the technology-induced innovative use of Chinese, not including the use of numbers and Roman letters, that is believed to have polluted the Chinese language (Hong, 2005; Wu, 2012). The innovation usually takes place first in social media and then spread to elsewhere. It is generally found in three categories. The first innovation is the use of

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new morphological rules. For example, new suffixes become productive which used to be of limited use. These suffixes include “… dang” (people engage in certain extreme or illegal activities), “… zu” (people prefers a certain lifestyle), and “… hou” (people of a certain generation), “… qiang” (speech in a certain style). Another example is the new use of reduplication of one syllable of a disyllabic noun to replace the whole noun, such as dongdong for dongxi (thing, object) and pianpian for zhaopian (photo). Morphological rules like these are productive, resulting in numerous such expressions. The second is the innovative use of Chinese characters to represent speech in social media. This use includes several different types. The first is to break the one-syllable-to-one character representation rule. For instance, a three-syllable expression, zhe yang zi (这样子, this way), is written as a two-syllable expression, jiangzi (酱紫), which sounds like fast and reduced speech. This type of contraction meets the need for fast typing in social media. Another type is the elevation of otherwise everyday or derogative speech by using characters from homophone words, such as shenma (神马, a sacred horse, spiritual thing) for shenme (什 么, what, everything). The use of homophone characters is also found in euphemism, such as representing xihuan (喜欢, to like, love) with xifan (稀饭, rice porridge) since many dialect speakers do not tell the difference between “h” and “f”. The last and most important one in this family is the use of homophone characters to avoid political censorship on the Internet. For example, the expression hexie (和谐, harmony, to harmonize), which is already a euphemism for the government’s use of force for stability, is further written as hexie (河蟹, river/freshwater crab). Currently, there is a cat-and-mouse game between the Chinese censorship authority and millions of young Internet users whose creativity always surpasses the long arm of the authority. The third innovation, which is deemed the most offensive, is the adaptive and creative use of Chinese idioms in social media and multimedia, particularly for commercials. First, existing idioms are reformed in social media and multimedia commercials by taking advantage of homophones. For example, the idiom qi le wuqiong (其乐无穷, its happiness is endless) is adapted as qi le wuqiong (骑乐无穷, to ride this bike for endless happiness) for the commercial for a bicycle. The traditional qi (its) is replaced with a new qi (to ride) in this adaption. The second is the creation of a new idiom following the old pattern of four syllables. It probably first appeared as a shorthand for sentences in social media, but

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the pattern becomes productive now. A good example is xi da pu ben (喜 大普奔) which is compressed from four idioms xiwen lejian (something people like to hear and to see, popular), dakui renxin (make people happy), putian tongqing (everyone celebrates it), and benzou xianggao (everyone is eager to pass the news). Now the information on the four traditional idioms is packed into this new idiom. This category of innovation is considered most offensive to language purists because idioms are treated as carriers of Chinese cultural traditions, and the appropriate use of them is an indication of one’s education and cultivation. Unlike other Internet language uses that combine Roman letters with Chinese characters in code mix or adopt Arabic numbers for characters, the above three categories of innovations follow the syntactically, morphological, and phonological rules of Chinese, though they do break some conventions. 3.4.3  Summary Whether younger generations’ Chinese proficiency is indeed deteriorated is a big question. The essential issue is how their proficiency is measured and against what standards. Against older generations’ standards, it may be true because some of the old standards, such as calligraphy, are not relevant to their career development. On the other hand, the younger generations developed a new aspect of Chinese proficiency, such as Internet literacy, for their times. Blaming second or foreign language learning is contradictory in China because the Chinese government required over one hundred million minorities to learn Chinese as a second language. Some minority groups, such as the Korean Chinese, are doing as well as or better than the Han Chinese do while learning three languages, their native languages, Chinese, and English or Japanese. As far as Chinese is concerned, language contact in history has enriched Chinese instead of endangering Chinese. The old example is the introduction of Buddhism to China two thousand years ago, which revolutionized Chinese grammar and vocabulary in a time span of about a thousand years (Norman, 1988, p. 111). A recent example is the modernization of Chinese since the turn of the twentieth century, which has made modern Chinese as it is spoken and written by the older generations. Why does it become a problem now? Regarding language change brought about by technology, there are two rival views, the negative and the positive, but the negative view

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is louder through the cry of crisis. The negative view contends that Internet innovation polluted Chinese and corrupted younger generations’ mother tongue ability, leading to the crisis of Chinese (Hong, 2005; M. Y. Wang, 2015). Moreover, the use of Internet language represented by those innovations is accused of debasement of China’s socialist values. On the other hand, the positive view holds that Internet innovation is a natural development of the Chinese language (Q. Yang, 2017; W. Zhang, 2015). “Good” changes will be retained to enrich Chinese, while “bad” ones will be outdated by themselves. What we should do is to encourage the “good” changes instead of discouraging the “bad” ones. However, the negative view is supported and adopted by the Chinese government. On November 27, 2014, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television (SAPPRFT, 2014) issues a bulletin, banning the use of the above innovations of Chinese on radio and television programs. It explicitly states that the preservation of the standard and purity of Chinese is the measure to build up Chinese cultural awareness, self-confidence, self-strengthening, and security as well as the strategy to develop China’s soft power. It elaborates explicitly that Chinese idioms carry rich historical, aesthetic, spiritual, and moral resources so that they are the DNAs of Chinese culture that will enable the continuity and flourishment of the Chinese civilization. Thus, they should not be altered and mix-used. This stand represents the official language nationalism in rising China. The state’s approach to protecting idioms is a good case when an ideology is materialized as a rule.

3.5  Conclusion We see the ideology of language nationalism in different forms, such as modernization, crisis, problem, and resource, attempting to shape China’s language order for a century. The cry of the “crisis” of the Chinese language has echoed in China twice. The first time when it resonated is the turn of the twentieth century, while the second time it resounded is the turn of the twenty-first century. Though they are one century apart, both times the cry was underlined by language nationalism, but of entirely different brands. The ideology underpinning the first call was materialized as movements to phonetize Chinese, to standardize Chinese as a national language, and to vernacularize written Chinese in order to rejuvenate China, a China to be characterized by science and democracy. Unlike the first cry to revolutionize Chinese

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for Westernization and modernization, the current call urges to protect Chinese against them in order to rejuvenate a traditional China, a China to be rooted spiritually and culturally in its imperial past. Thus, the two calls represent two different brands of language nationalism. The first is about change for better, whereas the second is about resistance to change brought about by globalization, by technology, and by evolution. These two views reflect two different Chinas. Trigraphia of Chinese may indeed present a challenge for China for its unification of greater China and its communication between contemporary China and traditional China. However, the conflict between the traditional characters and the simplified may be only symbolic of the underlining political divisions rather than the cause of them in greater China. However, the gap between contemporary China and traditional China created by the two scripts is true to some degree. Reading the traditional script and writing the simplified is an excellent pragmatic approach to this problem, if not a fundamental one. The relationship between Putonghua and Chinese varieties is now at a critical point of no return, given the ever-increasing percentage of Putonghua speakers. The predominance of Putonghua as the national language is well established throughout China. It is time to materialize, as a law, the idea that Chinese dialects are complementary to Putonghua in terms of functions. The infrastructure already exists in schools with the partition of the compulsory education curriculum into the national, local, and school. What is missing is a regulation or law that legalizes Chinese varieties’ complementary functions in public domains. Moreover, it is questionable that Putonghua will necessarily create the kind of linguistic uniformity expected by the PRC. Recent studies show that varieties of Putonghua rise extensively as Putonghua promotion is intensified (Saillard, 2004; Zhou, 2006, 2012). These local Putonghuas usually make up for some of the functions for the disappearing dialects. The recent cry of the crisis of Chinese indeed indicates two problems in China’s rising, though it is very nationalistic. First, what traditional cultural resources China intends to use and whether it believes in them and practice using them domestically are still questionable. Second, it is true that China lacks hegemony in international discourses, a lacking that eventually leads to Xi Jinping’s order for Chinese media to do a better job in telling the Chinese story and fight for the control of the international discourse for China (Wu, 2017). Global promotion of Chinese is a way to change the medium of discourse,

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which may favor China, but it is a long and unknown path. At the same time, One World, One Dream, Belt & Road, the new relationship between world powers, and community of a shared future for the humankind are China’s direct approaches to dominate the international discourse. A discourse represents an ideology, but whether it has power depends on an exemplary combination of believing it and practicing it. That is how the West has done so in the last two centuries to gain its hegemony in the discourses on science and democracy. Is rising China ready to follow suit?

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90  M. ZHOU Ling, S. (2017). Language protection: From the ivory tower to the mass [Yuyan baohu: cong xiangya ta zou xiang dazhong]. Retrieved from https://xw.qq. com/cul/20170120013674/CUL2017012001367400. Liu, Y. (2011). The ability to handwrite Chinese characters is embarrassed, but this case has nothing to do with technology [Hanzi shuxie nengli zaoyu ganga, “tibi wanzi” yu keji wugan]. Retrieved from http://www.chinanews. com/cul/2011/07-27/3212421.shtml. Liu, Z. F. (2004). Comments on a century of the classification of Chinese dialects [Bai nian lai hanyu fangyan fenqu pingyi]. Scholarly Research [Xueshu yanjiu], 4, 125–130. Liu, J., & Tao, H. Y. (2012). Chinese under globalization: Emerging in language use in China. Singapore: World Scientific. Lu, J. M. (2013). No crisis of Chinese [Hanyu weijilun keyi xiu ye]. Studies of the Chinese Language [Zhongguo yuwen], 1, 80–82. Ma, Y. C. (2013). A brief analysis of the unfeasibility of phonetization of Chinese [Jianxi hanzi pinyinhua de bukexingxing]. Yong Literati [Qingnian Wenxuejia], 3, 146. MOE. (2016a). State language and script work: Thirteenth five-year plan of development (2016–2020) [Guojia yuyan wenzi shiye, “shisan wu” fazhan guihua]. Beijing: Ministry of Education. MOE. (2016b). National long-term and mid-term reform and development plan for language and script work [Guojia zhongchangqi yuyan wenzi shiye gaige he fazhan guihua gangyao (2012–2020)]. Retrieved from http://www.china-language.gov.cn/jg/wx/201612/t20161216_4969.html. MOE. (2018). Teaching and curricular reform [Jiaoxue yu kecheng gaige]. Retrieved from http://www.moe.edu.cn/jyb_sjzl/moe_364/moe_302/ moe_368/tnull_4404.html. Myhill, J. (2006). Language, religion and national identity in Europe and the Middle East. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Norman, J. (1988). Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oriental Morning Post. (2004). Literary translation: Chinese cannot compete with Singaporeans [Wenxue fanyi: Zhongguoren budi Xinjiaporen]. Retrieved from http://www.china.com.cn/chinese/RS/734353.htm. Pan, L., & Seargeant, P. (2012). Is English a threat to Chinese language and culture? English Today, 28(3), 60–66. Peng, Z. R. (2005). Stop English-Chinese bilingual education and protect national sovereignty and security with the Chinese language [Zhizhi yinghan “shuangyu jiaoxue” yi yuyan weihu guojia zhuquan he guojia anquan]. Modern Language [Xiandai yuwen], 1, 10–11. Peng, Z. R. (2009). “Main Chinese characters, auxiliary Chinese characters” and “simplified China characters, traditional Chinese characters”—To see the standard of Chinese characters from “shi zheng, shujian” and “shifan, xiejian. Journal of Beihua University (Social Sciences), 10(5), 61–63.

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92  M. ZHOU Wan, Y. X. (2013). The role of Pinyin transcription and Chinese characters and their relationship in teaching Chinese as a foreign language. Chinese Teaching in the World [Shijie hanyu jiaoxue], 26(3), 409–418. Wang, D. J. (2014). “Representing the whole country:” Controversy over a Mandarin standard in the first half of the 20th century. Modern Chinese History Studies [Jindai shi yanjiu], 6, 77–100. Wang, L. J. (2003). The movement of the phonetization of Chinese and the standard language for the Han Chinese [Hanyu pinyin yundong yu han minzu biaozhunyu]. Beijing: Yuwen Press. Wang, M. (2010). On the battle of public opinion about simplified Chinese characters and traditional Chinese characters. Journal of Beihua University (Social Sciences), 11(1), 45–50. Wang, M. Y. (2015). Should internet language be banned on radio and TV? [Gai bu gai jinzhi wangluo yongyu shang guangbo dianshi]. The World of Reading and Writing [Duxie tiandi], 4, 44–45. Wang, Q. W. (2010). A brief investigation of Chinese characters in teaching Chinese as a second language and China’s cultural spread [Qianxi duiwai hanzi jiaoxue yu zhongguo wenhua shentou]. Journal of Language [Yuwen Xuekan], 10, 13–14. Wang, X. (2016). The development of Minnan dialect resources from the perspective of “the Belt and Road Initiative”. Journal of Quanzhou Normal University, 34(5), 23–28. Wang, Z. (2005). Chinese: An exploration of the difficulties [Hanyu: Kunjing zhong de qiusuo]. In J. Zhu (Ed.), The Chinese language crisis [Hanyu de weiji] (pp. 63–74). Beijing: Wenhua Yishu Press. Wang, Y. B., & Li, X. N. (2016). The conflict between the traditional script and the simplified script in Hong Kong and policy study [Xianggang “fanjian zhi zhen” ji duice yanjiu]. Theory Monthly [Lilun Yuekan], 6, 51–56. Wang, Y. M., & Quan, G. X. (2017). Chinese Characters: The great foundation of cultural self-confidence [Hanzi: wenhua zixin de weida jishi]. People’s Tribune [Renmin Luntan], 9, 48–50. Wu, W. W. (2012). Chinese at loss in the culture of the new age: Reading “the Chinese language crisis” [Hanyu zai xin shidai zhong de mishi – du “Hanyu weiji”]. Youth [Qingchun suiyue], 22, 299. Wu, Z. J. (2017). Tell the Chinese story well, Spread the Chinese voice well—Xi Jinping’s new thinking and theory on international propaganda work [Jiang hao zhongguo gushi, chuanbo hao zhongguo shengyin – Xi Jinping guanyu zuohao duiwai xuanchuan gongzuo de xin sixiang xin lunduan]. Retrieved from https://www.wxyjs.org.cn/ddsbdylzglzxsj/201711/t20171129_235324.htm. Xie, S. M. (2014). Study of the protection and transmission of Henan dialects— from the perspective of the protection of intangible cultural heritage [Henan fangyan de baohu yu chuancheng – yi feiwuzhi wenhua yichan baohu wei shiyu]. Journal of Shangqiu Normal University, 5, 134–137.

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Xinhua News. (2015). Can’t the simplified script and the traditional script be mutually accommodating? [Jianti zi vs. fanti zi: yizhong bu jianrong de guanxi?] Retrieved from http://www.xinhuanet.com/book/201503/16/c_127584969.htm. Xinhua News. (2016). Xi Jinping’s speech at the forum on philosophy and social sciences [Xi Jinping zai zhexue shehui kexue gongzuo zuotanhuishang de jianghua]. Retrieved from http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2016-05/18/c_1118891128.htm. Xinhua News. (2018). “Waipo” or “Laolao” [“Waipo” haishi “laolao”]. Retrieved from http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2018-06/22/c_1123023695.htm. Xu, Q. (2009). Why does Ma Yingjiu propose “read the traditional script, write the simplified one.” World Knowledge [Shijie Zhishi], 16, 46–47. Xu, S. C. (2009). A comparison of the mechanic time and the digital time [Jijiehua shidai he xinxihua shidai de bijiao]. The Culture of Chinese Characters [Hanzi Wenhua], 2, 80–84. Yang, Q. (2017). Internet language use: Innovation or crisis of Chinese [Wangluo yongyu: Chuangyi diechu haishi hanyu weiji]. The World of Secondary School Students [Zhongxuesheng tiandi: Gaozhong xuexiban], 3, 6–9. Yang, Y. X. (2012). Is it the most dangerous moment for Chinese? [Hanyu daole zuiweixian de shihou?]. Guangxi Education [Guangxi jiaoyu], 8, 29–30. Yuan, X. Y. (1992). On “reading the traditional, writing the simplified” and “the script reform”—responding to Mr. Lu Shuxiang, et al. [Lun “shifan xiejian” yu “wenzi gaige” – da Lu Shuxiang deng xiansheng]. The Culture of Chinese Characters [Hanzi Wenhua], 2, 11–24. Yue, J. Y. (2007). Shame and pain for the crisis of Chinese [Kui tong hanyu weiji]. Social Science Forum [Shehui kexue luntan], 6, 149–158. Zang, X. P. (2009). Breaking the myth of studying the Chinese characters by pinyin and exploiting the new situation of the education of the Chinese characters. Journal of Qiqihar Junior Teachers’ College, 107(1), 25–27. Zhan, Y. X. (2002). A review on the reform of Chinese characters. Journal of Nanyang Teachers College (Social Sciences), 1(3), 29–30. Zhang, W. (2015). The flourishment of internet language: Innovation or crisis of Chinese [Wangluo yuyan shengxing: “xinyi diechu” haishi “hanyu weiji”?]. Examination (College Admission, Humanities edition) [Kaoshi: Gaokao wenke ban], Z1, 96. Zhang, W. Z. (2005). The westernization of Chinese and the reform of Chinese literature in the early 20th century [Ershi shijie chu hanyu de ouhua yu wenxue de biange]. In J. Zhu (Ed.), The Chinese language crisis [Hanyu de weiji] (pp. 119–136). Beijing: Wenhua Yishu Press. Zhang, X. F. (2003). The Chinese script should not be replaced with a phonetic script. Journal of Handan Teachers College, 13(2), 23–26. Zhao, J. M. (2009). The Chinese Pinyin system scheme: The Cornerstone of teaching Chinese as a second language. Applied Linguistics [Yuyan Wenzi Yingyong], 4, 99–105.

94  M. ZHOU Zhao, L. M. (2007). Cultural missions and the fall and rise of Chinese dialects [Wenhua shiming yu fangyan de fuchen]. Jianghui Forum [Jianghui Luntan], 2, 134–140. Zhao, S. H. (2005). Chinese character modernization in the digital era: A historical perspective. Current Issues in Language Planning, 6(3), 315–378. Zhao, S. H., & Baldauf, R. B., Jr. (2008). Planning Chinese characters: Reaction, evolution or revolution? Dordrecht: Springer. Zhou, M. (2003). Multilingualism in China: The politics of writing reforms for minority languages 1949–2002. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Zhou, M. (Ed.). (2006). Special issue on language planning and varieties of modern standard Chinese. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 16(2), 159–174. Zhou, M. (2009). Language ideology and order: Globalization and multilingual education in the US and China. Journal of Jinan University (Philosophy and Social Sciences, 31(1), 45–56. Zhou, M. (2010a). The fate of the Soviet model of multinational-state building in China. In T. Bernstein & H.-Y. Li (Eds.), China learns from the Soviet Union, 1949–present (pp. 477–503). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Zhou, M. (2010b). China: The Mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. In J. A. Fishman & O. García (Eds.), Handbook of language and ethnic identity: Disciplinary and regional perspectives (pp. 470–485). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zhou, M. (Ed.). (2012). Special issue on the contact between Putonghua and minority languages in China. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 215, 1–17. Zhou, M. (2015). Nation-state building and rising China: PRC’s discourse on the Chinese language since the turn of the 21st century. In L. Tsung & W. Wang (Eds.), Contemporary Chinese discourse and social practice in China (pp. 59–80). London: Continuum. Zhou, M. (2016). Nation-state building and multiculturalism in China. In X. W. Zang (Ed.), Handbook on ethnic minorities in China (pp. 111–137). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Zhou, M. (2017). Language ideology and language order: Conflicts and compromises in colonial and postcolonial Asia. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 243, 97–118. Zhou, M. (2018). Language classification: Nation-state building and globalization. Chinese Journal of Language Policy and Planning, 3(2), 6–15. Zhou, Y. (1992). New language planning [Xin yuwen de jianshe]. Beijing: Yuwen Press. Zhou, Y. (2004). Zhou Youguang’s collection of papers on language [Zhou Youguang yuyanxue lunwenji]. Beijing: Shangwu Press. Zhuang, C. S. (2017). The endangered Chinese dialects and the protection of intangible cultural heritage in China. Dialects [Fangyan], 2, 247–255.

CHAPTER 4

Harmonizing Linguistic Diversity

Promote Putonghua with all efforts in order to strengthen the cohesion of the inclusive Chinese nation [Dali tuiguang Putonghua, zengqiang Zhonghua minzu ningjuli]. —A slogan from the annual national Putonghua Promotion Week (the third week in September since 1998)

4.1  Introduction Over one hundred and thirty minority languages are spoken along China’s border provinces or regions (Ramsey, 1987; Sun, Hu, & Huang, 2007; Zhou, 2003, pp. 15–33). Of the Altaic family, the Turkic languages are spoken in Xinjiang, Gansu, and Qinghai; the Mongolian languages are spoken in Xinjiang, Gansu, and Inner Mongolia; the Tungusic languages are spoken in Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang. The Sino-Tibetan family has three main branches, in addition to the Sinitic languages. The Tibeto-Burman languages are spoken in Tibet, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou, Hunan, and Hubei. The Miao-Yao languages are spoken in Yunnan, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hunan, Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang. The Dong-Dai (Tai-Kadai) languages are spoken in Yunnan, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hunan, and Hainan. The MonKhmer languages of the Austroasiatic family are spoken in Yunnan. The Indonesian languages of the Austronesian family are spoken in Taiwan. The Indo-Iranian and Slavic languages of the Indo-European family are spoken in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. Thus, the Han heartland along © The Author(s) 2019 M. Zhou, Language Ideology and Order in Rising China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3483-2_4

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the Yellow River and the Yangzi River is surrounded by ethnic minority communities that speak various languages other than Chinese. How to handle the vast linguistic diversity has been a great challenge for the PRC since its founding in 1949 (Beckett & Postiglion, 2012; Dreyer, 2003; Tsung, 2009, 2014; Zhou, 2003; Zhou & Sun, 2004). The PRC has taken two approaches in the last seven decades, both of which are backed by its nation-state building models (Zhou, 2010a, 2010b, 2016). From 1949 to the 1990s, China took a two-track approach to Chinese and minority languages within its Soviet-style multinational state building. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, China began to switch to an ordered multilingual approach since the late 1990s and has this order legislated by the passage of the 2000 common language law within the framework of an inclusive Chinese nation-state building. In this chapter, I will first examine the concept of multilingualism as language ideology and language order and show how they are employed in multinational state building and inclusive Chinese nation-state building. I will focus on schools since education is instrumental in nation-state building. Second, I will have a brief look at the legacy of the institutionalized separation of minority and Chinese schools left over by the twotrack approach. Third, I will investigate the process of the integration of minority and Chinese schools brought about by ordered multilingualism as ideology and order. Fourth, I will explore how China accelerates Chinese teaching and learning from kindergartens to high schools in minority communities in its efforts to rejuvenate China as an inclusive Chinese nation with diversity.

4.2  Multilingualism as Ideology and Order As I discuss in Sect. 2.2.1, one measurement of the orientations of language ideology is the continuum of language as problem at one end and language as resource at the other (Hornberger, 1988; Ruiz, 1984). Another measurement or perspective of the orientations of language ideology is the continuum with monolingualism at one extreme and bi/multilingualism (hence, multilingualism) at the other (Zhou, 2006, 2009). Monolingualism has long been considered as individual and societal linguistic abilities and practices as well as an ideology (Fishman, 1988; Wiley, 1996, 2000). On the other hand, multilingualism is more often treated as individual and societal abilities and practices

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(Baker, 2006, pp. 2–9; Dewaele, Housen, & Li, 2003). Besides, I argue that multilingualism is both ideological and material. Multilingualism as ideology includes a wide range of ideas and beliefs favoring different degrees of multilingualism, while multilingualism as order refers to the institutionalization of individual and societal multilingual abilities and practices in a society or nation-state per an ideology of multilingualism. The continuum of monolingualism and multilingualism adds a new perspective for us to investigate the relationship between language and nation-state building in rising China. Nation-state building may be decomposed into two processes, nation-building and state building. Nation-building centers on an ideology, often known as nationalism, that promotes cultural, linguistic, and religious integration, whereas state building creates institutions that facilitate homogenizing, territorializing, and mobilizing projects in the interest of nation-building (Smith, 1986). How a state treats linguistic integration in these processes appears to depend on the models of nation-state building and their underpinning ideologies, at least, as the Chinese case suggests. 4.2.1   Multilingualism and Multinational State Building In 1949 when it was founded, the PRC decided to follow the Soviet Union after its efforts to outreach to the USA failed during the emerging Cold War (Bernstein & Li, 2010). Thus, it adopted the Soviet model of a multinational state building. In the building of multiple nations within one state, the PRC introduced Leninism and Stalinism as the guiding principles, which determined how nations and multilingualism were to be accommodated in the newly found republic. Following these principles, in state building, it virtually replaced a union of republics with a Central Government over directly ruled provincial governments and regional autonomous governments, as far as institutions are concerned. This model of multinational state building was constitutionally institutionalized, recognizing the equality of all nationalities, giving regional autonomy to the officially identified 55 minority nationalities, and guaranteeing them the freedom to use and develop their languages and writing systems (Dreyer, 1976; Macherras, 1994; Mullaney, 2010; Zang, 2015, 2016). Endorsing multilingualism, this model accommodated a language order of two parallel tracks of developments, one for the Chinese language and one for minority languages, with the former as the center of gravity and the latter as satellites (Zhou, 2010a, 2012, 2016).

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This practice was fundamentally based on a scale of the “primitive” to the “advanced” on the basis of minority communities’ economic and social practices according to the evolutionary theories of Leninism and Stalinism (Blum, 2001, p. 18). First, according to Lenin (1967, p. 172), “different nations are advancing in the same historical direction, but by very different zigzags and bypaths.” Thus, there are more advanced nations and less advanced ones, which must be accommodated in a multinational state building for them to move to an equal footing. Second, according to Stalin (1975, p. 22), the nation is a historical category, is “formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture,” and undergoes three stages of formation, conflict, and convergence. Thus, the linguistic characterization is an essential dimension of the national development and evolves along the three stages. These principles guided both ideology and practices for most of the first four decades of the PRC. Independent of the Chinese track that was to develop the common language of the Han only, multilingualism was proposed to be accommodated in the minority language track in five ways to develop a common language for each recognized minority nationality, at least in theory (Serdyuchenko, 1956; Zhou, 2010a, 2010b). The first was to develop a standard language for each nationality, a language that would serve all social, political, administrative, scientific, and cultural needs of a people and unify a nationality. The second way was to facilitate national and linguistic convergence with the standard language, developing clan languages into tribal languages, and then into ethnonational languages. The third was to create a unified writing system on the standard pronunciation of the most prestigious dialect used in the political, economic, and cultural center of a minority nationality as well as on the grammar and vocabulary of the base dialect of the standard language so that the language in question would become the standard ethnonational language. The fourth was to standardize the terminology of the standard language for a minority, mostly by borrowing from Chinese. The last way was to maintain the original phonology and grammar of the Chinese loans so that they would enrich the phonology and grammar of the borrowing minority languages, making them ready for future linguistic convergence. With the above linguistic approach, the Soviet model of multinational state building assumed that, firstly, each minority nationality, with its own political, economic, and cultural center, and each minority

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language, with its standard dialect and written language based on that center, would initially become satellites of the majority nationality and the majority language; secondly, standardization of a minority language would first consolidate various dialects within the language and later facilitate that language’s eventual convergence with the majority language; and, thirdly, linguistic convergence of dialects and languages would lead to the consolidation and convergence of different ethnic identities into a single ethnonational identity; and finally, various ethnonational identities into a unified national identity, such as citizens of the PRC or Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) (Zhou, 2012). Thus, linguistic citizenship was not an essential requirement of the multinational state, at least initially, according to the Leninist and Stalinist evolutionary theories. The above proposal and assumptions were materialized as two projects, (1) the reform and creation of writing systems and (2) the establishment of an infrastructure for minority language education, in China in the 1950s (Feng, 2007; Tsung, 2009; Zhou, 2003). These two projects left a legacy that has shaped the linguistic diversity in today’s rising China. 4.2.2   Multilingualism and Inclusive Chinese Nation-State Building China’s dissatisfaction with the Soviet economic and political models was first seen in its economic reform initiated in the late 1970s and its subsequent political reform in the 1980s. However, China did not seriously reconsider the Soviet model of multinational state building until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 (Zhou, 2010a). For ten years, from the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 to the implementation of the national common language law in 2001, China was exploring a new approach to nation-state building, while gradually giving up the outdated Soviet model. It has eventually developed a Chinese model of an inclusive Chinese nation with diversity (Zhuanghua minzu duoyuan yiti) or one nation with diversity. Essentially, it is supposed to be comparable to the American model, where every citizen identifies with the nation as Americans while retaining their ethnic identities, as Italian-American, Iranian-American, or Chinese-American, and where every citizen is expected to speak English in public, while maintaining their heritage languages at home and in their ethnic communities, though it is questionable whether China could have a melting pot (Leibold, 2012; Zhou,

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2016). The new language ideology underlining this Chinese model has emerged as ordered multilingualism that supports a mainstream language in public domains with a number of heritage languages in private domains. Adopting Fei Xiaotong’s (1999) ideas on the inclusive Chinese nation with diversity, the Chinese model employs three concepts: the inclusive Chinese nation (Zhonghua minzu), the process of the formation of this inclusive Chinese nation, and diversity in unity of the inclusive Chinese nation. The inclusive Chinese nation includes 55 minority groups with the Han majority as its basis. It is not just a collection of those ethnic groups, but a national entity that has developed from a shared desire by all the 56 groups for a shared destiny of opportunities and successes. This concept of the inclusive Chinese nation allows two levels of identity representation: a lower level of ethnic identities for each of the 56 ethnic groups, of which the Han majority is just one, and a higher level of the inclusive Chinese national identity for all Chinese citizens. In the process of forming the Chinese nation, the Han Chinese is said to have played the core role of integrating various national elements into the inclusive Chinese nation—a nation that has since surpassed the Han to embrace ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity. The concept of the diversity in unity assumes that the two levels of identities do not supersede each other nor contradict each other, but coexist and co-develop with linguistic and cultural diversity. The model of an inclusive Chinese nation-state building deviates from the Stalinist discourse on nation and nationality, effectively downgrading “ethnonational identity” to “ethnic identity” by eliminating the former that theoretically has the right for self-determination (Zhou, 2010a). Moreover, it explicitly specifies that the formation of the inclusive Chinese nation is a currently active process that integrates various ethnic groups into it by facilitating their development of the Chinese identity (Zhou, 2016). The Chinese language is expected to play the crucial role in the Chinese model as legislated in the national common language law. First, the law enshrines Chinese as the national common language, the super language of all languages, of China. Second, it decrees that it is every Chinese citizen’s right and obligation to learn and speak Putonghua as (Article 4). Third, it makes clear that one of Putonghua’s fundamental functions is to maintain the unity of China and the Chinese nation (Article 5). Fourth, it specifies public domains where Putonghua must be used as the exclusive language, effective downgrading minority languages

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to a supplementary function (Articles 9–15 and 19–20). Fifth, it explains that minority languages may be used according to the Constitution and autonomy laws (Article 8). As soon as the national common language became effective in 2001, the autonomy law was revised, Article 37 of which requires Putonghua to be taught from first grade on in minority schools when the condition is ready, and Article 49 of which requires minority officials to learn to use Putonghua and the standard Chinese script (China, 2005). Thus, materializing the ideology of ordered multilingualism, the common language law establishes a new language order with Chinese as the super languages and minority languages as the supplementary ones. The ordered multilingualism has broad impacts on minority language use and education since 2001 because linguistic citizenship becomes essential in the inclusive Chinese nation-state building (Leibold & Chen, 2014; Tsung, 2009, 2014; Zhou, 2016). 4.2.3  Summary Linguistic integration is an essential goal of models of nation-state building. It is first expressed as a form of language ideology or language nationalism and then materialized as institutions in state building. The Soviet model of multinational state building envisioned stages of multilingualism, which evolves from more to less, in its course from a primitive society to a communist society. In China, this ideology was materialized as two tacks, the Chinese track and the minority language track, which was expected to merge as one in the communist future. On the other hand, the Chinese model sees ordered multilingualism with a mainstream function for Chinese and a supplementary function for minority languages, ordered multilingualism that is institutionalized as a language order with Chinese as the super language. Both models have extensively affected sociolinguistic life in minority communities but in different ways.

4.3  Legacy of the Development of Minority Schools Within the framework of the Soviet model, an infrastructure for minority education was set up, writing systems were reformed or created, and models of bilingual education were developed to build a multinational state linguistically.

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The infrastructure began to be institutionalized in 1950 (MOE, 1991, pp. 26–40; Zhou, 2003, pp. 45–55). The first was the founding of a number of minority colleges with the Central Institute of Minorities (today’s Minzu University) in Beijing as the academic leader. This model was followed nationally in establishing minority junior colleges and fullfledged colleges. In 1951, a steering committee on minority languages and script was launched within the Ministry of Education, a committee that was to provide academic leadership in policy-making and action taking. Immediately the committee facilitated a national conference on minority education and initiated the project on the script reform and creation for minority languages so that they could be used in education and administration. In early 1952, following recommendations from the national conference, the Central Government decided to set up an infrastructure for minority education. First, a division of minority education was founded in the Ministry of Education. Second, an office of minority education was organized with the department of education in provinces, prefectures, and counties that had a minority population equal to or larger than 10% of the total local population. The division and offices were charged with the mission to oversee the administration, budget, teacher training, curriculum, and textbook development for minority education. Thus, by 1952, the infrastructure for minority education was up and began to run. In the 1950s, the concept of education was still associated only with literacy in a written language. Consequently, the concept of bilingual education was limited to biliteracy education only in policy and practice (Zhou, 2014). Thus, China decided to reform all existing writing systems, including that of Chinese, and create new writing systems for those without (Zhou, 2003). The project engaged in three processes, reforming the old ones and keeping them, replacing the old ones with newly created ones, and creating new ones for those without. Excluding the Chinese, the reformed include the Mongolian, Uyghur, Kazak, Kirgiz, and Dai. The replaced are the Zhuang, Bai, Yi, Lisu, Lahu, Jingpo, Miao, and Va. The entirely new include the Bouyei, Dong, Tu, Tujia, Hani, and Qiang. Eventually, the project produced three categories of writing systems, the official, the experimental, and the spelling system or the unofficial. The official category has seven, covering the Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur, Kazak, Korean, Zhuang, and Yi. The experimental category has, including the Dai, Kirgiz, Lisu, Lahu, Jingpo, Bouyei, Dong, Tu, Hani, Bai, and Va. The unofficial ones are the Tujia and Qiang.

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The processes for some of the languages completed in the 1950s, while for others the processes continued all the way to the 1980s. The processes went rather smoothly in some communities but entangled in relentless politics in other communities, such as in Xinjiang (Dwyer, 2005; Zhou, 2003, pp. 280–346). These categories had a broad and profound impact on minority language education for most of the first four decades of the PRC. The categorization of writing systems consolidated three approaches to minority language education implemented since 1951 (Dai & Cheng, 2007; Zhou, 2001). First, a minority mother language was used as the medium of instruction while Chinese was taught as a subject. This first model includes those languages with official writing systems, except the Zhuang and Yi, and some languages with experimental writing systems with a literary tradition, such as the Dai. Second, a neighboring minority language with the official writing system is used as the medium of instruction, while Chinese was taught as a subject. The second model mostly covers languages without writing systems and a few languages with such experimental systems. It was mainly practiced in communities with a dominant minority and some minor minority groups, as seen in Xinjiang and Yunnan. Third, Chinese was used as the primary medium of instruction, while minority languages were used as an oral supplement and occasionally as literary experiments. This third model was practiced in minority communities with experimental writing systems and without any such system. The actual practice is the politics of the categories of writing systems, literary traditions, and the negotiation of power. Generally speaking, various Altaic communities, except the Tungusic, and the Tibetan community adopted either the first model or the second model. Thus, they had a system of minority schools or classes, independent of the system of schools where Chinese was the medium of instruction. Other minority communities, mostly in South and Southwestern China, adopted the third model. Most of this group did not have independent minority schools, though a few did now and then. The two tracks of schools represent the tracks of language development prescribed by the Soviet model of multinational state building. The two tracks of schools are not only different in the media of instruction, but also in curricula, textbooks, teacher training, budget, and admission. For example, in the early 1950s, some minority schools in the Altaic communities used textbooks imported from the Soviet Union, which read “Our motherland is the

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Soviet Union. Our capital is Moscow” (Zhou, 2010a). It is no wonder that the PRC had concerns about the two tracks of schools early on. Within that system, there was often a tension between what was represented in minority language textbooks and what was the state’s stand on a unified China (Grose, 2012). In summary, in China’s Soviet model of multinational state building, multilingualism was accommodated in two tracks of language developments, the Chinese and the minority language, and two systems of schools, the Chinese and the minority, within the ideological framework of Leninism and Stalinism. In theory, this practice of multilingualism was influenced by the Chinese state’s view on the evolution to communism where there was supposed to be one people speaking one language. When communism was viewed a long way down the road, the practice was well accommodated, such as the 1950s and 1980s. When communism was seen imminent, accommodation of this practice was reduced, such as the late 1950s to the early 1960s and then the 1970s, when the convergence of the two tracks and integration of the two school systems were encouraged. In practice, the distribution of minority population, literary traditions, economic development, and local politics all affected the accommodation of multilingualism in the order envisioned and established in China in most of its first four decades.

4.4  Integration of Minority Schools into Chinese Schools Some integration of the two school systems took place after the mid1990s when the state abandoned its 1991 policy (State Council Document #32) that was to reconfirm and further the two tracks of language developments in the Soviet model (Zhou, 2003, pp. 88–98). A larger scale of the engineered integration began in the early 2000s after the ideology of ordered multilingualism was materialized as the national common language law and the revised autonomy law, both of which see the institutionalization of a unified Chinese-medium school system essential in linguistic integration in the building of the inclusive Chinese nation-state. The pace of the integration has accelerated since it began to be associated with the Chinese dream of rising China. There are two significant national landmarks in establishing the new language order, landmarks that have contributed to the landslide of integration, in this decade. First, China’s national medium-to-long-term plan

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for educational development (2010–2020) requires the comprehensive offering of Chinese and comprehensive promotion of the national standard language and script in minority schools (Article 27, China, 2010a). At the same time, China’s national medium-to-long-term development plan for language and script work (2010–2020) stipulates that minority students who complete nine-year compulsory education should be fluent with the national common language and script (Chapter 2, China, 2016). Second, the State Council’s decision on the acceleration of the development of minority education stresses that, in the weak national common language proficiency zone, the goal of compulsory education is to train students to be fluent in both the national common language and the native languages in a school system that offers smooth transition between levels, and that the learning of each other’s languages between Han Chinese students and teachers, on the one hand, and minority students and teachers, on the other, are encouraged (Article 21, China, 2015). The State Council’s decision appears to have a more moderate tone, probably in response to protests against the rapid and swiping transition to Chinese as the medium of instruction since 2010. However, while the decision was being drafted, President Xi Jinping made it clear that bilingual education and Han-minority integrated communities should be promoted in order to consolidate every minority citizen’s awareness of the state, the citizenship, and the community of the inclusive Chinese nation, so that they will contribute to the Chinese dream and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation (Xinhua News, 2014). These two landmarks, along with Xi’s directives, were reflected locally in the process of the integration. 4.4.1   Integration in Xinjiang Xinjiang used to have the most comprehensive minority school system among China’s minority autonomous regions, where Uyghur, Kazak, Mongolian, Kirgiz, Xibe, and Russian were used as the media of instruction in elementary and secondary schools (Ma, 2009, 2012). At the same time, it is considered the least linguistically integrated region or the weak national common language proficiency zone as the State Council recently defines. For this reason, Xinjiang is the first to launch a large scale of integration of the two school systems. This engineered integration project involves three programs, (1) inland boarding schools, (2) integration of the two school systems, and (3) the transfer from the

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native language medium of instruction to the combination of Chinese and native-language media or simply Chinese medium. The integration that started in the late 1990s was first expanded to include inland boarding schools in 2000 when the Central Government decided to open four-year Xinjiang classes in elite high schools in 12 coastal cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Nanjing, in that fall (MOE, 2000). The program runs for four years for a class, including three years for the regular high school and one year in preparation to improve the enrolled students’ Chinese proficiency and academic readiness. After a yearlong preparation, the students are integrated into local classes with Han students and are scheduled to take the local college admission examinations when they graduate. The program that started with a quota of 1000 students per year expanded to a quota of 1540 students per year in 2004, and further increased the quota to 5000 students per year in high schools in 24 inland cities between 2005 and 2007 (MOE, 2005). However, the impact of the program on the broader society in Xinjiang is limited because it enrolls only minority students who already speak Chinese rather fluently. The integration was indeed put on the fast track since 2004 when Xinjiang made a decision on the greater promotion of bilingual learning (Li & Cao, 2009; Xinjiang, 2007). This document has two substantial stipulations. First, it required that Chinese subject courses begin to be offered in the first grade, instead of the third grade, in urban minority schools in 2004 and rural schools as soon as they were ready to do so. Second, it required that bilingual education in minority schools would ultimately merge the two existing models, (1) natural sciences taught in Chinese and humanities taught in native languages and (2) all courses taught in Chinese with native languages as a subject, into the latter model according to local conditions. The implication of this decision on the integration is two folds. For minority schools in towns and cities where there were Chinese schools, integration of the two systems was first started with minority schools’ bilingual classes and gradually extended to the whole school. On the other hand, for minority schools in rural areas where there were no Chinese schools, the integration simply meant the transition of the medium of instruction from native languages to Chinese for more and more courses. The question is how soon the transition was going to take place. The answer came in January 2011 when Xinjiang publically announced the outline of its medium-to-long-term plan for educational

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reform and development for the period between 2010 and 2020 (Xinjiang, 2011). The outline first elaborates on the strategic significance of bilingual education, which is considered to be associated with the interest of the whole Chinese nation and with the unification of the Chinese nation and to contribute to the cohesion and centripetality of the inclusive Chinese nation (Item 8). Then it outlines that about 75% of minority students would receive bilingual education by 2015 and about 90% will do so by 2020 while retaining some classes that use native languages as the medium of instruction. A year later, in 2012, this blueprint was detailed in Xinjiang’s (2012) bilingual education development plan (2010–2020) for preschools, elementary schools, and secondary schools with a slightly increased pace. It divided the goals into those for twelveyear education and those for nine-year compulsory education. The goals for the former group are 75% by 2015 and 90% by 2010, while the goals for the latter group are 80% by 2015 and 95% by 2020. Five years later, in 2017, Xinjiang (2017a) adjusted the long-term plan when it published its thirteenth five-year plan for educational development (2016–2020). Although it missed its 2015 goal of 75% for elementary and secondary students by about two-point-half percentage (72.38%), Xinjiang decided to further the acceleration of bilingual education to cover 100% students in nine-year compulsory education by 2020 (Item 3 of Chapter 2). To reach this new goal, Xinjiang stretched to provide 100% bilingual education for 2017 incoming students in elementary and secondary schools (Item 1 of Chapter 9). The progress of the integration of schools varies in different communities. The progress in urban communities is faster than in rural communities. For example, Tianshan District of Urumqi completed the integration in 2011. Of its directly managed six secondary schools and 24 elementary schools, three and 14 are integrated respectively (Dilinure, 2011). On the other hand, in remote Toli County (2017) in Northern Xinjiang, there were 16 minority schools, four integrated schools and two Chinese schools by 2013. Of its 379 classes from the first grade to twelfth grade in that year, 265 were taught in native languages while 114 in Chinese. There is a gap between this county’s progress and Xinjiang’s goal for 2015. The gap is more massive and more challenging in Southern Xinjiang where the minority population is overwhelmingly larger than the Han population (Guljennet, 2008). For example, of Kashgar’s 74 elementary and secondary schools, there were 64 minority schools, seven Chinese schools, and three integrated schools

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in 2017 (Liu, 2017). The integration of those three schools started almost ten years ago, but it was not able to expand to other schools there. There are difficulties for it and resistance to it. The plans of increasingly rapid integration have caught schools, teachers, students, and parents underprepared or unprepared, leading to four major problems, namely (1) inexperienced management, (2) lack of qualified teachers, (3) tension between Han and minority students and teachers, and (4) resistance from parents. The first major problem is that schools were theoretically and practically underprepared for the integration. Logistically it appears to be easy for some schools which were separated by a wall, but more challenging for those with two separate campuses. However, it turned out later that logistics was no challenge as compared with other factors. First comes the question whether the integrated schools should have separate offices and departments, such as the minority-medium department and the Chinese-medium department. The second question is how classes should be organized, given the differences in language proficiency, academic preparedness, and ethnicity. The third is how the ethnic relationship among students and teachers should be managed. The integrated schools have been exploring answers to these questions mostly on their own and have to develop their localized solutions (Zhang, 2016; Y. M. Zhu, 2011). The second major problem involves teachers. It has three different issues, at least, during the early stages of the integration. First, there has been a lack of bilingual teachers, a term usually referring to Chinese language teachers. The difficulty is gradually relieved as Xinjiang has intensified its in-service training and pre-service training programs and as the state has dispatched Chinese language teachers to Xinjiang from the Han heartland. Second, there is a lack of qualified bilingual subject teachers to cover science courses for bilingual classes and schools. This difficulty can be eased only by local efforts over a relatively extended period, but it is at heart of the quality of education since the bilingual ability of both teachers and students was challenged in math, physics, and chemistry classrooms. The severity of the difficulty throughout Xinjiang is unknown, but a glimpse of it in the integrated schools in Tianshan District in Urumqi in Table 4.1 should give us a solid idea because this district has the best resources among all school districts in Xinjiang. Table 4.1 tells us four facts. First, more than half of the tenure-line teachers were not qualified for bilingual teaching or teaching in Chinese. Second, their duties were carried out by the substitutes. Third, there was

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Table 4.1  Bilingual teachers in seventeen integrated school in Urumqi Categories

Assigned no. of teachersa

Actual no. of teachersb

Long-term substitutesc

Short-term substitutesd

Elementary Schools (14) Secondary Schools (3) Total

709

714

231

195

149

160

29

14

858

874

260

209

aThe

assigned number of teachers is the tenure-line based on the number of classes and students in the schools; bthe actual number of tenure-line teachers is what these schools currently have; cthe distinction between long-term substitutes; and dshort-term substitutes is not defined in the original source Source Recalculated from Dilinure (2011)

no guarantee for the quality of teaching by substitutes. Fourth, the linguistically “unqualified” minority teachers either went on for in-service training or were displaced from their positions, the latter of which means that they received only a base salary without position related bonuses, effectively reducing their monthly salary by a third or even half. This reduced employment leads to the third issue that the integration of the two school systems may create ethnic tension between the Han and the minorities in Xinjiang, causing human rights concerns for the displaced minority teachers. Early in 2017, I applied for a visit to some of those integrated schools in Urumqi, but my application was turned down because of my status as an internationally based scholar, though I have been a visiting research fellow at Xinjiang Normal University since 2010. In April, the University eventually arranged for me to visit their affiliated elementary and secondary schools which are integrated. In the elementary school, I audited a first-grade bilingual class of 48 Uyghur, Kazak and other minority students taking Chinese taught by a Uyghur teacher. The teacher spoke Chinese all the time in class except a few Uyghur sentences before the class started. The students used the same textbook as Han Chinese first-graders did and interacted with the teacher in Chinese all the time. After the class, I learned from the teacher that the class had five hours of Putonghua and five hours of Uyghur a week while subject courses were taught in Chinese except for music and culture, which were taught in Uyghur. In the secondary school, I observed a math class and a chemistry class, the former of which was taught by a Uyghur teacher in Chinese

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and the latter of which was taught by a Chinese teacher also in Chinese. The students of both classes interacted with the teachers in Chinese and appeared to have understood the lectures very well, judged from their responses to the teachers’ questions and assignments. All the three classes that I observed went well, where the students appeared to enjoy quality education. However, the University’s affiliated schools are elite schools in Urumqi, which are the exception rather than the norm among integrated schools in Xinjiang. During my visit, I did notice that the students in all the three classes were minorities. This observation suggests that bilingual education, at least, in urban communities, is meant for minority students. The separation of minority students and Han students in classes in integrated schools suggests some tension between the two groups in schooling. This situation relates to the third major problem about the integration of the school systems. Does it strain or improve the relationship between Han students and minority students? The state’s intention, particularly as articulated by Xi Jinping recently (Xinhua, 2014), is to improve minorities’ identification with the Chinese state and the inclusive Chinese nation through integrated schools and communities in place of segregation, apparently attempting to emulate the American model of inclusive nation-state building. Some studies carried out by Chinese scholars indicate that the integration indeed improved the ethnic relationship, while others allude that the integration strained the relationship. The most positive report came from a survey of fifth graders to ninth graders in an integrated school in a township in Turpan in eastern Xinjiang, as shown in Table 4.2 (Jiang, 2013). From Table 4.2, we see that the majority of the students liked to develop a friendship with members of other ethnic groups for language learning and cultural understanding, but they were less willing to share a dorm because of their dietary differences. Close to 40% of the minority students did not wish to study with the Han students in the same class because they did not believe that they could compete with them in Chinese, while nearly 20% of the Han student did not want to do so either for concerns of slowed academic progress. The Han students (78.6%) were more likely to invite minority classmates to celebrate Han traditional holidays, such as the Spring Festival, but the majority of the minority students (42–48.6%) tended not to invite Han classmates to their traditional holidays, such as the Corban Festival. If this survey is reliable, generally speaking, the relationship between the Han students

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Table 4.2  Ethnic relations in an integrated school in Turpan Categories Han students (126) Uyghur students (200) Other students (35) Total of 361 students

Be friends (%)

Be roommates (%)

Be classmates (%)

Invite for holidays (%)

84.1

44.4

81.0

78.6

91.0

41.5

63.0

42.0

91.4

42.9

60.0

48.6

88.6

42.7

69.0

55.4

Source Y. Jiang (2013)

Table 4.3  Uyghur students’ friendship with Han students in integrated schools* Become friends with Han students (%) 49.4

Don’t care (%) 16

Don’t want to (%) 34.1

No Han friend (%) 10

One Han friends (%) 23.6

Two or more Han friends (%) 66.2

*It

is based on a survey of 324 Uyghur seventh to ninth graders, of which 293 questionnaires were valid Source Recalculated from Zhao and Wang (2015)

and minority students in this integrated school developed in the direction as the state wished. However, a survey of 293 Uyghur seventh to ninth graders in six integrated schools in the Kashgar Prefecture found a less than ideal ethnic relationship in 2015, as shown in Table 4.3. From Table 4.3, we find that after studying with Han students in the same school, half of the Uyghur students did not want to make friends with fellow Han students or did not care. This attitude mainly reflects the fact that a third of the Uyghur students had no Han friend or only one Han friend in school. It suggests that integrated schools in Xinjiang still lack a campus culture that encourages inclusion. When there is any conflict between a Uyghur student and a Han student, it is often escalated to an ethnic conflict because fellow students do not care who is to blame and often draw a line along the ethnic boundary in the incident

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(Ji, 2007). For instance, a Uyghur and Han student conflict led to a group brawl, causing a dozen injuries and leading to a campus protest to demand the end of the integrated school, in Karamay in Northern Xinjiang in the fall of 2011 (Hao News, 2011). The state tends to blame the campus tension on minority students for their lack of identification with the Chinese state, the inclusive Chinese nation, the Chinese culture, and China’s socialist road, a lack that is considered to be shaped by pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism. The fourth and last major problem of the integration is the resistance from students’ parents. Uyghur parents have various concerns, ranging from language, culture, religion to ethnic relations. Many parents worry about the loss of their language and culture in integrated schools where Chinese is supreme, though they want their children to learn Chinese for instrumental purposes. Some parents are concerned about their children’s loose ties with their religion, since some students may have to go to boarding schools for bilingual education. These concerns may create difficulties for Uyghur students to pursue bilingual education. For example, a survey of the Uyghur students and their parents of the three integrated schools in Kashgar in 2010 indicates that only 52% parents supported their children’s enrollment in the integrated schools, whereas the remaining 48% parents allowed their children’s enrollment in these schools because of the students’ persistence or other reasons (Tunsagul & Arzigul, 2010). On the other hand, parents of Han students also have worries. They are mostly concerned about the quality of education after schools and classes are integrated (Liu, 2017). They are afraid that their perceived minority students’ under-preparedness will drag their children’s academic progress, and, thus, resist the integration as well. In short, the above four major problems are steep barriers, though not insurmountable, for the integration of schools and particularly for its goals. Generally speaking, Uyghur and other minority students may not oppose learning Chinese, but they do oppose any attempt to replace their native languages with Chinese. 4.4.2   Integration in Tibetan Communities The Tibetan community is different for Xinjiang in two significant ways. First, it is administratively governed by the Tibetan Autonomous Region (Hence, Tibet), Qinghai, Gansu, and Yunnan Provinces. Each province and region has its policies and plans which may vary from each other to

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some degree, though all are regulated by the same central policies and plans. Second, the Tibetan community never has the kind of two school systems in Xinjiang where the minority track used to be complete from elementary schools to college. In the Tibetan community, the best school systems seen in the first five decades of the PRC was segmental, elementary schools taught in Tibetan, middle schools taught in Tibetan and Chinese, and high schools taught in Chinese only (Zhou, 2002, p. 175; Zhou & Gesang, 2004, p. 104). If there is any existence of the two school systems, it is found along the fault line between the urban and the rural. In schools in urban and neighboring farming communities, Chinese is usually the medium of instruction with Tibetan as a subject. On the other hand, in rural schools, particularly pastoral schools, Tibetan is often the medium of instruction with Chinese as a subject. Given the situation in the Tibetan community, the integration efforts have been mostly directed at the inland boarding school program and the transition for the native language to Chinese as the medium of instruction. Inland boarding school was first created for the Tibetan community in 1984 as an effort to integrate the community into the Chinese state within the Soviet model of multinational state building (Postiglione, Jiao, & Tsering, 2009; Z. Y. Zhu, 2007). Thus, it started as a minority school system either with an independent campus or a relatively closed section on the campus of a Chinese school where it has its teaching buildings or floors of a teaching building and own dormitories in inland cities, such as Chongqing, Tianjin, and Shanghai. Whether as an independent school or one school with two systems, the program had seven years, one year for preparation to improve its students’ Chinese proficiency and academic readiness, three years for middle school, and three years for high school until 2010 when it began to cut the one year for preparation. Its language of instruction is Chinese while Tibetan is taught as a subject. The program, which started with its first class of 1300 Tibetan students in 1985 and gradually increased its annual capacity to over 3000, enrolled a total of 107,700 students between 1985 and 2015 (Tibet, 2015). As a minority school, it initially enrolled only Tibetan and other minority students from various Tibetan communities. A significant change took place in the middle 1990s when China began to explore a new model of nation-state building. In 1995, the inland school began to enroll some Han students, initially only those whose parents were officials in Tibetan communities and gradually other Han students. For example, Chongqing Tibet Secondary School has 1048 students, of which 875 are Tibetans

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and 173 are Han and other minority students in 2018 (Chongqing, 2018). However, the Tibetan students are still segregated in 22 classes while the Han students are in three different classes. Overall, more integration measures have been taken since the national common language law became effective in 2001. For instance, in 2002, the program began to enroll qualified middle school graduates from Tibetan areas, regardless of their ethnicity, and integrate them into Han Chinese classes in high schools in coastal areas (Lei, 2012). By 2012, there were 18 inland Tibetan middle schools and 13 inland Tibetan high schools, but 59 Chinese high schools that enrolled middle school graduates from Tibetan areas and integrated them into existing Han Chinese classes (Yang & Nimadunzhu, 2016). The integration expands because the national policy intensifies it as the state realizes that segregated Tibetan classes in inland cities are not conducive to their students’ development of identification with the inclusive Chinese nation. The transition from Tibetan to Chinese as the medium of instruction is the second program of the integration. In the Tibetan community across Tibet and 10 Tibetan autonomous prefectures in Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Yunnan, the predominant language policy for elementary education used to be Tibetan as the primary medium of instruction and Chinese as the supplementary until 2001. Following the new national common language law, for example, in 2002 Tibet revised its Tibetan language regulations which currently stipulate that, in compulsory education, both Tibetan and the national common language (and script) are the primary media of instruction, and Tibetan and Putonghua courses should be offered (Article 6) (Tibet, 2002). Other provinces use administrative measures to speed up the integration. For instance, Qinghai (2003) published a guiding opinion on bilingual education, which required that Chinese be offered from the first grade on in minority schools. Further, in 2010, Qinghai’s (2010a) medium-to-long-term development plan for education specified that the transition to Chinese as main medium and Tibetan as the secondary medium be completed by 2015 (Item 11). The preparation for this swift transition was inadequate, particularly in teacher training. For this reason, in July 2010, later Professor Sangyi Gyal of Qinghai Normal University invited Dr. Ping Fu and me to hold a two-day workshop on teaching CSL in remote Madoi and Darlag counties of Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. The two groups of about 100 Tibetan and Han teachers, who traveled one or two days to the county seats, were enthusiastic and interacted with us

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actively, though they worried about their abilities to meet the demand for the rapid transition in the coming fall semester. Their concerns were warranted. During the fall semester, in October 2010, over a thousand Tibetan students in Rebkong or Tongren County took to the streets and protested the local action to implement the provincial plan for the rapid and extensive transition (Guardian, 2010). Soon the protest spread to the Tibetan student community in Beijing, despite the tight control by the government. To appease the Tibetan students and the larger Tibetan community, Qinghai officials assured them at a forum immediately after the protest that bilingual education in the Tibetan community did not aim at weakening one language with another language, but at strengthening both the national common language and the local minority language (Qinghai, 2010b). The officials further promised the students and their parents that the Party and Government would not force any student to give up their mother tongue and bilingual education will respect everyone’s wishes. My communication with Tibetan individuals from Qinghai reveals that the Tibetan students there did not mind learning Chinese, but they did not want to be rushed with the intention to replace their native language with Chinese. The protest then created some resistance to learning Chinese among the young students. From the official perspective, the protest was seen as the students’ and the local community’s lack of robust identification with the Chinese state and the inclusive Chinese nation, for the reason of which the transition is deemed necessary. The pace is slowed down per local teacher and teaching material readiness, but the integration is steadily moving forward since it is an essential component of the building of the inclusive Chinese nation and a linguistic citizenship requirement of the Chinese state. However, it is a challenge for both the state and the Tibetan community, given the fact that, in Qinghai alone by 2010, of its 382 bilingual elementary schools, 278 schools used Tibetan as the primary medium of instruction whereas only 104 schools adopted Chinese as the primary medium (Wang & Shang, 2014). 4.4.3   Integration in Other Minority Communities The situations in other minority communities vary significantly from Xinjiang and the Tibetan community. Generally speaking, the integration of the two systems of schools there has not been promoted vigorously as a nation-state building project by the state for the following three

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reasons, (1) significant “natural” integration, (2) no weak national common language proficiency zone, and (3) no two systems of schools at all. With a rather complete system of Mongolian schools from the elementary to higher education, the Mongolian community has seen the course of “natural” integration of the two school systems in the last four decades, except in Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang where the engineered integration is unfolded as Xinjiang plans (Ren, 2007). From the early 1980s to the middle 1990s when the state was about to adopt the Chinese model of the inclusive Chinese nationstate building, there was already a substantial development of linguistic integration into the Chinese nation and state in the Mongolian community, since there has been a shift from Mongolian to Chinese in the community and families for a few decades (Bao, 2008), as Table 4.4 suggests. The 20–23% reduction of elementary and secondary students learning Mongolian and the 28.3–32/1% reduction of the number of elementary and secondary school in Table 4.4 were found during a period the Mongolian population increased by over 30%. Thus, it is a real overall reduction of the number of Mongolian students who either studied Mongolian as a subject or took courses taught in Mongolian, since a significant number of Mongolian students chose to go to Chinese schools. It means that the integration of the two school systems had been going on for a long while so that the state just needs a little catalyst to make this development faster and broader. In 2000, when the national common language law was being drafted and the autonomy law was being revised, Inner Mongolia (2011) took the lead in requiring the teaching of Chinese in the second grade, instead of the national required third grade. In 2005, Inner Mongolia began to Table 4.4  Reduction of minority schools and Mongolian studying students in Inner Mongolia, 1980–1995 Categories

Minority elementary schools

1980 1995 Percentage of reduction (%) Source Z. Y. Jin (2000)

4387 2978 32.1

Students studying Mongolian in these elementary schools (%) 73.3 49.6 23.7

Minority second- Students studyary schools ing Mongolian in these secondary schools (%) 501 359 28.3

66 46.6 20.2

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experiment with trilingual education, which moved Chinese from the second grade to the first and English from the seventh grade to the second grade, making further pressures on the students who took courses taught in Mongolian. In 2007, Inner Mongolia (2007) published an opinion to strengthen minority education, which promised to ensure two models of bilingual education, either with Mongolian as the primary medium and Chinese as the supplementary or with Chinese as the primary medium and Mongolian as the supplementary (Item 6). The two-model approach is further guaranteed in Inner Mongolia’s (2010a) outline for its development plan for education between 2010 and 2020 (Item 24). However, given the history in the last four decades, the integration is expected to develop further and broader in the Mongolian community, where more students will go to the track with Chinese as the primary medium of instruction or merely go to Chinese schools instead of minority schools. The first minority group that successfully moved out of the weak national common language proficiency zone is the Korean Chinese, a group that is considered the “model” minority in China (Gao, 2008; Zhou, 2000a). The Korean community in Northeastern China has the most developed minority school system from the elementary school to college, along with a Chinese school system, particularly in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. Thus, it has the highest level of literacy and education among all ethnic groups in China, higher than those of the majority Han (Zhou, 2000b, 2001). I was impressed by the Korean students’ Chinese proficiency and the teachers’ pedagogy during my fieldwork in Yanbian in 2006 where I visited a preschool, an elementary school, a secondary school, and some college classes. After my visit, I recommended Yanbian schools to any other minority communities I visited. Yanbian’s bilingual education was so successful that it began to experiment with trilingual education in the late 1980s (Yanbian, 2002). By 1994, Yanbian passed its autonomous education regulations that formally endorsed trilingual education (Yu, 2010). Trilingual education, usually in Korean, Chinese, and English or Japanese, has expanded to the whole Korean community, particularly in urban areas, since the late 1990s. At the same time, Korean high schools started to use the national Chinese proficiency test (HSK) as a measurement of their learning outcome, which is a first in China’s minority communities. Despite the successes, Yanbian’s Korean schools saw a significant reduction in the number of students, qualified teachers, and schools

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since the later 1990s as China’s market economic reform progressed. For example, the number of Korean students using Korean textbook decreased by two-thirds, from 223,000 in 2000 to 63,000 in 2010 (Jilin, 2011). While in other minority community the shortage of bilingual teachers is the result of insufficient training, the shortage in the Korean community is mainly caused by bleeding. For instance, 14.5% or 11,245 Korean teachers left their teaching positions for other jobs outside education between 1998 and 2000 (Yanbian, 2002). The number of Korean schools also reduced from 498 in 1990 to 257 in 2000, a 48% reduction (Jilin, 2018). This changing situation is brought about by three factors. First, the Korean community saw a 4.8% reduction of its population in the first decade of the twenty-first century, decreasing from 1,923,842 in 2000 to 1,830,929 in 2010 (China, 2018). Second, many Korean students chose to go to Chinese schools (Wen, 2010). In the early 2000s, 22–42% Korean students chose to go to Chinese elementary schools, depending on their location of residence (Yanbian, 2002). The percentage has been increasing since. Third, some Koreans migrated to coastal cities or the south for better career and economic opportunities. In 2000, 40,725 Koreans migrated out of Yanbian, whose Korean population was then 801,210. The number of migration is estimated to have been increasing (Jilin, 2018). To turn around this situation’s impact on Korean schools, an act was proposed in Jilin to improve Chinese instruction in Korean schools so that they will become attractive to Korean student who otherwise would go to Chinese schools (Jilin, 2011). However, it is questionable whether any local measures like this could counter the linguistic integration promoted by the state in its inclusive Chinese nation-building efforts and facilitated by the growing market economy. In this context, the gloomy prospect is a victim of the success of the bilingual education in the Korean community rather than of the failure of it. In sharp contrast to the Mongols and Koreans, minority groups in South and Southwest China have never seen any complete systems of minority schools. The Zhuang of over 18 million, the largest minority group, has had only intermittent and experimental Zhuang schools in Guangxi and Yunnan, though it has an official writing system since the middle 1950s (Hai, 2015; Zhou, 2003, pp. 105–107). This is the experience that the minority groups with writing systems created in the 1950s, such as the Miao, Lahu, Lisu, Bouyei, and Dong, have gone

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through. The state has always pushed for linguistic integration in the Southwest, though it symbolically allowed biliteracy education in the first three decades of the PRC and bilingual education in the last four decades. Out of this group, only the Yi becomes an exception and has made some exceptional progress with its native script officially recognized by the state in 1980 (Bradley, 2001). Then, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture immediately strove to develop a minority school system along with the Chinese system and has maintained it steadily despite the landslide shift to Chinese schools in other minority communities in Southwestern China, as Table 4.5 demonstrates (Su & Yuan, 2016; Teng, 2001). In Table 4.5, we find that the number of students going to schools with Chinese as the medium of instruction and Yi as the supplementary has increased four times over a 24-year period, while the number of students attending schools with Yi as the primary medium and Chinese as the supplementary remains relatively stable and small. The number of schools offering Yi is significantly reduced during this period. Some of the Yi schools were integrated into Chinese schools while other Yi schools were consolidated in the name of quality education (Chan & Harrell, 2009). However, the bilingual education in the Yi community is already a miracle as compared with that of other minority groups in Southwest China in the context of extensive linguistic integration. On the other hand, the Dai group, who has a long history of literacy and lives in Xishuangbanna and Dehong in Yunnan, has not been able to develop a full-fledged minority school system and retain its Table 4.5  Bilingual education in Liangshan between 1991 and 2014 Categories

Yi as the main medium

Chinese as the main medium

Year

E.S.

E.S.

1991 1995 2000 2006 2010 2014

117 217 119 51 42 17

M.S. 9 8 6 7 7 5

H.S. 2 2 2 2 2 3

No. of students 7390 11,660 8283 5952 6737 8505

498 490 509 650 546 863

Notes E.S. Elementary School; M.S Middle School; H.S High School Source Su and Yuan (2016)

M.S.

H.S.

63 67 60 87 48 80

9 7 5 11 7 10

No. of students 49,093 41,133 65,014 139,127 216,741 252,335

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bilingual education as the Yi does. In the good days of bilingual education in the 1980s and early 1990s, Dai was mostly adopted as a supplemental language in classrooms where Chinese was the medium of instruction (Hansen, 1999, pp. 125–131). When I was doing fieldwork in Dehong in 2004, I visited a village elementary school outside the prefecture seat and audited some classes. The classes of Chinese and math were taught in Chinese, but the teachers now and then explained some of the Chinese words and concepts in the local language. It turned out that those students were fortunate that their teachers were bilingual. A survey done by the local education authorities in 2002 found that 26 of the 27 elementary schools had stopped their experimental bilingual programs for the lack of bilingual teachers (Zhu & Liu, 2012). The worst case I found was in the Lahu community in Lancang County in Yunnan in July 2007. When I was auditing a first-year math class in a school in Banli village where the missionary writing system for Lahu first landed a century ago, I found that the students did not understand their monolingual Chinese speaking teacher at all. None of them did it right when they were asked to solve a math addition or subtract problem on the blackboard, because they did not know what their teacher asked them to do in the first place. These cases suggest how dominant the ideology of monolingualism is in Southwestern China. This ideology has kidnaped the policy and laws that legally accommodate ordered multilingualism. 4.4.4  Summary The inclusive Chinese nation-state building has engineered a linguistic integration project in education with three programs, namely inland schools/classes, integration of minority schools and Chinese schools, and transfer from minority-medium instruction to Chinese-medium instruction. The implementation of the project varies according to the state’s a new measurement of linguistic integration, zones of the national common language proficiency. The project has been fully deployed in the weakest national common language proficiency zone, Xinjiang, to a lesser degree in the weaker zone of the Tibetan community across five provinces/regions, to an even lesser degree in relatively weaker zones of other minority groups, and so on. There are positive and negative reports on the quality of the education, but the long-term impact of this project remains to be seen in the next few decades.

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4.5  Bilingual Education Starts with Babies Preschool education was mostly the benefit of the children of state employees before the turn of the twenty-first century. It became the privilege of the children of well-to-do citizens in urban communities in the first decade of this century, as the folk slogan goes “Don’t let your children fail at the starting line” (Bie rang haizi shu zai qipaoxian shang) in the competition for quality education and bright future. Preschool education officially became state business in 2010 when the outline of the national educational development plan (2010–2020) devoted a chapter on preschool education, and the State Council issued a ten-point opinion on it (China, 2010a, 2010b). These two documents stress that the focus of the development of preschool education is on rural and poverty-stricken Western China as a part of the project on the socialist new rural construction, a measurement to balance urban and rural development and strengthen rural citizens’ identification with the Chinese state. The drafting of a law on preschool education started in 2017, but the draft is not open to the public yet. However, Xinjiang took the initiative for preschool bilingual education a decade ahead of the national project and announced the local government’s opinion on bilingual education for preschool children in 2001 (Sun & Feng, 2008). Taking advantage of the critical period hypothesis that full native competence can be naturally achieved if people start to acquire a language in their early childhood, Xinjiang has made this contested linguistic concept a famous slogan “Bilingual educations starts with babies” (shuangyu jiaoyu cong wawa zhuaqi) (People’s Daily, 2006). Four years later in 2005, in order to solve the problem in learning CSL and lay a solid bilingual foundation for compulsory education, Xinjiang (2017b) proposed to provide a preliminary preschool education throughout the whole region by 2012, which means above 85% of 5- to 6-year-old children would go to bilingual preschools, a high aim because the national average preschool enrollment was only about 75% in 2015. Xinjiang’s initiative was strongly supported by the Central Government, particularly after the riot in Urumqi in July 2009. For example, in 2011 alone, the Central Government invested close to a billion yuan in Xinjiang’s preschool bilingual education, a half for building facilities and a half for operation (Xinjiang Daily, 2011). Further, it decided to provide funding, at the rate of that for compulsory education,

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for free three-year preschool bilingual education to rural Xinjiang, starting in 2013. In addition to Chinese, children from the age of three on are taught to identify with the great motherland, the inclusive Chinese nation, the Chinese culture, the CCP, and the socialist road with Chinese characteristics (Xinjiang, 2017b). By early 2017, Xinjiang had built 3682 new preschools with an enrollment of over one million (Xinjiang, 2017b). The implementation of this grand project appears to have gone well in urban communities, such as Urumqi and numerous county seats. In April 2017, I visited a bilingual preschool affiliated with Xinjiang Normal University and audited an integrated class of 20 Uyghur, Kazak, and Han children. During the class, the teacher first introduced some objects orally in Chinese, such as peach, while the children described their colors, shapes, and sizes in Chinese. Second, the teacher displayed some pictures one by one and the children told the story, in Chinese, by describing what was going on in the pictures. During the storytelling, the teacher supplied some Chinese words and idioms, such as tiansheng yidui (a perfect match/pair), for the children to use. Third, the students played some Chinese character puzzles, and last, they listened to a story in Chinese and answered some question. The whole class was conducted in Chinese. After class, I asked the teacher whether the children learned Uyghur or other minority languages and was informed that some everyday Uyghur was introduced in their activities, but I did not see it during my visit. These children received the best preschool education available in Urumqi, though it was primarily in Chinese. However, it is expected that the situation in rural Xinjiang is not as promising as it is in urban Xinjiang, but I was not able to visit any one of them during my field trip. For example, in Yumin County which was considered exemplary in preschool education in Northern Xinjiang, only 61% children aged 4–6 (1187 out of 1940) were enrolled in bilingual preschools by 2012, missing the regional government’s target of 75% (Zhou & Yuan, 2013). Preschool bilingual education in this county had a shortage of qualified bilingual teachers and funding and a lack of experience in managing preschools. Moreover, the distribution of preschools was an insurmountable problem in the rural part of the county. If a preschool is based on a village, some villages may have as few as four or five children. If a preschool is based on a township, it is impossible for parents to drop and pick up their children daily. Yumin County’s problem is the problem of whole rural Xinjiang for better or worse, but Xinjiang is pushing the project forward steadily because it is considered a fundamental measurement for long-term stability and governance.

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Considered an effective strategy in linguistic integration and citizens’ identification with the inclusive Chinese nation-state, China pushed other minority communities to follow Xinjiang’s steps. For example, preschool (bilingual) education was nonexistent in rural Tibetan communities, except a few cities, such as Lhasa (Xing & Li, 2012). Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, and other provinces began to plan it only when they drafted their outlines for their local plans for educational reform and development (2010–2020) in 2010. The Mongolian community is a later starter too. By 2010, Inner Mongolia (2010b) had only 148 preschool classes with an enrollment of 41,000, of which 126 classes with an enrollment of 34,000 were fortunately taught in Mongolian. It has much catch-up to do if it is measured against Xinjiang. According to its plan (2010–2020), its goals for three-year preschool’s enrollment is 60% by 2015 and 70% by 2020 (Chapter 4, Inner Mongolia, 2010a). Unlike Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia leaves it ambiguous as to whether the planned preschool education is bilingual or not. In the Korean community, the situation is different from any other. It had a good preschool education, to begin with, but the problem for the community is the decline of Korean preschools and the rise of Chinese preschools before the state’s engineering project (Jilin, 2011). In Yanbian, Korean preschools reduced from 95 in 2001 to 68 in 2010, while the total number of preschools increased to about 300. Korean parents tend to send their children to Chinese preschools. This development is what the state deems as “natural” and expects to see in other minority communities too, though the Korean community is very much concerned. In South and Southwestern China, preschool education was nonexistent before the state project launched in 2010. In Yunnan, the home of over 20 indigenous peoples, for example, preschool education was available to minorities only if they happened to work in urban communities. Some progress was made between 2010 and 2013 when the number of preschools was increased to 4768, and the enrollment coverage reached 48.95% throughout the province (Wu, 2016). However, few of these preschools were bilingual. A survey of 25 representative bilingual preschools indicates that these preschools were small (averaged nine teachers per school), their teachers were not fully qualified, and half of them were not happy with their current jobs. Given this situation and unlike other provinces or regions, Yunnan simply did not specify its goals for preschool (bilingual) education in its outlines of the plan for educational development (2010–2020) (Chapter 3, Yunnan, 2010). In summary, utilizing the concept of critical period hypothesis, China has developed a preschool system as a new institution in the inclusive

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Chinese nation-state building, an institution that extends Chinese linguistic integration to the age of three. Its impact on China’s linguistic diversity will be significant or even devastating in the next few decades if this project progresses smoothly.

4.6  Conclusion Different models of nation-state building treat multilingualism in different ways, depending on the ideology underlining each model. Multilingualism may be both ideological and material. In the first four decades of the PRC, Stalin’s evolutionary multilingual ideology guided China’s Soviet model of multinational state building that developed a two-track language order in preparation for the eventual integration in communism. Thus, with the Soviet model, multilingualism means an evolutionary multilingual ideology and an evolutionary language order in a multinational state building. Consequently, it produced institutions of two systems of schools as the state’s instruments in linguistic integration. In the last two decades, the PRC has replaced the Soviet model with a Chinese model of an inclusive Chinese nation-state building. The Chinese model is underpinned by an ideology of ordered multilingualism, which assumes a predominant role for Chinese and supplementary role for minority languages. This ideology of ordered multilingualism steers a rapid development of a corresponding language order through the institutionalization of Chinese dominated preschools, elementary and secondary school, and higher education. Again, the school system becomes instrumental in the linguistic integration for the construction of the inclusive Chinese nation. Whatever model of nation-state building is adopted, education is the first and most effective instrument deployed in shaping the linguistic orientation.

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130  M. ZHOU Tsung, L. (2014). Language power and hierarchy: Multilingual education in China. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Tungsagul, Y., & Arzigul, M. (2010). Study and analysis of the current status of integrated schools in Kashgar: A case study of minority teachers and students [Kashi shi minhan hexiao de xianzhuang diaocha yu fenxi – yi shaoshu minzu shisheng wei li]. China Education Innovation Herald, 34, 153. Wang, R., & Shang, M. (2014). Development and expectation of TibetanChinese bilingual education in Tibetan areas of Qinghai. Journal of Qinghai Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences), 36(4), 118–120. Wen, G. D. (2010). Speech at Yanbian Korean language conference [Zai Quanzhou chaoxian yuwen gongzuo huiyi shang de jianghua]. Retrieved from http://www.yanbian.gov.cn/yanbian/board.php?board=zhongyaojianghua& act=view&no=189&page=2. Wiley, T. G. (1996). English-only and standard English ideologies in the U.S. TESOL Quarterly, 30(3), 511–533. Wiley, T. G. (2000). Continuity and change in the function of language ideologies in the United States. In T. Ricento (Ed.), Ideology, politics, and language policies: Focus on English (pp. 67–86). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wu, Y. M. (2016). Preschool bilingual education in the ethnic areas in Yunnan Province: The status quo and solutions. Journal of Chuxiong Normal University, 31(10), 35–38. Xing, J. L., & Li, X. L. (2012). A study of the present situation and problems of Tibet’s preschool education and the solutions. Journal of Tibet University (Social Sciences), 27(4), 160–165. Xinhua News. (2014). Xi Jinping’s important speech at the second central conference on Xinjiang’s work [Xi Jinping zai dier ci zhongyang Xinjiang gongzuo zuotianhui shang fabiao zhongyao jianghua]. Retrieved from http://www. xinhuanet.com/photo/2014-05/29/c_126564529.htm. Xinjiang. (2007). Eight questions about bilingual teaching in Xinjiang [Xinjiang “shuangyu” jiaoxue gongzuo ba wen]. Retrieved from http://www.ts.cn/special/2009-2shuangyu/2007-03/07/content_4559181.htm. Xinjiang. (2011). The outline of Xinjiang’s medium-to-long-term plan for educational reform and development (2010–2020) [Xinjiang wewuer zizhiqu zhongchangqi jiaoyu gaige he fazhan guihua gangyao]. Retrieved from http:// www.xjjtxy.cn/schoolinfo/ewebeditor/messges/newssystem/PUBNEWS. asp?id=OF%60%7D. Xinjiang. (2012). Xinjiang’s development plan for bilingual education for preschools, elementary schools, and secondary schools (2010–2020) [Xinjiang weiwuer zizhiqu shaoshu minzu xueqian he zhongxiaoxue shuangyu jiaoyu fazhan guihua (2010–2020)]. Retrieved from http://www.xjedu.gov.cn/ jgsz/syjxgz/2012/48245.htm. Xinjiang. (2017a). Xinjiang Autonomous Region’s thirteenth five-year plan for educational development [Xinjiang weiwuerzu zizhiqu jiaoyu shiye fazhan

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CHAPTER 5

Evaluating Languages

Everyone learns to speak Putonghua in order to become civilized, progressive, and prosperous [Renren xue jiang Putonghua, wenming jinbu ben xiaokang]. —A slogan from the annual national Putonghua Promotion Week (the third week in September since 1998)

5.1  Introduction Language ideology and order shape linguistic value orientations and eventually language use when they are established in a society or a nation-state. The above slogan from China’s annual national Putonghua Promotion Week is a good example of an official discourse on the value relationship between language use and the spiritual, on the one hand, and the material, on the other. Spiritually, Putonghua is valued as a language coded with the quality of “being civilized” and “being progressive.” Materially, Putonghua is treasured as a language associated with financial success. Reflecting China’s ordered multilingualism, these beliefs of the dominant language ideology explicitly encourage certain linguistic behaviors, such as speaking Putonghua but implicitly discourage other linguistic behaviors, such as speaking Chinese dialects or minority languages. In this chapter, I will first define Bourdieu’s (1977, 1991) concepts of linguistic capital, linguistic market, linguistic habitus, and linguistic exchange in terms of sociolinguistics and examine how these concepts © The Author(s) 2019 M. Zhou, Language Ideology and Order in Rising China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3483-2_5

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operate in the sociolinguistic framework (Zhou, 2013). With this conceptual framework, I will investigate how global language order and local language ideologies interact to influence linguistic value orientations of the state, community, and individuals in rising China, where English is highly appreciated for its instrumental value. Then, shifting to the domestic language order and its supporting ideology, I will study how value orientations frame the relationship between Putonghua and varieties of Chinese as long as individual and community linguistic behaviors are concerned, and explore the value orientations’ impact on the learning and using minority languages in multilingual China that undergoes the construction of an inclusive Chinese nation.

5.2  Language Ideology as Value Orientations Language ideology may appear in many forms, as various brands of language nationalism, various strains of monolingualism, and various labels of multilingualism, as I have discussed in previous chapters. As a system of beliefs, ideas, and assumptions, ideology is regarded as the intermixture of ethical postulates and value judgments (Dobb, 1973, p. 2). Individual values or beliefs may not constitute an ideology, but a system of them does the basis of ideology (Feldman, 1988, 2013). Specifically, abstract values that represent ideals may become the basis for a normative ideology that guides individual, institutional, and social behaviors (Henry & Reyna, 2007). The reconciliation of various values in reaching a value judgment involves a process known as evaluation. In this process, values may be measured against certain orientations. I introduce these concepts because I am going to discuss how ideology as values and value orientations guides individual and community language practices in the metaphor of political economy that cannot deal with the concepts of capital, market, and exchange without the concept of value. 5.2.1   Defining Linguistic Capital and Market Like many postmodern theorists who tend to advance a new perspective with a set of new terms, Bourdieu (1977, 1991) introduced a conceptual framework of linguistic exchange that includes three key concepts: linguistic capital, market, and habitus. As far as I understand Bourdieu’s work, linguistic capital may be defined as the capacity to produce linguistic expressions and the possession of different linguistic codes for

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different markets; linguistic markets may be identified as contexts of language use that govern the value of linguistic products; linguistic habitus may be specified as a subset of dispositions acquired in learning to speak in particular contexts and used to govern the subsequent language practice of a speaker and the anticipation of the value that linguistic products will receive in linguistic markets. Carried out this way, linguistic exchange is essentially the exchange of symbolic power. Thus, Bourdieu introduced a sociological perspective of language and language use in terms of political economy. However, Bourdieu’s conceptual framework receives criticisms for its failure to identify the necessary parameters for the economics of language (Grin, 1996, 2010). Indeed, Bourdieu’s approach is not purely economics of language, but the political economy of language that focuses on the symbolic power of the economics of language. As a sociolinguist, I intend to close the gap between Bourdieu’s framework and sociolinguistics since the latter has already dealt with the issues, extensively, that the former tries to treat. To take advantage of the perspective of the political economy of language and existing sociolinguistic work, I interpret Bourdieu’s concepts in sociolinguistic terms so that they are understood and applicable in the framework of language ideology and order (Zhou, 2013). In sociolinguistics, Bourdieu’s linguistic exchange is linguistic communication where an oral or written language is used for communicative purposes. Thus, Bourdieu’s linguistic capital is interpreted as sociolinguistics’ verbal or linguistic repertoire (Gumperz, 1972; Holmes, 2001, pp. 19–20; Trudgill, 1983, pp. 100–101). Linguistic repertoire may belong to a community and an individual. First, a community linguistic repertoire is the totality of the varieties of a language and languages, which are usually known as codes, employed by a community of speakers. The value and investment in a community repertoire as capital is the business of the community. Second, an individual linguistic repertoire is the varieties of a language and languages, which is also known as codes, used by the individual in the community and beyond. An individual’s repertoire is the individual’s investment and capital. An individual linguistic repertoire may mark the individual’s socioeconomic status as capital does, though language does not belong to any socioeconomic class. Along the same line, Bourdieu’s linguistic market is understood in sociolinguistics as domains of language use, such as family, school, church/temple, and workplace, and the grouping of these domains

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of language use into one or more sets and subsets (Downes, 1998, pp. 61–64). Like any market, these domains as markets are where linguistic communication takes place, and linguistic codes as capital are evaluated according to the rules of each domain. These domains as markets are governed by language orders. Closely related to the market is Bourdieu’s linguistic habitus, which is decoded in sociolinguistics as the social and cultural knowledge as well as value orientations governing everyday language use, that is, in what context a member of the community knows how to use what code to achieve what results (Downes, 1998, pp. 275– 414; Holmes, 2001, pp. 233–365). It is very much like one’s knowledge of the market that helps one to buy or sell at the best possible price. Domains of language use as linguistic markets may be organized by local and global language orders into four levels at least, the individual, the community, the national, and the international where linguistic communication as exchange is made and the value of a linguistic code may be assessed and realized. First, an individual linguistic market is a traditional domain of language use, such as family, school, church/temple, workplace, or farmers’ market. A domain as a market is usually specific for a code, out of the availability of multiple codes of the community in question, an individual’s use of which is evaluated by members of the speech community (Fishman, 1971; Garcia, Peltz, Schiffman, & Fishman, 2006, pp. 18–19). This is the base market where a code is valuated and its value is realized. The second level from the base is the community linguistic market that consists of an interconnected set of domains of language use. The set of domains as a bottom-up market originates from the family and extends to the community, so that it may include domains of the local church/temple, school, government office, marketplace, and so on in the community. Generally speaking, a code that is valued by more members of the community has a greater value than those that are not valued or less valued by the members. The next level is the national linguistic market which is a national set of public domains of language use. This set of domains is often a top-down market that originates from public domains, such as radio and television programming, education, and official business and expands to both community and individual linguistic market. The fourth level is the globalized linguistic market which is the intersection or overlap of multiple national linguistic markets. This intersection usually involves certain individual domains of language use. For example, the national linguistic market of the USA shares some overlap with the national linguistic market of China, involving the domains of

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education, science, and commerce, where the common code is English. These four levels of linguistic markets of domains are where codes of a language or languages are exchanged and valuated according to local language ideologies and local and global language orders. The market force of language drives people to do two things: (1) to expand the markets for the code they possess for a greater value and (2) to invest in a code that already has more markets and greater value. This engages an evaluation process where a code, whether it is a variety of a language or a language, is evaluated. 5.2.2   Defining Linguistic Value Orientations The evaluation of a code is carried out in certain linguistic value orientations. As how social value orientations function (Murphy, Ackermann, & Handgraaf, 2011), linguistic value orientations measure how a speaker or a community of speakers prefer to allocate resources among codes in their community for what gains. For example, when a speaker or a community of speakers prefer to allocate resources for a code or codes for material gains, such as better jobs or higher incomes, they tend to have a material value orientation. On the other hand, when a speaker or a community of speakers prefer to allocate resources for a code or codes for non-material or spiritual gains, such as solidarity or a sense of community, they tend to have a spiritual or non-material value orientation. Thus, the dichotomy of the spiritual and material value orientations serves as the basis of a system of linguistic value orientations, which is the focus of this chapter. On the material value orientation, the linguistic repertoire of an individual or a community is treated as linguistic capital with a material potential. For instance, a code may be commodified for an economic value in advertising as a number of studies indicate (Bishop, Coupland, & Garrett, 2005; Grin, 1994; Kelly-Holmes & Atkinson, 2007). As capital, the value of a linguistic code depends on its market price, which fluctuates according to its demand and appreciation in the market of domains. Generally speaking, the value of a code rises when its markets of domains expand. Thus, linguistic code’s market value is definable in terms of its market coverage, that is, the number of domains of use and the importance of those domains. The more markets of domains a linguistic code is used and the more valuable it becomes. A linguistic code’s market coverage of domains is viewed from two perspectives. First, a

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linguistic code that has more individual markets of domains is more valuable than one that has fewer individual markets of domains. For example, the code of Putonghua is more valuable than that of a variety of Chinese since the former is used in more domains. Second, a linguistic code that has more levels of markets of domains is more valuable than one that has fewer levels. For instance, English as the global language is more valuable than Chinese in a globalized linguistic market of domains. These individual linguistic markets of domains and the level of them are organized and governed by local and global language orders that rank languages and assign them domains of use. When they prefer a linguistic code for its market value, speakers are inclined to have a material value orientation. In the spiritual or non-material value orientation, the linguistic repertoire of an individual or a community of speakers is considered linguistic capital with a spiritual potential. For example, a code, being a variety of a language or simply a language, may be favored over another code for solidarity and friendship, instead of material gains (Goldstein, 1997; Myers Scotton & Ury, 1977; Zhou, 2000, 2001). On the spiritual value orientation, a linguistic code is evaluated regardless of its material market value. The non-market value of a linguistic code is defined in term of home, which is a speaker’s or a community’s mental home where the spiritual value of something is appreciated. This mental home may include a sense of community, friendship, solidarity, hometown, homeland, and religion, for example. The more inside a speaker’s home a linguistic code is, the more valuable it is to the speaker spiritually. When speakers favor the non-market value of a linguistic code, they tend to have a spiritual value orientation. A speaker or a community of speakers may develop both value orientations for one linguistic code or the material for one linguistic code and the spiritual or non-market for another code. Targeting at material gains, a speaker’s material value orientation regarding a linguistic code may focus on its role in social mobility, such as jobs, job promotion, and admission to college, physical mobility, such as migration and job transfer, and virtual mobility, such as developing a Web site or communicating via Internet in the code in question. Thus, a speaker who values a linguistic code for its access to a better job or a better opportunity for promotion shows a material value orientation regarding that code. On the other hand, a speaker’s spiritual value orientation rests on his sense of home. For example, a bilingual speaker who cares about the materially lesser valued code and maintains it for communication with members of the home community demonstrates a spiritual value orientation regarding that code of home.

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Regardless of value orientations, it all boils down to preferences in the allocation of resources for a code of choice. An individual may allocate financial resources, time, and efforts for a linguistic code, while a community may allocate financial, time, effort, and institutional resources for it. The financial resource is the monetary investment in learning, using, and maintaining a code. The time resource is the number of hours, days, weeks, or years. The institutional resource includes institutions and their agendas. The efforts cover intensity, commitment, concentration, and strategy. The last of these four kinds of resources is as crucial as the others. For example, anyone who has been to a language program or school knows who, among his or her classmates, invest efforts, in addition to time and money, in learning the code. 5.2.3  Summary I try to interpret Bourdieu’s concepts of linguistic capital as linguistic repertoire, linguistic market as domains of language use, linguistic habitus as the knowledge of the context of language use, and linguistic exchange as linguistic communication or language use in terms of sociolinguistics. My interpretation has two goals. First, it makes those rather opaque concepts more accessible, in context, to a broader audience. Second, it takes advantage of Bourdieu’s conceptual framework to examine the dialectical relationship between language ideology and order in China. The introduction of Bourdieu’s political economy into sociolinguistics adds a new perspective on the investigation of sociolinguistic issues. This perspective is a value or a system of values about language use that may be viewed from spiritual and material value orientations. The polarized value orientations should be instrumental in the understanding of how people evaluate varieties of a language and languages and how people wish to regulate their linguistic behavior.

5.3  Value Orientations and Localization of the Global Language Order English used to be the dominant foreign language in China before 1949, but it was replaced by Russian as the newly founded PRC followed the Soviet Union in the 1950s, and then English silently returned in 1972 after Nixon’s visit, and has dominated China’s foreign language landscape since the reform in the late 1970s (Hu, 2002, pp. 17–21;

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Ross, 1993, pp. 36–41; Zhou & Ross, 2004). Institutionalized at the top of the global language order, English commands extensive access to local and global resources (Crystal, 2003; Fishman, 1998/1999; Maurais, 2003; McConnell, 2003; Melitz, 2016). Its dominance in the global linguistic market of education, science, and commerce is unmatched by any other global languages. English’s market overlap between the global and local language orders involves the domestic, regional, and international language orders, an overlap that gives English more market access and better market value. Language ideology as the superstructure shapes language order as the base, but dialectically an established language order may affect language ideology in return. Accepting English’s global status, China’s language ideologies find conflicts and compromises between the spiritual value orientation and the material value orientation as commonly seen in Asia (Gao, 2015; Tan & Rubdy, 2008; Zhou, 2017). Along the spiritual value orientation, nationalism leads the charge against China’s “English craze” as a disaster to the sacred home of the Chinese language and culture (L. Q. Mao, 2009). For instant, in 2013, a former spokesman of the Chinese MOE publically called to abandon English in elementary schools in order to strengthen Chinese studies and to ban after-school English education in order to liberate Chinese children and save Chinese, a call that led to a nationwide debate on English education (Hao, 2014). On the other hand, along the material value orientation, supporters of English education believe in its significant instrumental value in China’s modernization and access to the global community, particularly during the process of globalization, in the twenty-first century (Lam & Wang, 2008; Pan & Block, 2011; Zhong & Li, 2011). Among these voices, unfortunately, there is little scholarly and rational critique of English hegemony. Despite waves of nationalism against English, the Chinese government has allocated plenty of financial and institutional resources for English in the last three decades, and individual learners and their community have also invested extensive time, effort, and funds to obtain this precious linguistic capital. 5.3.1   Value Orientations and Allocation of Institutional Resources China’s official value orientation regarding English has been material as it is influenced by the ideological fixation of Chinese knowledge as the core and Western knowledge as the instrument (Zhongxue wei ti, xixue wei yong) since its loss of the Opium War in the 1840s (Hao, 2014; Ross,

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1993, pp. 16–41; Zou, 2002). Regardless of the change of regimes in the last century and a half, this material value orientation appears to be predominant most of the time during the PRC as seen in its national English curricula for primary, secondary, and higher education. This material value orientation has shaped the Chinese government’s allocation of institutional and financial resources. National English curricula inform teachers, students, and parents why students study English, how they study it, and what proficiency they are expected to achieve for what purposes. Thus, the curricula are good representations of China’s official value orientation, as shown in the evolution of the goals of the national college English curricula in the last four decades: 1. The 1980 Curriculum: College English is to lay an excellent linguistic foundation for students to read English publications on science and technology so that they will achieve relatively fluent proficiency in reading English publications in their field of specialties (Translation mine; Zuo, 2008, p. 17). 2.  The 1986 Curriculum: College English is to train students to reach strong reading proficiency, some listening proficiency, and beginning writing and speaking proficiency so that they will be able to use English as a tool to obtain information needed for their specialties and lay a linguistic foundation for further improvement in their English proficiency (Translation mine; College English, 1986, p. 1). 3.  The 1999 Curriculum: College English is to train students to reach strong reading proficiency and some listening, speaking, writing, and translating abilities, so that they will be able to communicate for information in English, and to lay an excellent linguistic foundation for them, help them to master good language learning strategies and improve their cultivation in order to meet the needs of China’s social development and economic construction (Translation mine; CET, 2002). 4.  The 2007 Curriculum: College English is to train students to reach comprehensive proficiency, particularly in listening and speaking proficiency, so that they will be able to communicate effectively in English in their studies, work, and social exchange in the future, and also to strengthen their ability for self-study and comprehensive cultivation in order to meet the needs of China’s domestic social development and international exchange (Translation mine; MOE, 2007).

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The two curricula implemented in the 1980s demonstrate a strong material orientation in the treatment of English as a useful tool. The two curricula implemented since the turn of the century still maintain that material orientation, but also suggest the development of some nonmaterial values, such as “the ability for self-study” and “comprehensive cultivation.” This tendency toward a balance between the material and spiritual value orientations is not an indication of China’s change in the treatment of English as a tool. Instead, it reflects China’s efforts to reform its tool-oriented education into quality (sushi) education that emphasizes a comprehensive education for comprehensive human development from elementary education to higher education (Dello-lacovo, 2009). A similar path of evolution of China’s value orientations is found in the English curricula for nine-year compulsory education and beyond during the same period: 1. The 1978 Curriculum: English is the most extensively used language in the world. It is an essential tool for international class struggle and economic, trade, cultural, technical, and friendship exchange. … Elementary and secondary English is to train students primarily in English reading and English self-study ability as well as some proficiency in listening, speaking, and translating, so that they will further study and use English in the revolutionary movements and build a foundation for college English (Translation mine; Institute, 2001, p. 120). 2.  The 1986 Curriculum: Foreign languages are essential tools in learning cultural and scientific knowledge, acquiring information on the world, and carrying out international exchange. Elementary and secondary English is to train students in the basics of listening, speaking, reading, and writing with an emphasis on reading, so that they will develop beginning proficiency in writing and speaking and have a good foundation for further study and use of English (Translation mine; Institute, 2001, p. 162). 3.  The 2000 Curriculum: In today world, science and technology characterized by IT progress day and night. The informatization of social life and the globalization of economic activities make foreign languages, mainly English, to become more and more essential tools for China’s open-door policy and exchange with other countries. It is the essential requirement for twenty-first-century citizens to learn and master a foreign language. English for compulsory

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education is to train students in basic English knowledge and proficiency, in developing a beginning intuition in English and beginning ability to use English, so that they will lay a good foundation for real communication, development of intelligence, and cultivation of abilities in observation, memory, thinking and innovation, and will learn cultural differences and cultivate patriotism (Translation mine; Institute, 2001, p. 472). 4. The 2011 Curriculum: English is the most extensively used global language as well as an essential tool for international, scientific and technological, and cultural exchange. To learn and use English plays a vital role in absorbing achievements from other civilizations, learning from advanced science and technology from foreign countries, and enhancing mutual understanding between China and world. English for compulsory education is to improve the cultivation of all citizens, train talents with innovative and cross-cultural communicative abilities in order to advance China’s global competitiveness, and lay a foundation for Chinese citizens’ ability in international exchange (Translation mine; MOE, 2011). The material value orientation in the latest version of compulsory education is still evident though there is an effort to balance it with the spiritual value orientation in the drive for quality education. The last curricula are still far from a balanced value orientation as compared with a 1948 secondary school English curriculum made by the Republican government: Middle school English is to train students in everyday English and lay a good foundation for future improvement in English, so that students will learn the spirit and customs of the UK and the USA and cultivate interest learning from the West. (Translation mine, Institute, 2001, p. 68)

The Republican English curriculum treats English more as enlightenment than as a tool, but it was unfortunately not implemented before the Republican government was defeated in 1949. In the past four decades, China’s material value orientation has affected the state’s allocation of institutional and financial resources through the mechanism of the above English curricula. The institutional resources include the number and hours of English courses to meet the curricular requirements from elementary schools to college as well as

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various national and local English tests to measure the learning outcome. The state’s allocation of the direct financial resource involves the training and employment of over one million English teachers for colleges and elementary and secondary schools that enroll over one hundred million students at any point of time. It is apparent that those college English curricula and the English curricula for compulsory education both have massive impacts. Institutional resources allocated through college English curricula are demonstrated below: 1. The 1980 Curriculum: Divides college English into the elementary and for special purpose, requires 240 hours of elementary English for engineering students and 300 hours for science students in the first two years, and assigns two hours of reading in students’ specialties per week for two to three semesters (Translation mine; Zuo, 2008, p. 17). 2.  The 1986 Curriculum: Divides college English into six bands/ levels, with Levels 1–4 as requires courses for 70 hours each, plus two semesters of 72 hours of reading in specialties, for a total of 352 hours, and with Level 5–6 as electives, and requires Levels 4 and 6 to be tested as learning outcomes (Translation mine; College English, 1986, pp. 2–7). 3.  The 1999 Curriculum: Treats Levels 1–4 as the required and Levels 5–6 as the elective, assigns 256 hours, and requires two hours of assignments for one-hour class (Translation mine; Wenku, 2011). 4. The 2007 Curriculum: Divides college English into three levels, the regular level for most universities, and the high and higher levels for top-tier universities and requires 10% of undergraduate credits or 16 out of 160 credits (Translation mine; MOE, 2007). Of those four college English curricula, the most influential is the 1986 Curriculum that divided college English into six bands or levels and required a national assessment of the learning outcomes of Bands 4 and 6. The MOE decided to implement Band Four College English Test, known as CET 4, and Band 6 College English Test, known as CET 6, in 1987. In the following years, CET 4 and CET 6 actually became a measurement of performance for universities, which directly associated the passage of CET 4 with college degree-granting. College students who

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passed CET 4 could graduate with a bachelor’s degree, but those who did not could not graduate, creating a vast market for the English training and test preparing industry. The certificate of CET 6 passage became a must for college graduates who would apply for graduate schools, competitive jobs, and the household registration for residence and employment in coastal cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, also contributing a market to the English industry. Institutional resources allocated for elementary and secondary schools include course offerings and the number of hours shown below: 1. The 1978 Curriculum: English to be offered from the third grade to the 10th grade (the highest grade in a 10-year system) for a total of 1080 hours (Institute, 2001, pp. 125–131). 2.  The 1986 Curriculum: English to be offered from the seventh grade to the 12th grade for a total of 932 hours (Institute, 2001, pp. 167–173). 3.  The 2000 Curriculum: English to be offered from the seventh grade to the ninth grade for a total of 432 hours (Institute, 2001, p. 473). 4. The 2011 Curriculum: English to be offered from the third grade to the ninth grade for 571–761 hours (and tenth grade to twelfth grade for 384 class hours) (MOE, 2011, 2018a). Of the four English curricula for elementary and secondary schools, the most influential is the 1978 curriculum in affecting the allocation of institutional resources. It set an official precedent in offering English from the third grade on, though it was barely implemented for the lack of English teachers in the late 1970s and the 1980s. This precedence legitimated the offering of English in elementary schools all the way down to preschools, first in experimental classes and schools, then in elite schools, and finally in more urban schools, since the 1990s, though the 1986 and 2000 curricula did not endorse it. Recognizing the reality of the spread of English downward, the 2011 curricula compromised and returned to the position of the 1978 curricula by offering English from the third grade on. It should be pointed out that the 2011 curriculum has an interesting development in dividing English into nine bands or levels, of which Levels 1–5 belong to compulsory education and Levels 6–9 are high school English, with Level 5 as the goal of compulsory English learning outcome and Level 7 as that of high school English.

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It is too early to say if this approach will have the same impact on students, parents, and the English industry as the 1986 college English curriculum has. 5.3.2   Value Orientation and Allocation of Societal Resources The state’s material value orientation has dramatically influenced the societal material value orientation because English proficiency is directly associated with any means of social mobility in China, including education, employment, promotion, and opportunities for studying abroad. If they want to move up, students, parents, and professionals have to invest in English in addition to regular English education in school, creating three major after-school markets and one preschool market for the English language industry. First, college English leads to two after-school sub-markets, extra training for CET 4 and CET 6 and training for graduate school English test. The CET market has a potential of over 10 million customers annually. For example, in 2016, the total college enrollment was 36.9 million (MOE, 2017). About nine million students, one-fourth of this college student population, who took the tests, were potential customers (People’s Daily, 2016). The fees for a student to take one session of training were about $150. That was an over a-billion-dollar market if every test taker joined one session. Meanwhile, the market for the preparation for the graduate school English test is also significant. For example, the total number of graduate students accepted by the graduate school in 2016 was 667,000 (MOE, 2017). If every graduate seat had three applicants, that was about two million potential customers who needed a boost to ensure their passage of the English test. The fees for a session ranged from $60 to $150 (Coolearn, 2018a). The graduate school English test preparation is potentially a market of 120–300 million dollars. Thus, the college market is worth one and half billion dollars minimally. Second, elementary and secondary education creates three submarkets, moving from the elementary to middle school, promoting from middle school to high school, and college admission examination. The first two markets are black because the Chinese government bans any extra training for the preparations for moving from elementary school to middle school and further to high school during the school year. However, schools, teachers, and the industry all offer illegal after-school

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tutoring, the market value of which is unknown to the public. Tutoring sessions during the summer are legal, a one-week session of which cost about $70 (14 hours) (Coolearn, 2018b). For instance, the total middle school enrollment was 43.3 million and elementary school 99.1 million in 2016 (MOE, 2017). Any fraction of the 142.4 million student population would make a significant market. The preparation courses for college admission are legal, which range from the 10th grade to the 12th grade English and to the last-minute crash English courses. For example, a nine-day crash English course costs about $300 (XDF, 2018a). In 2016, the total high school enrollment was 39.7 million, out of which about nine million took the college admission examination. If half of the test takers took a crash course, that market was over one billion dollars. In a word, the elementary and secondary English market has a potential of a few billion dollars whether it is legal or illegal. Third, the preparation for study abroad is a unique English market for both adults and young students, a market that offers a whole range of courses at different prices (XDF, 2018b). For secondary education, there are courses for TOFEL, TOFEL Junior, IELTS, SSAT, and other programs. Crash courses for TOFEL Junior crash charge from $1240 (48 hours) to $3940 (128 hours). For college education, courses on TOFEL, SATI, SATII, ACT, AP, and other programs are offered. ACT courses cost from $1160 (64 hours) to $5524 (174 hours). For graduate education, courses are offered for TOFEL, GRE, GMAT, LSAT, and other programs. Fees for GRE courses are from $393 (64 hours) to $4254 (144 hours). In 2015, 520,000 students successfully passed those tests and went to study abroad (XDF, 2016). If the success rate was one out of two, over one million students prepared for those tests and took at least one crash course for about $1000. The preparation for study abroad is a billion market or a multi-billion market as well. Fourth, influenced by the downward extension of English courses to the first grade in elite urban elementary schools and inspired by the slogan “Don’t let your children fail at the starting line,” preschool English education became popular since the turn of this century. The status of the development of preschool English education varies significantly across China since the state only began to consider preschool education officially in 2010 (China, 2010). Without a national standard, preschool English also differs in its scope, content, and quality from one city to the other. In 2016, 24,000 preschools enrolled 44.14 million students, but it is not clear how many of these preschools offered how much English

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education to how many of the students (MOE, 2017). It was estimated that 73% preschools in Jiangsu Province offered some English education in 2007 (Ni, 2007). That estimate did not project to most of the other provinces at that time because Jiangsu was one of the most developed in China. The estimate may work for most provinces ten years later now. It is clear, however, that parents and communities are eager to invest in their children’s English education though preschool English education is not cheap. In 2012, a random survey of 168 parents in downtown Hangzhou, a tier-two city, found that 68% parents believed that it is necessary for their children to receive English in preschool (Song, Chen, & Deng, 2012). It appears that they acted according to their beliefs. The same survey found that annually 15% parents spent $1500–3000 on their children’s English education, 42% parents spent about $100–300, and 42% parents spent less than $100. Hangzhou had over 100,000 preschool students with a conservative preschool English market of over 10 million dollars then. Hangzhou is just one example of the preschool English market of 44.14 million students, who are only 77.4% of the preschool-aged children in China (MOE, 2017). The above four major English markets lead to the rise of a huge English language industry, which estimated that the total English market value in China is worth about 57 billion dollars (Sina, 2014). Further, the preschool education market is also estimated to have a value of about 50–60 billion dollars by 2023, a significant portion of which belongs to preschool English education (Qianzhan, 2018). To have a share of this gigantic market, both domestic and international capital is invested in China’s English industry. Domestically, New Oriental is exemplary of the industry, which was single-handedly started by an English teacher in 1993 and went on for its IPO at the New York Stock Exchange (symbol, EDU) for 102 million dollars in 2006. In 2017, it had an annual revenue of 1799 million dollars, 77 schools, and 885 learning centers with an enrollment of nearly five million students, of which four million were enrolled in K-12 after-school tutoring courses (XDF, 2017). Internationally, for instance, Disney English now operates in Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen with 26 learning centers for children aged 2–12 since it landed in Shanghai in 2008 (Disney English, 2018). The size of the English market essentially reflects how much Chinese parents have invested and are willing to invest in their Children’s English as a linguistic capital that enhances their children’s competitiveness in the globalized economy.

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5.3.3  Summary The localization of the global language order goes through two processes, local ideological representation and local institutionalization. First, the intersection of the local and global language order, such as the order of language use in education, seeks an ideological representation locally, which is often realized as a system of values, for the dominant global language. These values are often organized by the dichotomy of the spiritual and material. On the material value orientation, a global language, such as English, is considered the most valuable in the linguistic market of education. Second, legitimized by this value orientation, the global language is institutionalized as the top foreign language in education through the state’s allocation of institutional and financial resources. This linguistic code as capital is further appreciated by societal investment in response to the state’s valuation. Through the localization of the global language order, English becomes the most studied and invested foreign language in China, secondly only to Chinese in education and second to none in the language industry, while other global languages, such as Russian, Japanese, German, and French, are offered only sporadically in a few regions or schools that have a historical tie with those languages. The craze for English is mainly driven by its material value, as the curricula and the market reveal, but it raises a question if a language of high spiritual value will receive such institutional and societal investment in the linguistic market. As China rises, English is given an additional value as a medium of instruction in its bilingual drive for quality education and its bilingual outreach to the global higher education market, though these efforts have met a lot of challenges (Hu, 2009; Zhang, 2018).

5.4   Attitudes, Markets, and Varieties of Chinese It is estimated that 53% (about 658 million) of the Chinese population spoke Putonghua in 2000 and 70% (about 945 million) of the Chinese population spoke Putonghua in 2016 (China, 2006, p. 5; MOE, 2016a). The increase of about 287 million new Putonghua speakers in 15 years mainly came from speakers of varieties of Chinese since 92% of the Chinese population is Han. How this happened is a question worth studying, particularly from the perspective of linguistic exchange, markets, capital, and values.

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The fact that Putonghua started as the official language without native speakers tilted the balance of value orientations to the material pole instead of the spiritual early on. Thus, as the officially designated High variety, Putonghua is learned as a second code of capital for material gains, though the state also wishes it to be learned for its spiritual value, the identification with the homeland and the Chinese nation. Children start to acquire a linguistic code without a clear value orientation, though the acquisition of that code represents their parents’ and communities’ value orientations. The linguistic code initially acquired as one’s mother tongue naturally has a spiritual value potential associated with a speaker’s spiritual or mental home and may also have a material value potential, depending on what community shares it (Zhou, 2001). As capital, historically speaking, some varieties of Chinese, such as Cantonese and Shanghainese, have both spiritual and material value potentials in their communities. The change began to take place on a large scale first when the state had mandatorily required Putonghua education since 1982 after it was constitutional enshrined and second when the local linguistic markets began to experience difficulties in exchange since large migration began in the late 1990s. 5.4.1   Attitudes, Values, and Varieties of Chinese Different from English which both the state and the society have invested heavily in the last four decades, Putonghua has been extensively invested by the state and only begins to be invested by the younger generations of individuals recently. The state investment built a system of Putonghua education and testing from elementary school to college, which has facilitated hundreds of millions of people’s learning of Putonghua as linguistic capital and changed their attitudes toward Putonghua. With constitutional endorsement, the Ministry of Education first specified Putonghua proficiency requirements for normal school students in the mid-1980s and, with the trained teachers gradually in place, required that urban elementary schools from townships to large cities use Putonghua as their campus language by 2000 (China, 1996, pp. 154–157 and 284–289). To continue this development, endorsed by the Compulsory Education Law, the Ministry of Education asked middle schools to take two steps: first to use Putonghua in all public activities by 1994 (urban deadline) and 1996 (rural deadline) and second to use

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Putonghua as their campus language by 1996 (urban deadline) and 1998 (rural deadline) (China, 1996, pp. 323–327). To ensure schools’ full implementation, the Ministry of Education took two measures in 1994 (China, 1996, pp. 343–355). The first was to instruct provincial department of education to assess every school’s Putonghua use and assign their use with grades A, B, or C. The second step was to implement a national Putonghua proficiency test for teachers, TV announcers, TV anchors, and some college graduates. The test ranks speakers’ Putonghua proficiency into three major levels, each with two sublevels as Aa, Ab, Ba, Bb, Ca, or Cb. A year later in 1995, the Ministry of Education required colleges to follow the secondary schools in two steps to promote Putonghua, to use Putonghua for all public activities by 1996 (North deadline) and 1998 (South deadline) and adopt Putonghua as the campus language by 1998 (North deadline) and 2000 (South deadline) (China, 1996, pp. 364–368). The complete system of Putonghua education was in full motion after the National Common Language and Script Law was passed in 2000. Armed with this law, the Chinese government began to expand Putonghua use to the whole society in two steps (MOE, 2018b). First, it ordered sixty major urban areas to assess their Putonghua use and set their goals to adopt Putonghua as their primary community language by 2010. For instance, midway, it assessed some major cities and gave a passing grade to Beijing, Shanghai, Harbin, Shijiazhuang, Changsha, Nanjing, Hefei, and Urumqi in 2004 (MOE, 2004b). Second, it set the goal to use Putonghua through China without dialect barriers in communication before 2050. This step was moved closer in China’s middleto-long-term plan for language and script work (2012–2020), which scheduled to have Putonghua as the primary community language in urban areas and for teachers, students, and the younger generations in rural areas by 2015 and to have Putonghua as the primary language throughout China without dialect barriers by 2020 (MOE, 2016b). Of all these official measures to promote Putonghua, the proficiency test is the one that has fundamentally changed people’s attitudes and value orientations, because certificates of the test began to be required for many public jobs since the late 1990s. During the experimental stage between 1995 and 2003, Putonghua proficiency tests were made locally in every province, following the national standards, and assessed about six million people’s Putonghua proficiency. Since 2004, the Ministry of Education has standardized the test, which is developed from the

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national test pool, either online or on paper (MOE, 2004a). The test becomes so instrumental in employment that every college graduate usually submits a copy of their Putonghua proficiency certificate, along with a copy of their English CET 4 or 6 certificate, with their job applications, whether it is explicitly required in the job announcements or not. Besides, Putonghua proficiency is evaluated during job interviews, the result of which is one of the criteria for hiring decisions. It is the key criterion for any position that handles any external communication. This requirement for employment encouraged more young people to take the test. The number of test takers reached 6,042,600 in 2016 and 6,665,400 in 2017, an annual increase of about 10% (MOE, 2018c). The state’s investment reached a new high point for Putonghua as a linguistic capital that individuals and communities began to invest in Putonghua voluntarily too. The state efforts at Putonghua promotion eventually changed people’s attitudes toward Putonghua. In studies of attitudes to Putonghua among students, it is found that Putonghua was consistently associated with social status as the High variety, while local dialects were often linked to solidarity as the Low variety in the early years (Kalmar, Yong, & Hong, 1987; Zhou, 2001). More recently, these attitudes are found among the urban population as urbanization and migration expand rapidly (M. Y. Chen, 2017; Wang & Ladegaard, 2008). These attitudes largely reflect the material value orientation of China’s language ideology. Attitudes do not directly represent an ideology, but they are found to cluster around values, a system of which do represent ideology (Feldman, 2013; Henry & Reyna, 2007). Unlike values that guide behavior, attitudes favorable toward Putonghua do not necessarily guide attitude holders’ linguistic behaviors, but they may be predictive of changes favorable to the use of Putonghua in the community. Attitudes have predictive power instead of guiding power because people without Putonghua as capital can still have favorable or unfavorable attitudes toward Putonghua. For instance, a study of a rural county in Shanxi Province found that the local people overwhelmingly considered Putonghua more socially influential and aesthetically better than their local dialect though 45% of them did not speak Putonghua (Li & Wu, 2011). These attitudes are found elsewhere in China where the locals predominantly spoke Chinese dialects but held a higher opinion of Putonghua (Blum, 2004). Non-Putonghua speakers’ favorable attitudes encourage the people around them to learn Putonghua, although

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they themselves did not have the capital, mostly because of older age. However, the same study also found that the majority of the population did not see any opportunities for them to use Putonghua outside schools in a relatively stable community where linguistic exchange is carried out in a fixed code for a specific market. This situation is true of many closed communities or linguistic markets in China. 5.4.2   Markets, Values, and Varieties of Chinese The balance of those closed linguistic markets needs to be broken by an unbalance of supply and demand or a shortage of a community needed linguistic code. This situation happens only when a community is injected with many new members who do not share the linguistic repertoire of the existing community. This situation is precisely what has taken place in China since the 1990s. With an emerging market-oriented economy and a relaxed household registration system for employment, migration for better jobs and pay increased from 21.3 million in 1990 to 121 million in 2000, to 221 million in 2010, and further to 245 million in 2016, with a peak of 253 million in 2014 (MOPHFP, 2018; UNICEF, 2018). There is not only an annual increase in the size of the migrant population but also a significant size of the population of former migrants who returned to their hometowns or home villages. The migration has had a two-way impact on the linguistic markets in the designations and origins. First, migration opened relatively closed local linguistic markets in a community, creating a shortage in the shared community linguistic repertoire and difficulty in community linguistic exchange. With many new community members who do not share the community’s common code, the community struggles to find a new common code for communitywide linguistic exchange. For example, Yiwu municipality in Zhejiang Province, the world-known capital of hardware supplies, had a population of nearly 700,000 in 1990, but that number is ballooned to over two million in 2018, of which 740,000 are natives and 1,430,000 are migrants, including 60 thousand minorities and 13 thousand foreigners (Yiwu, 2018). Before the migration, Yiwu people shared the Yiwu dialect as the community common code, a subdialect of the Wu variety of Chinese, which was predominantly used in every local domain except education. As the migration was increasing, Yiwu was searching for a shared code for the whole community. Putonghua, which had been

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added to the linguistic repertoire of both new and old members of the community through education since the 1980s, became the chosen code in linguistic exchange because it was shared by most of the community members. Thus, a dormant linguistic code was made active, beginning to realize its full value as a linguistic capital. Studies of language use and attitudes in Yiwu found several interesting developments, as summarized in Table 5.1 (Liu, 2009; L. Q. Mao, 2009; Y. P. Wu, 2015). Table 5.1 shows that the majority of natives of Yiwu were bilingual, tended to speak Putonghua with their children (72%) much more frequently than to their parents (18%), and rated Putonghua higher for social status (75%) and the Yiwu dialect higher for solidarity (80%). These numbers tell us two important things about the natives of Yiwu: (1) Younger generations spoke more and more Putonghua and (2) the use of Putonghua was driven more by the material value orientation while the use of the local dialect is influenced more by the spiritual value orientation. Table 5.1 also demonstrates that the migrants in Yiwu spoke Putonghua with their colleagues most of the time (96%) and wanted their children to speak Putonghua (20–25%) while maintaining their home dialects (35–40%). They rated Putonghua higher for both social status (4.57) and solidarity (4.39) but also rated their home dialects higher for solidarity (4.25) on a Likert scale of five. However, not many of them (9%) appear to have had a genuine interest in the Yiwu dialect. Their Putonghua use, mainly with co-workers, and ranking suggest a material value orientation as well. Here, it should be pointed out that the self-claimed Putonghua proficiency in Table 5.1 is not reliable. The actual Putonghua proficiency of the natives and migrant workers might be much lower than their own assessment, but it still shows a positive attitude toward Putonghua. For instance, for the migrant workers, Putonghua is not only the official language but generally contributes to a higher hourly salary, about 15.73% higher (Jiang & Wang, 2017). There is a strong instrumental incentive for the migrant workers to improve their Putonghua and to claim a higher proficiency. In the best situation, they speak localized Putonghuas, varieties of Putonghua that have been influenced by local dialects syntactically, phonologically, and lexically (Zhou, 2006, 2012). Regardless of their value orientations, both the natives and the migrants found Putonghua as the common linguistic code in the local markets of Yiwu where Putonghua as a potential capital for many years finally realized its value. Thus, migration reorganizes

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Table 5.1  Yiwu natives’ and migrants’ language use and attitudes Categories

Natives of Yiwu

Migrants in Yiwu

Putonghua proficiency Fluent Some Little

75–93%* 7–25% N/A

86% 10% 4%

N/A N/A 18–25%* N/A 72%

96% 16% 0–0.5% 5% 20–26%

Putonghua attitudes Social status Solidarity

75% N/A

4.57/5 4.39/5

Yiwu dialect proficiency Fluent Not fluent

55% 17%

0 9

Yiwu dialect use with Parents Spouse Children

75–82% N/A 28%

N/A N/A N/A

Yiwu dialect attitudes Solidarity

80%

N/A

N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

4% 84% 99% 49% 35–40%

N/A

4.24/5

Putonghua use with Colleagues Hometown people Parents Spouse Children

Other dialect use with Colleague Hometown people Parents Spouse Children Other Dialect Attitudes Solidarity

*Fluency range: from different studies; use with parents’ rate range: larger percentage  = children to parents, smaller percentage = parents to children Sources Liu (2009), L. Q. Mao (2009), and Wu (2015)

local or even national linguistic markets by adding a new common code to the community linguistic repertoire and thus a new demand-supply interaction that helps Putonghua expand beyond the market of education. The second impact of migration is on local linguistic markets of the migrants’ hometowns or home villages. Former migrant workers and the educated town residents make up the local Putonghua-speaking

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population. For example, in Shanyin County of Shanxi Province, the 18% of the “good” Putonghua speakers mainly consists of these two groups in addition to the student population (Li & Wu, 2011). Unlike those who never leave their hometown or home village, migrant workers are more open to code-switching between Putonghua and their home dialects (Fu, 2010, 2012; Liu, 2009). They do so as migrants but also do so when they return home though less frequently and facing criticism from those who never migrated. They become the first catalyst in the shift to Putonghua in rural China. Even if they do not speak Putonghua, they speak Putonghuaized local dialects, varieties of local dialects that are phonologically, syntactically, and/or lexically influenced by Putonghua (Zhou, 2006). For instance, studies of dialects spoken by returned migrant workers in Sichuan found systematic phonological changes induced by Putonghua and non-systematic lexical loans from Putonghua (Wang & Wu, 2012; Wu, Wang, & Fan, 2011). Thus, local dialects in rural China lose speakers in the shift to Putonghua and undergo syntactic, phonologic, and lexical changes in contact with Putonghua. 5.4.3  Summary Putonghua has put much pressure on other varieties of Chinese in its officially promoted spread, though the state has changed its position of eliminating Chinese dialects to that of coexistence since the 1980s. The promotion of Putonghua successfully cultivated positive attitudes and extensively invested in the standard language as capital of great potential. That potential capital was waiting for the local and national markets for the realization of its value. Those markets were gradually opened to Putonghua as the migration expanded since the 1990s. Attitudes underlined by the value system of the ordered multilingualism favored Putonghua spread, but only open markets of language use made it a reality.

5.5  Value Orientations and Minority Languages Given the polarization of value orientations regarding language learning and use, it appears that speakers of minority languages always face a choice of one orientation over another when they go for their language education and use. However, as the previous chapter reveals, that choice for language education is now made by the state rather than minority

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individuals and communities. Despite the fact, it seems that individual and community value orientations still matter in the maintenance of minority languages in the face of the slaughter of Chinese and English in marketization and globalization of the local economy. 5.5.1   Value Orientations and Ethnolinguistic Vitality In a multilingual society, the maintenance of a minority language depends on its vitality, known as ethnolinguistic vitality. Ethnolinguistic vitality may be objective in terms of a language’s status, demography, and institutional support (Giles, 2001; Giles et al. 1977). The status of a language involves its current official categorization, such as the official or non-official, as well as its position in literary traditions (Zhou, 2003, pp. 27–33). Its demography is the number of speakers and whether the number is growing or diminishing. Its institutional support comes from both within the community of the speakers and from outside the community. From outside the community is mostly the state’s recognition and allocation of resources, such as funding and programming in school, television, and radio. Inside the community is the involvement of traditional institutions, such as religion and family. Ethnolinguistic vitality may also be subjective as well in terms of belief systems, such as general beliefs, normative beliefs, self-beliefs, and goal beliefs (Allard & Landry, 1986). How a group feels about themselves and their language in the current context and the future matters to the maintenance of their language. Moreover, I argue that the belief systems or language ideology also include a system of values and value orientations. How valuable speakers feel their language is and how they make value judgments about their language also matter a lot to the maintenance of their language. The distinction between the subjective and objective evaluations of ethnolinguistic vitality is helpful for us to understand how minority speakers evaluate their native languages and why some minority languages appear to be more vibrant than other minority languages, though their objective measurements do not look better. According to X. Huang’s (2000, pp. 95–165) objective measurements of the ethnolinguistic vitality of 60 minority languages in China, the top 15 vital languages are Uyghur, Tibetan, Mongol, Kazak, Korean, Kirgiz, Dai, Xibe, Yi, Zhuang, Jingpo, Zaiwa, Lisu, Miao, and Lahu (for the complete list and ranking, see Zhou [2003, pp. 29–31]). However, not all of these

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top languages are doing as well as low-ranked languages in maintaining their vitality in their communities, as shown in Table 5.2. All of these 15 top vital languages are included in Table 5.2 in the italic, except Zaiwa which was grouped with Jingpo in the original data. The table shows how Chinese and minority languages are spoken in each community in three general categories, (1) relatively balanced Chineseminority bilingualism, (2) more maintenance of minority languages, and (3) more shift to Chinese. Three of the top 15, Jingpo, Xibe, and Dai, belong to Category 1 where above 85% spoke Chinese and native languages. In Category 3, two of the top languages, Miao and Zhuang, see a more substantial shift to Chinese, which was spoken by more minority members than their native languages were. The remaining top 10 languages are included in Category 2, though some are marginal. Thus, the objective measurement of ethnolinguistic vitality appears to have a relatively good predictive power. However, more interesting are some low-ranked languages, such as Jing (33), Li (41), Daur (20), De’ang (46), Primi (40), and Mulam (31), whose communities are not only doing well in maintaining their native languages but also in learning Chinese, achieving a balanced bilingualism. These communities prove that bilingualism is not necessarily the culprit of any landslide shift to Chinese and attrition of minority languages. Explanations of this phenomenon may be found in subjective ethnolinguistic vitality since objective ethnolinguistic vitality fails to do so. The question lies in how members of a community evaluate their native language and Chinese. Li, a member of the Tai-Kadai branch that is spoken by about one million people in Hainan Province, is a good case. For example, a case study of two villages there, where a dialect of Li is the first language of 90.7% of the villagers and Chinese (including Putonghua and dialects) are spoken by 97% of the villagers, informs us of how the locals evaluated their native language and Chinese, as illustrated in Table 5.3 (Feng & Gong, 2015). Table 5.3 demonstrates that the Li villagers considered both Putonghua (95%) and their native language (96.4%) equally useful and few of them used Putonghua for material gains (job and school, 7.1% respectively). At the same time, they were open to shift to Chinese (69.3%), bilingualism (87.9%), and Chinese school (33.6%) and ChineseEnglish bilingual school (57%). Unlike most minority communities, these Li villagers did not seem to evaluate Putonghua mainly on the material value orientation, while they embraced bilingualism and even

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Table 5.2 Percentage of minorities speaking Chinese and minority languages

Ethnicity

Chinese

Manchu She Hezhen Gelao Hui Tujia Russian Bonan Achang Qiang Oroqen Yugur Jing Jino Li Bouyei Daur Miao Jingpo De’ang Yao Xibe Dong Dai Maonan Primi Mulam Dongxiang Va Korean Bai Lahu Yi Naxi Zhuang Ewenki Blang Salar Mongol Lisu Hani Nu Tu

99.99 99.99 99.99 99.87 99.66 99.39 99.27 99.11 98.75 98.61 98.58 98.14 97.72 81.95 95.51 94.55 92.50 92.12 92.09 89.65 89.47 89.36 89.04 88.58 88.03 86.81 86.26 85.70 84.27 84.11 83.54 81.46 81.43 80.45 79.99 78.67 77.64 73.95 71.38 71.18 68.28 60.27 59.58

159

Minority languages 0.00 0.20 2.67 1.46 4.60 6.63 49.51 49.25 86.15 14.66 59.72 64.26 93.37 96.86 89.18 50.33 87.13 59.70 97.50 99.90 74.90 93.87 57.27 98.28 47.53 97.77 91.23 71.05 99.26 93.99 91.37 94.85 69.07 98.34 86.16 94.23 96.93 62.41 75.52 98.72 94.64 98.19 84.02

160  M. ZHOU Table 5.2 (continued)

Ethnicity

Chinese

Shui Tibetan Derung Tatar Kazakh Lhoba Uyghur Uzbek Monba Kirghiz Tajik

58.67 51.87 48.12 43.25 42.37 35.43 19.88 16.09 13.22 12.21 6.60

Minority languages 90.77 90.40 95.79 98.96 99.08 89.74 99.74 98.12 97.52 98.28 99.75

Note Chinese includes both Putonghua and Chinese dialects Source China (2006, pp. 125–126)

trilingualism for communication with the outside world. The Li villagers paid less attention to the material values of the dominant languages. This case study gives insights to the reasons why the Li community maintains a relatively excellent balance between Chinese (95.5%) and their native language (89.2%), though the measurements of the objective ethnolinguistic vitality for Li is not optimistic when it is ranked 41 out of 60 minority languages. The case of the Li community enlightens us about Table 5.3  Li villagers’ language attitudes Categories

A

B

C

D

E

Li’s usefulness Putonghua’s usefulness Putonghua used for Shifted to Chinese Being Bilingual Send children to

Very, 59.3%

Some, 49.7%

No, 3.6%

N/A

N/A

Very, 71.4%

Some, 23.6%

No, 5%

N/A

N/A

Job, 7.1%

School, 7.1% Dislike, 12%

Han culture, 9.3% Not used to, 4.3% No, 4.3%

N/A

Understand­ able, 55.7% Eagerly, 47.9% Chinese school, 33.6%

Outsiders, 76.4% Uncomfort­ able, 7.9% Don’t care, 7.9% ChineseEnglish school, 57%

N/A

N/A

Source Feng and Gong (2015)

Naturally, 40% Chinese-Li school, 10%

Don’t care, 13.6% N/A

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those languages that are not ranked high for their ethnolinguistic vitality but remains vibrant in their native communities. On the other hand, minority languages that are ranked high by the measurements of their objective ethnolinguistic vitality do not necessarily do well. Among the top 15, Yi, a member of the Tibeto-Burman branch that is spoken by about six million people, is not doing worse than the worst, Miao, but not much better when considering its indexes, 81.4% speaking Chinese and 69% speaking Yi, in Table 5.2. For instance, a study of a Yi village in Dali, Yunnan, where every resident’s first language was Yi and, excluding preschool children and old people, second language was Chinese, reveals why the top-ranked Yi language is not doing well, as shown in Table 5.4 (Wang & Shi, 2011). From Table 5.4, we can see that the majority of the Yi villagers considered Putonghua the most important language (76%) and wanted their children to learn it (84.7%) though Yi was still the village’s first language. This tendency suggests that the Yi villagers value Putonghua more than their native language, whether materially or spiritually. The table also divulges that the majority of the villagers reacted understandingly when their fellow villagers shifted to Chinese (60.5%), but only a minority of them cares if Chinese replaces Yi as their village language in the future (33%). Unfortunately, these numbers allude that the Yi villagers do not value their native language very much, whether materially or spiritually. This survey of a small remote Yi village tells us why the Yi community experienced a significant shift to Chinese (81.4%) and low maintenance

Table 5.4  Yi villagers’ language attitudes Categories Most important language

Wish children to learn

Villages shifted to Chinese

Chinese replaces Yi

A

Putonghua, 76%

D

Yi, 10% Chinese dialects, 9% English, 5%

Understandable, 60.5% Dislike, 27.2% Uncomfortable, 20.2% Not used to, 7.6%

Eagerly, 7%

B C

Putonghua, 84.7% Yi, 19% Chinese dialects, 14% English, 0%

F

N/A

N/A

Don’t care, 3.3%

Source Wang and Shi (2011)

Naturally, 43% Don’t care, 17% Don’t want It, 33% N/A

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of the native language (69%), though the measurements of its objective ethnolinguistic vitality are high among the top 10 minority languages in China. The Yi community’s subjective ethnolinguistic vitality matters too. In summary, when a community focuses on the material value of Chinese more than on their native languages, it is likely that members will shift to Chinese while giving up their native language. When a minority community attends to both material and spiritual values for their native languages and Chinese, members may develop more balanced bilingualism instead of resisting Chinese or giving up their mother tongue. 5.5.2   Value Orientations and Han’s Learning of Minority Languages Value orientations do not only affect minorities’ learning and using of their native languages but also have an impact on the learning and using of minority languages by the Han Chinese. Traditionally, Hans who lived in minority communities learned to speak the local languages, but in the last four decades, this situation changed so that most Hans no longer learn and use local minority languages. It appears that they make the same value judgments as many minorities do for their native languages. The Hans who live in minority communities learn a minority language only when they see both the material and spiritual values in it. Otherwise, they refuse to learn the local language even if they live there. I will illustrate this point with two cases, one of the Hans who lived in the Uyghur community in Xinjiang and one of the Hans who lived in the Tibetan community in Tibet (Zhou, 2013). Xinjiang’s total population is 21,815,815, of which 8,829,994 are Hans (China, 2012, p. 35). Most of the Hans live in urban areas in Northern Xinjiang, but some Hans live in rural areas deep in the Uyghur territory of Southern Xinjiang. There are cases in urban Xinjiang where Han students do learn and speak local minority languages in school, though these may be the exception rather than the rule (Guljennet, 2009). However, it is more common for the Hans in rural Southern Xinjiang to learn Uyghur. For instance, Eli Imin (2011) did a comprehensive case study of Uyghur-Chinese bilingual education in Hetian (Hotan), where he found that Han students were learning and using Uyghur along with their Uyghur peers in the Third Secondary School

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of Hetian County. This school required Han students to learn Uyghur along with Uyghur students in the same bilingual classes and did not set up any physical separation between Uyghur and Han students in class and out of class. On this truly integrated campus, the Han and Uyghur students were communicating with each other in Uyghur in and out of class and no tension between the two groups were observable during the study (Eli, 2011, p. 185). Why did these Han students learn and use Uyghur as the Uyghur students did when Han students in other minority communities, even in Uyghur communities in other parts of Xinjiang, did not do so? The answer may rest on their consideration of Hetian as their homeland and Uyghur as their adopted hometown language. These students were usually the third generation of migrants who settled in Southern Xinjiang in the 1950s or 1960s. Their families were there, and they would not leave Hetian unless they had opportunities to go to college in the inland. They lived in the reality of Chinese as their first language and Uyghur as their second language. Thus, they valued Uyghur both materially and spiritually. Pragmatically, they used Uyghur for material gains, such as jobs, in the local linguistic markets, while spiritually they used Uyghur for integration into the local community for a belonging. On the other hand, the Hans who live in minority communities will not learn and use the local languages if they do not intend to treat those communities home literarily and figuratively. We find an illuminating example of this kind in Tibet, where are only 245,263 Hans out of a total local population of 3,003,165 (China, 2012, p. 35). The Han population in Tibet is generally divided into two groups. The first group is government employees, the majority of whom are in Tibet on a rotation basis for a few years. The second group is short-term economic migrants who are there to make a fortune for a few years and then return home because they cannot survive at high altitudes for too long. The majority of the Han population there don’t speak Tibetan, and neither do the Han students in Tibet. For example, a study of language use in secondary schools in Lhasa and Shanna in Tibet found exactly this pattern (H. P. Chen, 2011). These schools had no requirements for their Han students to learn Tibetan. Even when Chinese and Tibetan bilingual courses were offered, only Tibetan students were required to take them. Moreover, Tibetan and Han classes were segregated in different buildings or on different floors when they had classes in the same building. On the segregated campus, there was little or no communication

164  M. ZHOU

between the Han and Tibetan students in Tibetan, but some observable tension between the Han and Tibetan students. These findings are similar to what I observed at Lhasa Secondary School in 2000 and to the general linguistic communication pattern in the few urban communities in Tibet since the 1990s (Ting, 2004). The Han students in those secondary schools were mostly children of the state employees, and some were children of the economic migrants and those whoever had a connection there. Thus, most of the Han students were migrant students who went to school in Tibet for the benefits provided by China’s affirmative action, such as being sent back to Tibetan inland schools and being admitted to key universities in coastal cities with a lower admission examination score (Zhou & Hill, 2009). Those students did not value Tibetan materially or spiritually because they never considered Tibet home and they did not even need Tibetan practically in the local linguistic markets. Who would invest in a linguistic capital that is of no material value nor spiritual value to them? In short, China’s language ideology consists of a value system that often devalues minority languages. This value system shapes the value orientations and value judgments of those Han students who live and study in minority communities. Unfortunately, except for very few areas, those Han students do not learn and use minority languages because they do not see any material or spiritual values in doing so in the local and national linguistic markets that are dominated by the Chinese state’s ordered multilingualism. 5.5.3   Value Orientations and Linking Minority Languages with Poverty Recently, there is a new development in the value orientation serving the official language ideology of ordered multilingualism. As the slogan from the annual Putonghua Promotion Week that I quote at the beginning of this chapter suggests, Putonghua has long been associated with wealth and prosperity, but the direct connection of minority languages with poverty is a new value orientation that is worth studying. The new value orientation first became official in Yunnan in 2016 when the provincial government promulgated the Plan of the Project to Promote the National Common Language and Script in Order to Alleviate Deep Poverty from the Direct Transitional Minority Communities in Yunnan (Yunan sheng “zhiguo minzu” tuopin gongjian guojia tongyong yuyan wenzi puji tuiguang gongcheng fangan) (Yunnan,

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2016). The direct transitional minorities include Jingpo, Lisu, Derung, Nu, De’ang, Va, Blang, Jino, and Lahu, which are said to have made a direct transition from primitive societies to the socialist society in terms of Marxist social Darwinism. In this plan, the new value orientation assumes that speaking minority languages without Putonghua is the factor that constraints economic and social development in those minority communities. Following this logic, thus, Putonghua should be promoted in those communities to alleviate poverty there. The plan targets explicitly at a population of 667,000 who are below the age of 45 in those nine minority communities and schedules to ensure that they will be able to speak Putonghua by 2020. The plan has four specific steps to outreach to those nine minority communities. The first step is to survey those communities and to identify people who are between 18 and 45 and cannot speak Putonghua, a step that was completed in 2016. The second step is to train teachers in standard Putonghua, who can train community activists and volunteers, who will train the minority farmers in return. This step is currently going on and is expected to be completed by 2020. The third step is to match teachers, students, state employees, and volunteers with minority families that needed help at the individual level and to match universities, government offices, and state companies with specific villages that need help at the institutional level. For this step, the matching was completed, and the collaboration is currently going on. Yunnan’s initiative was reaffirmed by the Central Government in January 2018 when the Ministry of Education, the Office of PovertyAlleviation of the State Council, and the State Language Commission jointly promulgated a plan, known as the Action Plan to Promote Putonghua to Alleviate Deep Poverty (2018–2020) (Tuipu tuopin gongjian xingdong jihua [2018–2020]) (China, 2018). The rationale for this action plan is that to alleviate poverty one must first help poverty-stricken communities’ education and to help their education one must first help them with their ability in the common language, Putonghua. Of its nine measures, the first two have direct impacts on poor minority communities. Measure 1 includes Putonghua training classes all the way down to villages, development of online programs and apps for Putonghua, and certificates and recommendations for priority employment. Measure 2 combines Putonghua training and vocational training with a focus on the former. It takes time to see whether these central and provincial measures will alleviate poverty in minority communities. Even if they do, their impacts

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on minority languages will be significant. Under the ideology of ordered multilingualism, minority languages are already devalued materially. The new value orientation will further devalue minority languages both materially and spiritually. For example, a recent article accused the impoverished population of five problems (Hao, 2018). Their low literacy prevents them from obtaining knowledge and information in an information society. Their low Putonghua proficiency hinders their cultural and economic exchange with the outside world and limits their job opportunities. Their poor (Putonghua) proficiency makes them non-competitive in labor skills and incapable of entering the mainstream economy. Their poor (Putonghua) proficiency leads to their closed-mindedness and lack of self-confidence and self-reliance. Moreover, their poor (Putonghua) proficiency results in their outdated community culture and views. Criticisms like these underpinned by the new value orientations will be detrimental to values of minority languages, not only in the mainstream society but also in minority communities. 5.5.4  Summary In this section, I have investigated three issues regarding value orientations on minority languages. First, distinguishing between objective and subjective ethnolinguistic vitality, I have explored how value orientations and value judgments strengthen or weaken subjective ethnolinguistic vitality and, in return, how the latter affects the maintenance of minority languages. Second, among nationwide diminishing interest in minority languages, I find that the Han students, who live and study in minority communities, make the same balanced value judgments for minority languages as minority students do. They must be motivated by both material and spiritual values in order to learn and use minority languages well. Third, I find the new official value orientation that explicitly associates poverty with minority languages, in addition to the long explicit official connection of Putonghua with wealth and prosperity, disturbing, and I suspect that this value orientation will have a lasting negative impact on minority languages.

5.6  Conclusion Borrowing Bourdieu’s (1977, 1991) conceptual metaphor of linguistic capital, market, habitus, and exchange, I investigate the evaluation of the global super language, English, the national super language, Putonghua, and other varieties of Chinese, and various minority languages, in terms

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of sociolinguistics concepts of linguistic repertoire, domains of use, contexts of use, and communication. The advantage of Bourdieu’s conceptual framework is that it enables me to examine those sociolinguistic issues, in terms of attitudes, values, material and spiritual value orientations, and value judgments or (e)valuation, within the conceptual framework of language ideology and order. Attitudes are the proto-elements that cluster around values, a system of the latter of which underlines an ideology (Feldman, 1988, 2013; Henry & Reyna, 2007). Language attitudes, values, value orientations, and value judgment systematically constitute language ideology. Meanwhile, taking a step beyond simple domains of language use, my proposed levels of linguistic markets organize groups of domains into local, regional, national, and global markets, corresponding to local, regional, national, and global language orders and allowing a glimpse into how domains of language use interact at those levels. In a word, this approach provides more insights into and more perspectives of those sociolinguistic issues examined.

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CHAPTER 6

Reordering Languages Along China’s Borders

To share the same identity and same values, and to speak the same language (Putonghua) for the ultimate unification of the Chinese nation [Zhonghua minzu da tuanjie, tongxin tongde tongyuyan]. —A slogan from the annual national Putonghua Promotion Week (the third week in September since 1998)

6.1  Introduction To discuss the topic of borders that delineate one nation-state from another, I have to return to Smith’s (1986) conceptualization of nation-building as the development of an ideology that promotes cultural, linguistic, and religious integration, and of state-building as the development of institutions that facilitate homogenizing, territorializing, and mobilizing projects in the interest of nation-building. To those goals, state borders are treated geopolitically as the external limits demarcating sovereignty, legally as the boundaries of internal security and the rule of law, economically as the spaces of economic transactions, and nationally as zones defining imagined communities (Jaskoski, Sotomayor, & Trinkunas, 2015). Along with this line of reasoning, China’s extension of its language order to its borders by reordering the local languages there is a measure to secure its borders, particularly its linguistic border as one of several dimensions of the Chinese state’s borders. However, the

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state borders often face two challenges, the local communities and globalization, in China and elsewhere. Borderization is often considered to be a long and unfinished process for the Central Government and border communities in their interactions in making borders (Grimson, 2012). China’s border communities, whether linguistic or ethnic, have taken time to develop a sense of borders, as partitioned historically by the Qing Empire and the Russian, British, and French empires since the eighteenth or nineteenth century and more recently by the PRC and its neighbors since the 1950s, a sense that marks the edge of the nation-state. That sense of borderness depends mainly on the presence of the state at its borders, a presence that is the state’s job to make for better or worse (S. Green, 2012). More recently, globalization has diminished the state’s control of borders and made them porous and rescalable. State borders become porous because flows of capital, information, and so on may not often stop at its borders whether a state deems such a flow desirable or undesirable (Anderson & O’Dowd, 1999). Moreover, state borders may be reconfigured or rescaled through networks in globalization (Rumford, 2006). A significant dimension of these networks is international institutions, such as the UN and the European Union (EU). For example, EU’s laws may have precedence over national legislation on languages in its member countries, significantly decreasing the state’s sovereign control of languages within its borders (Fidrmuc, Ginsburgh, & Weber, 2009). All of these forces interact with China’s language order along its borders, affecting its efforts at reordering languages there according to its blueprint. In this chapter, I will first examine the dynamics of a language order and its patterns as centrifugality and centripetality in shaping a state’s linguistic borders and beyond. Then I will focus on the centrifugality of China’s national language order and examine how it projects Putonghua to and across borders in interaction with local language orders and its neighbors’ language orders. Next, I will study the centripetality of local language orders in border communities and demonstrate how the force functions to the limits of its borders and across its borders in the presence, absence, or failed presence of the state. I will draw a conclusion on the relationship between the Chinese state’s language order and those in the border communities in its nation-state building.

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6.2  The Dynamics of Language Orders in Border Communities As an institutionalized hierarchy of languages, a language order has its dynamics in the interaction among languages within an order as well as the dynamics in the relationship between language orders. The most important dynamics of a language order is its centrifugality and centripetality that interact within and outside it (Zhou, 2014). The centrifugality of a language order, usually the global or national order, is its capability to project its top language to its peripheries, often at the expenses of lower-ranked languages, and beyond its order, sometimes in complement to the top languages of other language orders and other times in place of those top languages (Zhou, 2017). This projection process, known as language spread in sociolinguistics, includes both the form and functions of the top language, the latter of which is of concern here (Cooper, 1982). In this case, language spread expands a communicative network that adopts the top language for a given communicative function or a given number of such functions. Language spread as a language order’s projection of power is a top-down process, where the spread of the top language of the order is accompanied by power, such as the expansion of an empire, religion, colonialism, standardization, and globalization. For example, in antiquity, the expansion of the Roman Empire and the spread of Christianity facilitated the spread of Latin and Greek in the empire covering Europe, Africa, and Asia (Kahane & Kahane, 1988). Religiously, the spread of Islam also brought Arabic to areas of Africa, Asia, and Europe since the religion and the language are believed to be inseparable (Ferguson, 1982). More recently, colonialism and globalization have driven the spread of Spanish to the Americas and English to almost every corner of the world (MarMolinero, 2010; Mufwene, 2010; Spolsky, 2004, pp. 76–91). In modern times, as a type of language spread, language standardization normalizes the spread of the national language or national variety of a language in almost every nation-state (Ferguson, 1988). Language spread from top-down takes places through three major channels in contemporary society. First, the spread of the top language of a language order is carried out through commerce. For example, as the global super language, English has replaced German as the lingua franca in the German business domain, as globalization intensifies since

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the 1990s (Hilgendorf, 2010). English is the super global language that German businesses have adopted to redefine themselves as global businesses instead of just German businesses. English also appears to sell products better than local languages in some contexts. For example, English is taken advantage of in Internet advertising of local products in local markets in East Asia since English is often associated with brand and reputation (J. S. Lee, 2010). Second, the spread of the official or national language is carried out in education that is employed by the state to build a national identity and improve citizenship (Milligan, Moretti, & Oreopoulos, 2004; Smith, 1991, p. 16). Language in the school system is often fully managed by the state (Spolsky, 2009, pp. 90–114). For instance, the language of instruction is intensively exploited by the Chinese state in building an inclusive Chinese nation as I discuss in Chapter 4 and a number of other studies indicate (Hansen, 1999; Leibold & Chen, 2014; Postiglione, 1999; H. B. Yu, 2010; Zhu, 2007). Third, the spread of the national language is facilitated by the administration. In status planning, the official or national language is first of all designated as the medium of communication for state institutions (Cooper, 1989, p. 100; Wright, 2004, p. 43). For instance, when Putonghua was designated as the official language in 1956, employees of state administration and public service were all required to learn and use Putonghua in their workplaces (China, 1996, pp. 11–15). These three channels of topdown language spread share a feature that they are all directly manageable by the state in the representation of the state’s interest. The centripetality of a language order, often a local one, is the loyalty to learn and use a language, within the given order, usually a lower-ranked native language but sometimes a top language, depending on where the loyalty lies. The concept of the loyalty, known as language loyalty, was initially associated with immigrant communities whose members underwent through the process of naturalization or Americanization in the USA and utilized the loyalty as sympathetic companions through this process (Fishman, 1966, pp. 21–33). In this approach, language loyalty is rooted in groupness, ethnicity, and community. More recently, this concept is further used in minority language maintenance, revival, and management in a broader context of ethnicity and nationalism (Baker, 2006, pp. 84–85; Rouillard, 2006; Spolsky, 2009, p. 26). Similarly, the concept of language loyalty will be extended in this chapter to capture the spirit that border communities have in valuing their native languages in the process of China’s borderization.

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The loyalty to learn and use a language in a community is known as language maintenance, in sociolinguistics, which is branched into primary and secondary language maintenance (Fishman, 1988). Primary language maintenance engages institutions, such as the family and community school, while secondary language maintenance involves media, press, church, and other community institutions. Families are the primary institutions where the language is transmitted from one generation to another generation through family language management (Spolsky, 2009, pp. 14–30). The next step is community language schools that always play a significant role in ensuring the continuity of the community’s language and culture in families (X. Y. Wang, 1996; Wiley, Peyton, Christian, More, & Liu, 2014), but such schools are not found in border communities in China where both public and private schools are included in the state system of compulsory education. Beyond primary maintenance, communities and their resources for secondary language maintenance vary broadly, depending on the kind of communities and how communities are defined. For example, Chinese overseas communities may take a good advantage of local Chinese media in language and culture maintenance in almost every corner of the world (Sun, 2009), whereas few of border communities in China have that luxury of any media in their native languages if the state does not provide it (Bai, 1996, pp. 78–109; Bai & Ning, 2008). However, churches and temples serve a function in language and culture maintenance in border communities in China, but that function is only secondary. It exists only in some communities, and its role is limited since the state is atheistic. In borderization in China, the local language order involves the concept of border communities, which may be defined from ecological, social-structural, and symbolic-cultural dimensions as the conceptions of communities go (Hunter, 2008). Ecologically in terms of time and space, these communities are the creations of history that existed long before the formation of the state, while they were included inside or excluded outside the borders when the state negotiated its borders with the powers on the other side in history. Social-structurally, these communities are connected by well-developed individual and institutional networks, such as extended family, patrilineality, matrilineality, local market, and churches, where individuals are bonded through frequent communication with a shared community linguistic repertoire. Symbolicculturally, these communities share an identity of belonging. This identity may be ethnic but is not necessarily ethnic because sometimes

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members of such a community may belong to different ethnic groups, at least officially. This identity is not purely linguistic because members may speak different mother tongues though they share at least one code of wider communication in their community. In spite of all the uncertainties in defining it, such a border community shares a linguistic repertoire, the codes of which are socially ordered in forming the local language order. In summary, the centrifugality of the national language order projects the national language to its border communities and beyond through commerce, education, and administration, while the centripetality of the local language order retains the loyalty to maintain the learning and use of local languages in border communities. The interaction of these two forces appears to have shaped the reordering of languages and the process of borderization in border communities in China.

6.3  Language Order and Its Centrifugality in Border Communities The national language order has its centrifugality to spread its top language to its peripheries and beyond, but the scope and range of the spread depend on how the state uses the channels, such as commerce and education. In this section, I will examine two cases, commerce and education, in order to explore how China reorders languages in its border communities in its borderizing drive. 6.3.1   Language Order and National Markets on Chinese Borders Markets may be local, national, international, and global, the partition of which can be viewed from three types of practices, normalizing, representational, and exchange (Kjellberg & Helgesson, 2007). Of particular interest to our discussion is the exchange practice that engages the agency and products in transactions in a market. A market is national, when its customers are national or when both sellers and buyers are national as far as the agency is concerned. Linguistically, a national market presents its products, negotiates their prices, deliver them, and close the transactions in a language, usually the national language or Putonghua in this case, whereas a local market does these in the local languages.

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A good example of the role of the distinction between local and national markets is found in different language uses in different sections of the same market along the Sino-Vietnamese border. A recent study of Puzhai Border Market in Pingxiang of Guangxi, which has four specialized sections for produce, fruits, rosewood furniture and arts, and Southeast Asian tourist souvenirs, surveyed language resources and use in the produce and rosewood sections (Zhang & Do, 2014). The study reveals that the first language of the retailers in the rosewood section were either Putonghua (15%) or Chinese dialects (85%), while that of the retailers in the produce section were either Chinese dialects (57%) or Vietnamese (43%). Meanwhile, Vietnamese was used more than Chinese dialects in the produce section, whereas in the rosewood section Putonghua was used more than Chinese dialects and Vietnamese. Produce buyers were local, but buyers of rosewood products were national. Transactions in the market were carried out in the buyers’ language. In this way, it appears that national economic development affects China’s borderization linguistically as well. It is indeed the case in Ruili, Yunnan. At the border between China and Myanmar, Ruili is an example of a small frontier town that has been turned into a national and international market of jade and jewelry. The jade trade began in Ruili since China opened its door in the later 1970s, but it was mainly a black market during the 1980s because China did not open its jewelry market (Yang & Li, 2005). After a decade of illegal trading, the local government of Ruili finally decided to open the jade and jewelry market and designated a whole street for it. This onestreet jade and jewelry market officially opened with 84 stores and 136 stands in 1992 and expanded to 450 stores and 240 stands by 2002. From the beginning, sellers here have been local minorities, such as Dai and Jingpo, Han Chinese from the local and other parts of China, and foreigners from Myanmar, Thailand, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. Buyers have been business people from Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taibei, Guangdong, and other parts of China, and more recently tourists from all over China. Today Ruili has five such markets with over 20,000 people directly engaging in jade and jewelry trade. It becomes one of China’s most import port to Southeast Asia with an import and export trade of over three billion dollars and a flow of entry and exit of almost 17 million people in 2014 (Tian, 2017). Nationalization and internationalization of Ruili’s markets brought about population changes too. Of Ruili’s population of 84,436 in 1990, 43% were Han and 57% were Dai

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and Jingpo (China, 1991, pp. 240, 756, and 877). Within ten years, the Han became the majority there. By 2000, about 56% were Han, and 44% were Dai and Jingpo (China, 2003, pp. 631, 931, and 1081). By 2015, the Han increased to 58.6% while the minority population decreased to 41.4% of a total population of 201,872, with about 20,000 registered alien residents, mainly from Myanmar (Huang & Luo, 2018). Given the national and international nature of the jade and jewelry market, Chinese, whether standard or non-standard, become the language of business transactions in Ruili. Minorities and even Myanmarese nationals, who engaged in jade retail business, speak Chinese with their customers. This linguistic development is reinforced when Ruili becomes a hot domestic tourist designation since the 2000s. The pouring of businesspeople and tourists from all over China motivated local minorities and Myanmarese nationals to learn and use Chinese, usually the local version of Putonghua or Southwestern Mandarin (Z. T. Du, 2013). The increase of the Han population expands the use of Chinese far beyond the markets. For example, a village, which is about 11 kilometers from downtown Ruili, is divided into two halves by the Sino-Myanmarese border. The Chinese half, known as Yunjing village, has 306 households with a population of 1306, 91% of which are Dai and 9% are Han and other minorities. A survey of 34 of the 306 households, using stratified sampling, found that most of the villagers were bilingual in Chinese and Dai, and were more positive about Chinese in terms of material value orientation, as shown in Table 6.1 (Y. X. Wang, 2017). Table 6.1 does not show much shift to Chinese among the three generations in the family. This stability means that the villagers maintained rather balanced bilingualism though they were positive about the usefulness of Putonghua. This balance is an ideal situation for both the border community and the state in its borderizing efforts, but it is not sure how much longer this will hold for the younger generations. I will first have a look at the impact of China’s borderization for the local Myanmarese residents, which shows a strong presence of the Chinese state. Ruili’s Alien Service and Management Center, consisting of staff from the Public Security, Public Welfare, Border and Health Inspections, and Public Health and Family Planning, provides one-stop service to over 20,000 foreign nationals working and living in this border town. For example, starting in 2006, the Public Health and Family section has a transnational marriage certification program that ensures legal border-crossing and transnational marriages so that foreign spouses may be

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Table 6.1  Languages in Yunjing Village, Ruili, Yunnan Categories

Dai

Chinese dialect*

Putonghua

Listening* Speaking* Reading Writing* With parents With spouse and siblings With children At local markets At local government Usefulness

34 34 20 18 30 32 15 23 13 16

31 31 29 26 2 6 3 20 16 27

31 29 29 26 0 3 1 5 8 33

*N = 34; More than 34  = multiple choices/codes; Local Chinese dialect = Southwestern Mandarin; Basic proficiency in listening, speaking, reading and writing Source Y. X. Wang (2017)

naturalized as Chinese citizens and their children may enjoy civil rights and obligations in China. It certified 2331 transnational marriages in Ruili by 2014, but more marriages were waiting to be certified for the lack of proper paperwork (Tian, 2017). In these transnational marriages, Myanmarese nationals, usually women who stayed home or engage in agriculture, spoke very little Chinese, but those who did small business in rural areas understood and spoke Chinese better, and those who lived in urban areas and engaged in small business and business related to tourism understood and spoke Chinese well. Offices of local government sometimes provide Chinese and trade training classes to these Myanmarese women to help them settle down in Ruili smoothly. Some branch offices of the Center invited foreign nationals as volunteers to participate in their outreach to foreign nationals residing in their jurisdiction (Wu & Wang, 2012). Teams of officials and volunteers visited foreign residents regularly, checked out their paperwork, helped them register their residence, and informed them of important Chinese laws and regulations. In addition to the maintenance of local security, they helped the foreign residents enroll their children in local schools and settle their labor disputes, winning their collaboration in alien management. In the same mode, Ruili Administration of Industry and Commerce invited a Myanmarese businessman to serve as their volunteer inspector. This individual, who had been doing jade business in Ruili since 1990 and was the chairman of the local Myanmarese Jade and

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Jewelry Business Association, joined the Chinese inspectors in their outreach to Myanmarese businesses in Ruili, promoting Chinese laws and regulations on business. Sometimes, he also did the job of an inspector alone, translating Chinese laws and regulations for Myanmarese business people and confiscating fake goods on behalf of Ruili Administration of Industry and Commerce. Unfortunately, I did not go to visit Ruili when I was doing fieldwork in Mangshi, about 100 kilometers away, in the early 2000s. Fortunately, I did visit a border market at Ban Gioc-Detian Falls on the SinoVietnamese border in 2013. The two waterfalls, knowns as thác Bán Gióc on the Vietnamese side and Detian Pubu on the Chinese side of the Quáy Son or Guichun River, become a hot tourist designation since the 2000s. Thus, the bustling market of a few hundred retailing stands right on the borderline, about half on the Chinese side and the other half on the Vietnamese side, is national and international since its customers are mostly national and even international. I randomly spoke Putonghua to a few dozens of retailing stands on both sides of the border and found no problems among the sellers in understanding my questions and answering them in Putonghua too, though not often standard. The falls and the market are well managed on the Chinese side, entrance tickets to which are sold as a major source of revenue for the local government. Apparently, the tourist industry becomes a catalyst in China’s borderization of this border community where Putonghua is spoken by the local people engaged in tourism. In short, a national market facilitates the use of the national language within it and beyond it in its surrounding neighborhood. National markets become the focus of state management, which brings a stronger presence of the Chinese state in border communities, as in the case of Ruili shows. 6.3.2   Language Order and Education Along Chinese Borders Western scholars have generally accepted that education played a historical role in the process of nation-state building, but challenged this role in contemporary Western societies (A. Green, 1997; Kennedy, 1997). However, I have argued in Chapter 4 that China is currently (re) building an inclusive Chinese nation utilizing education, an education through Chinese as the medium of instruction, though the state formation is considered completed. Actually, China’s education system, from

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the primary to the higher, has never stopped from constructing minority students’ identification with the state and larger Chinese society, though it does not necessarily suppress their ethnic identities (Hansen, 1999; M. B. Lee, 2001; H. B. Yu, 2010; Zhao, 2010; Zhu, 2007). In China’s borderization, compulsory education is an extensive measure that partitions a border community linguistically and psychologically. Education that is carried out in the medium of the national language or Putonghua reorders languages in border communities and enforces the state’s linguistic citizenship requirement (Zhou, 2016). It is also utilized to teach the youngsters who they are and what community they belong to in order to align and realign their identities with the Chinese nation and the Chinese state in border communities. Ruili is also an illustrating example in China’s borderization, where compulsory education has two specific functions, partitioning the linguistic border and constructing a Chinese identity. Officially, Yunnan (Chapter 9, Item 27, 2010) respects and guarantees minorities’ rights in receiving an education in their native languages and builds a bilingual education system that is appropriate for multilingual and multiethnic Yunnan. Elementary schools in this system are supposed to use Putonghua as the primary medium of instruction and local minority languages as supplementary media from the first grade on and teach local minority languages as a subject from the third grade on for one to two hours a week. However, in practice, this system only ensures that minority students receive an education in Chinese from the first grade on while neglecting minority languages in most cases. For example, out of Ruili’s 91 schools, only 23 taught Dai in 2012 (Huang, 2017). Even for those schools that taught Dai, there existed three problems (Ni et al. 2017). First, there was no guarantee that the Dai language received the class hours scheduled. The scheduled Dai classes were often squeezed by math and Chinese classes when there is a need. Second, there was a lack of trained Dai language teachers. Most Dai language teachers were neither trained as teachers of their mother tongue nor assigned as specialized teachers of Dai, but simply shouldered some extra workloads since they happened to be Dai speakers. Third, there was a lack of minority language textbooks and reading materials. These problems root genuinely in the schools’ and parents’ attitudes toward Dai. Schools did not invest in hiring Dai language teachers, waiting for the current Dai teachers to retire without active recruitment for a replacement. They also created a campus unfriendly

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to minority languages, with slogans such as “Please speak Putonghua” and “I speak Putonghua because I am a Chinese child” posted on every wall in classrooms and on the corridors. Parents usually did not want schools to teach Dai either, worrying about their children’s academic achievements and heavy workloads, because their children had to be academically competitive to move up to better schools. Some of them told teachers that they could do it at home. Thus, eventually, the school system moves on with an education in Chinese, effectively delegating the education of minority languages to the family. On the other hand, there is a competition in education between the two sides of the border in winning the heart and soul of young children in China’s borderization. According to Yunnan’s (Chapter 9, Item 28, 2010) plan for educational development (2010–2020), elementary schools in border communities have the priority for state investments in school hardware, students’ financial aids, quality improvements, and teacher benefits so that these schools become attractive to students on the other side of the border as well. Encouraged by this policy, Yunnan enrolled over 10,000 students from the other side of the border in 2017, 81% of which were from Myanmar, 17% from Laos, and two percent from Vietnam, despite difficulties in local schools (You & Zhang, 2018). Schools in border communities in Ruili seem to be successful in this endeavor. For instance, Yinjing Elementary School in Ruili’s Yinjing village had an enrollment of 69 Myanmarese students out of a total enrollment of 159 students in 2016 (Huang & Liao, 2017). These Myanmarese students, who enrolled in the same classes with Chinese students, received the same Chinese language education and Chinese patriotic lessons in moral education. They also participated in class meetings on legal and border education and, more interestingly, in raising the Chinese national flag and singing the Chinese national anthem along with their Chinese classmates every morning. These Myanmarese students crossed the border for a Chinese education from Monday to Friday for four reasons. First, they lived in the same village or close to the school. Second, they received a better and free education compared to that in their local Myanmarese schools. Third, they would find better jobs and receive better pay when they begin to work after elementary or middle school because they can speak and read Chinese. Fourth, they felt that they received fair treatment from their school, teachers, and classmates. Thus, these students and their parents selected a Chinese education when they had a choice.

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Thus, a free and quality compulsory education in Chinese served both Dai and Myanmarese children, successfully spreading Putonghua to the younger generations in Ruili’s border community and beyond. The Chinese state has successfully made a strong presence in the local border community through its control of the curricula, language of instruction, campus culture, and enrollment policies. 6.3.3  Summary As the centrifugality of the national language order works, Putonghua spreads to border communities mainly through commerce and education, both of which effectively reorder languages in the local language order and change local language ideology to the material value orientation. Putonghua spread through commerce is underlined by a closer connection made between the economy in border communities and that in the national community. Putonghua serves that connection as the language of exchange in jade, jewelry, rosewood, and national tourist markets in border communities. On the other hand, compulsory education in Chinese plays a significant role in consolidating the Chinese identity and Chinese linguistic border in China’s borderization where it also reorders, with Putonghua on the top, languages in the local language order in border communities. It even spreads Putonghua beyond the border along with a Chinese identity when it attracts students from the other side of the border. In China’s borderization, the Ruili case suggests that the presence of the state in border communities is more than its border control stations and police stations. The Chinese state makes a strong presence in the border communities when it ensures a robust economic development and a quality education there. That appears to be the role of administration in the spread of Putonghua in addition to its service conducted in Putonghua in border communities.

6.4  Language Order and Its Centripetality in Border Communities As the loyalty to learn and use the language or languages of the community, the centripetality of the local language order is assumed to work through groupness, ethnicity, and community in a border community as it does in an immigrant community (Fishman, 1966, pp. 21–33). Local

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languages are also supposed to be maintained through primary and secondary channels in a border community as minority languages are in an immigrant community (Fishman, 1988). Primary language maintenance is usually carried out in institutions, such as the family and community school, that ensure the intergenerational transmission of the language of the community, while secondary language maintenance is done through institutions, such as media, press, and church, that reinforce the language after its intergenerational transmission. In this section, I will explore how primary and secondary language maintenance is accomplished in border communities in China’s borderization. 6.4.1   Language Order and Primary Maintenance in Border Communities As the institution of the primary language maintenance, the family is where the battle among languages is fought for their ranks in the local language order, and languages are managed for that purpose as well (Calvet, 1998, pp. 67–75; Spolsky, 2009, pp. 14–32). Specifically, subjective ethnolinguistic vitality is found to be a significant determinant of family language management that decides to feed or withhold the input of a language to their children (Evans, 1996). All these studies are built on the assumption that or in the context where the family already has a linguistic repertoire of multiple languages. The battle may begin during the courtships and marriage arrangements before a nuclear family is formed in border communities in China. Thus, how marriage is made has consequences on the intergenerational language transmission in the family and the community in the context of China’s borderization because courtships and marriages involve social networks that are essential in intergenerational language transmission in the family and the community (Li, 1993). Transnational or cross-border marriages are common in border communities in Guangxi and Yunnan, but few of these marriages are legal even if they are voluntary, not involving human trafficking. In Yunnan, for example, of Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture’s 3300 known transnational marriages, astonishingly only 15 were legal in 2014 (Wenshan, 2014). This situation is the result of the border residents’ little knowledge of the state’s marriage law and the difficulties in obtaining the proper paperwork required by the Chinese government. Cross-border courtships and marriages have been in these communities

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before there was a border. A marriage is recognized in the community when the rituals of the wedding are performed. Many couples missed the opportunity to get the certificate long before they are required to produce it. Moreover, the states on both sides of the border, particularly along the Sino-Vietnamese border, make it difficult, if not impossible, to obtain the proper paperwork for a legal marriage across the border for geopolitical reasons (Barabantseva, 2015). For instance, when certifying their marriage, the Chinese government requires a transnational couple to produce their passports or the equivalent, resident identification cards, county-level government’s certifications of their unmarried status and authorizations for them to be married, and health documents from county-designated hospitals. On the other hand, the Vietnamese government often refuses to certify a woman’s unmarried status and to authorize her marriage with a Chinese citizen and even terminates the woman’s Vietnamese citizenship if she goes on with the marriage and stays in China for three or more months (Wu & He, 2015). In sharp contrast, the situation is better in border communities along the Sino-Myanmarese border. For instance, there were 34 legal marriages out of a total of 210 marriages in Huyu township in Ruili and 188 legal marriages out of a total of 207 in Daluo township of Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in 2015 (Zhao & Yang, 2016). There is no doubt that geopolitics in the borderization on either side of the border makes life more difficult for some border communities than others. Legal or illegal, transnational marriages in border communities continue when the chemistry is right given ample opportunities of communication and contact through family and community social networks, in which local languages are used as the media instead of the national language of either side of the border. Family social networks, both matrilineal and patrilineal, involve gatherings, such as relatives’ weddings, funerals, and birthdays, where courtships may be initiated between unmarried people among visitors from the other side of the border and locals in the host village. Community social networks provide opportunities too, such as seasonal farm work and ethnic festivals, where unmarried people from both sides of the border may start a relationship leading to transnational marriages. These activities through both family and community social networks are often ethnically exclusive because they are conducted in the mother tongues of the family members and community members and the context of their native cultures.

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This type of practices is reflected in the patterns of marriages in multiethnic border communities. For instance, of the three natural villages, P, C, and N, in a radius of 15–20-minute walk in Jinping County of Yunnan, the Yi group live in the former village while the Yao group live in the latter two villages (Tian & Yang, 2009). The Yao villagers do not marry the Yi villagers who speak a different language and have a different culture and some historical conflicts. Instead, the Yao villagers marry Yao women from the Yao communities two-hour-walk away across the Sino-Vietnamese border. In addition to their shared language and culture, there are family and community social networks between the two Yao communities across the border, but there is no such social network between the Yao and Yi communities next to each other on the same side of the border. Even in multiethnic D village also in Jinping County where the Yi, Yao, and Hani live, marriages are found between the same ethnic groups across the Sino-Vietnamese border, instead of across the ethnic boundaries in the same village. For example, a Hani young man marries a Hani woman from the Vietnamese side of the border instead of a Yi woman or Yao woman in the same village. These transnational marriages among the same ethnic group facilitated by family and community social networks ensure a healthy intergenerational transmission of the language of the ethnic group, whether it is Yao, Yi, Hani, or Miao. This situation suggests that primary language maintenance works well in these border communities in retaining the existing local language order where the local language is predominantly used against the spread of Putonghua. Meanwhile, in China’s borderization, the state’s policies and strategies are not always favorable for its efforts at reordering languages for the consolidation of its linguistic border and Chinese national identity in border communities. For example, Laoliuzhai village in Hekou County of Yunnan, which stands in the middle of the historical Miao/Hmong migration corridor across the Sino-Vietnamese border, has seen marriages and migration to the Hmong community on the Vietnamese side of the border between 1949 and 1998, but only marriages and migration to the Miao community on the Chinese side of the border since 1999 (Li & Zhu, 2013). Between 1999 and 2011, 42 Vietnamese Hmong women married to the Miao community around Laoliuzhai village. China’s policies and political movements, such as the collectivization in the 1950s and 1960s, the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, and the family planning policy in the 1980s and 1990s, channeled the marriages and migration to the Vietnamese side of the border. Only since

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the late 1990s does China’s action plan to revive border communities and enrich border residents (xingbian fumin xingdong) begin to reroute the marriages and migration to the Chinese side of the border. China’s conflicting policies and strategies with opposite effects are not uncommon in its borderization. The large number of undocumented transnational marriages and the even larger number of the subsequent undocumented children of these marriages are the recent products of China’s marriage law, citizenship regime, and regulations for transnational marriage. In these undocumented marriages, the Myanmarese and Vietnamese women cannot integrate into the mainstream Chinese society because they are undocumented, with neither Chinese citizenship nor their original countries’ citizenship. Without legal protection, they do not have social security, welfare, and health insurance. Without identification cards, they cannot go out for work or even a visit beyond their local communities, where they become encaged, worrying about possible deportation and separation from their families by the Chinese government at any time. They may not understand Chinese identity, Vietnamese identity, or Myanmarese identity, but they know which government treats them better. It is difficult for them to learn Chinese and to identify with China even if they wish to, given their illegal status (Li & Long, 2008). At the same time, their children, particularly those from their previous marriages, are discriminated by other children in the community and by the larger society. Those children who do not have Chinese citizenship and are not registered in the household registration system cannot formally enroll in schools for compulsory education and cannot move up for high school and college education. Their status is not only inferior to children with Chinese citizenship, but also to those with foreign citizenship from the other side of the border whom Chinese schools in border communities recruit actively. Their motivation to learn Chinese and to identify with China is minimal since they are discriminated against by the state policies. Local governments are not able to resolve the problem with the current national legal framework, while the Central Government is either indifferent to the problem or does not see the scope of the problem and its consequence. For example, representatives of the CPPCC of Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan, made two proposals in 2011 and 2014, respectively (Wenshan, 2011, 2014). The proposals suggested simplification of the procedure for transnational marriage certification, recognition of transnational marriages of

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five or more years with neither party involved in crimes, grant of permanent residency and citizen privileges to foreign spouses if their citizenship problem cannot be resolved immediately, grant of Chinese citizenship to their children, and commissioning of a third-party agency to obtain required paperwork for foreign spouses from their native countries and covering of the cost for it. Most of the proposed actions were beyond the jurisdiction of the local government so that it reported these proposals to the Ministry of Civil Affairs for approval, but never received it. There is no solution to the problem in sight, while more and more transnational marriages are now taking place in border communities along China’s Southwest borders. This situation may favor primary language maintenance in these border communities because the undocumented spouses and their children limit their social networks within their families and border communities where their mother tongues are predominantly used. However, primary language maintenance carries on in this way at the expenses of the violation of the undocumented spouses’ and their children’s human rights. They do not want to pay this price so that they do not need to learn and speak Chinese. In short, though unlike immigrant communities where community schools play a significant role, primary language maintenance is still healthy in many of China’s border communities where family and community social networks facilitate courtships and marriages within the same ethnic communities and safeguard the intergenerational transmission of the family language. This type of family practices contributes to the maintenance of the local language order in its interaction with the national language order. In China’s borderization, those family and community social networks appear to be much stronger than border residents’ ties with the state on either side of the border, so that the state borderline is no barrier to their courtships and marriages though it often inflicts a painful cost those families. 6.4.2   Language Order and Secondary Maintenance in Border Communities Secondary language maintenance depends on a community’s institutions, such as media, press, church, and workplace, where the language of the community is reinforced after its intergenerational transmission is completed in the family (Fishman, 1988). These institutions are where

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language conflicts, spread, and maintenance are always managed by the state, community, and religion (Spolsky, 2009, pp. 31–89). In this section, I will examine how media, church/temple, and workplace maintain the language of the community in the face of the spread of Putonghua in China’s borderizing process. Very few border communities in China have any media in their native languages (Bai, 1996, pp. 78–109; Bai & Ning, 2008). Even if there are some television and radio programs in minority languages there, those local stations’ broadcasting signals are often too weak to reach border communities, while programs in Chinese are accessible through satellite dishes, but many residents in border communities do not understand Chinese well (China, 2010). At the same time, programming in minority languages from the other side of the border is accessible in China’s border communities. For example, Fangchuan village in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture can receive over 40 foreign channels, while some areas in Tibet can watch over 70 foreign channels, of which more than 20 are in Tibetan (F. J. Yu, 2014). The foreign channels, particularly the Vietnamese ones, are accused of strengthening their broadcasting signals intentionally to reach minority residents in China’s border communities to shape their public opinion. A survey of 254 people in Longle village of Dehou township in Wenshan and Daluo village of Daluo township in Xishuangbanna found that a third of the sample watched foreign television programs in the last few years (Wang & Wang, 2016). These foreign programs may change the viewers’ attitudes toward China and foreign countries. For instance, those Dai people who often watched television programs from Thailand admired life in Thailand. Young viewers of Thai programs wanted to migrate or immigrate to work and live in Thailand, whereas older viewers whose children were working in Thailand wanted to go there and live with their children. It is natural that minority residents in border communities wanted to improve their cultural life when their material life is stable. If the Chinese state does not do enough to meet the needs of transnational minority groups in their native languages, the cultural life of their fellow groups on the other side of the border would naturally spill over the border. How China responded to this problem illustrates its mentality in its approach to borderization. For example, a proposal made at the CPPCC held in Beijing suggests that, in order for minority residents to accept the mainstream ideology and value orientation, China should increase the power of its broadcasting stations so that Chinese television

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programs can reach border communities, strengthen the promotion of Chinese in border communities so that the residents will understand Chinese programs, and guarantee some programs in minority languages (China, 2010). This proposal fully reflects China’s ordered multilingualism and construction of an inclusive Chinese nation. Unfortunately, it appears that its approach is sometimes still based on its Cold War mentality as seen from a proposal made at the annual meeting of the local people’s congress and CPPCC in Wenshan, Yunnan (Wenshan, 2015). The majority of the residents in 771 villages along the 75 kilometers of the Sino-Vietnamese border in Funing County of Wenshan are Zhuang, Yao, and Miao who often listened to radio programs and watched television programs in the local languages from Vietnam. Some of these listeners and viewers developed a favorable attitude toward Vietnam. Thus, it was proposed to build a radio and television wall of fiber networks, free television sets and radios, and village broadcasting stations along the border, like China’s great firewall, in order to fight the cultural and ideological infiltration carried out in the local languages across the border. Regarding the infiltration in the local languages, the Internet and social media are considered more harmful by China because IT broadens the border community to the whole minority community. For instance, a study of college students’ Internet use in Xinjiang found that Kirgiz Chinese college students often visited Websites in Kirgizstan to learn about their own ethnicity, culture, and language (Xie & Hou, 2011). They had some difficulty in reading the version of Kirgiz on those Web sites, which was written from left to right, instead of right to left, but soon found a converter on the Internet for easy reading. These Web sites not only help Kirgiz Chinese students at Chinese universities learn and read the Kirgiz language but also facilitated their identification with Kirgizstan more than with China. However, it becomes more challenging for minority students to access transnational Web sites in their native languages since Google was kicked out of China in 2010. More threatening to China, as the state perceives, is social media that are accessible to any individual with a cell phone and circumvent the government-controlled mainstream media to shape public opinion. For example, the 14th Dalai Lama used to be on the other side of the Himalaya or in the West, but with social media, his Holiness is present in front of any cell phone holder. Studies found that the Dalai Lama’s public image in social media in Tibetan and Western languages was always positive as a spiritual leader and a pacifist, but negative as a

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liar and traitor in social media in Chinese (Liu, 2017; Ouyang, Diga, & Liu, 2015; Wei, 2016). It was also found that Tibetan monks preferred social media more than the mainstream state media for trust and linguistic reasons in Tibetan communities in China. The most important reason was that the mainstream state media, particularly radio programs, were considered “big mouth liars” and not reporting anything about real life in Tibetan communities. Whether they were in Chinese or Tibetan was not the first reason that the surveyed Tibetan monks chose some media over others, but the language was the most crucial factor that determined which media to trust. They trusted media in Tibetan much more than those in Chinese. Understanding of the monks’ choice of media and language helps to shed light on how Tibetans take advantage of social media in Tibetan to form a transnational Tibetan community online where they practice Tibetan ethnicity beyond border communities (Grant, 2017). For this reason, the Chinese state immediately cuts Internet connections to Tibetan communities whenever something unfavorable to the state happened there in the last ten years. Religions also serve as essential institutions in secondary language maintenance in China’s border communities, where Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam are practiced in addition to shamanism and other indigenous religions. Locally, religions are managed by the department of ethnic and religious fairs of county and prefecture governments, but the bureaucratic offices of an atheist state never fully understand and meet the needs of religious life in border communities. Thus, minority residents in border communities often take their own initiatives across the border to meet their spiritual needs. For instance, the Dai group is Theravada Buddhists who have Buddhism at the center of their culture and everyday life (McCarthy, 2009, pp. 70–99). Buddhist temples in the Dai community not only serve residents’ spiritual needs but also function as the preserver and transmitter of the Dai culture and language. In this sense, temples used to serve as community schools where schoolaged Dai boys learn Buddhism and practice reading and writing in Dai as monks. However, economic development and state compulsory education have gradually discontinued most Dai families’ practice of sending their boys to temples since the 1990s. By early 2000, some temples began to experience a shortage of monks and had to recruit monks across the border from Myanmar, which is illegal according to Yunnan’s regulations on religious visits by members of foreign temples/churches. For instance, Menglong township of Jinghong municipality in Xishuangbanna started

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the recruitment in 2001 and had 315 Myanmarese monks by 2012 (Zhang & Gao, 2016). To contribute to merit-making in their spiritual life, some Dai families took the custodian of illegal Myanmarese monks, helping them settle down in local temples, build local social networks, and avoid deportation by the Chinese government. With the supply of monks from the other side of the border, local Buddhist temples are able to continue to serve the spiritual and cultural needs of Dais in border communities while contributing significantly to the maintenance of Dai, particularly written Dai, in the community. On the other hand, Christianity plays a contradictory role in border communities, where it facilitates the maintenance of local languages but may do as much harm to the indigenous cultures as the Chinese state does. When I was doing fieldwork in the Lahu community in Lancang County in Yunnan in 2007, I did not hear a word nor saw a script of Lahu in the public elementary school in Banli village during my visit. On the other hand, I saw Lahu written on the blackboard, wall-posters, and notebooks and heard Lahu conversations and songs in the Christian clergy training class about a 15-minute walk away, where American missionary Harold Young preached with a Bible translated into Lahu a century ago (Zhou, 2003, pp. 323–325). The local church became the sole institution to maintain Lahu outside the family in the village. A similar situation is found in the Lisu community in Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan, where churches serve as the only institutions that promote the use of both oral and written Lisu. While the Lahu community was training its local clergymen, the Lisu community mainly relies on those from the Myanmarese side of the border (Li & Chen, 2015). As church practice, hymnody and choral singing in Lisu not only become essential in church gatherings but often represents the Lisu culture as China’s multicultural face to the outside world, though gospel singing is spread from the other side of the border (Diao, 2015; Zhou, 2016). At the same time, except the local language, the church treats indigenous cultural practices as uncivilized in a way similar to the Chinese state’s approach to minority cultures in border communities. When Christianized Lisu villagers become dominant in a village, they do not allow non-Christian Lisu villagers to sing indigenous songs and tell indigenous folk stories, creating a division in the Lisu community (Yang, 2013). However, Christian churches do play an essential role in maintaining local languages, though it does not often do so for local cultures, which it attempts to Christianize.

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Workplaces are crucial institutions for secondary language maintenance in border communities, where labor exchange and labor-for-hire are common. Labor exchange is traditional, whereas labor-for-hire is a recent phenomenon. Labor exchange is carried out mostly through family social networks so that the language used at the worksite is always the language of the family. For example, the Miao people in Guowan village of Maguan County in Yunnan often exchanged labor with the Hmong people on the Vietnamese side of the border via family social networks (X. M. Du, 2015). When a family built a house, the wife’s brothers and other relatives came across the border to join the construction work. When the wife’s brothers had a crop ripen, the husband and his relatives went across the border to help with the harvest. Continuing an old tradition, this type of labor exchange strengthens family ties and the family language at the worksites on both sides of the border. More recently, particularly since the early 2000s, labor-for-hire becomes more common since China’s economic development began to speed up along the borders with Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam. Cash crops, such as bananas, pineapples, and rubber trees, need intensive labor, know-how, and investment, the growing of which usually involve community networks beyond the family ones. There has been a lack of labor and farmable land on the Chinese side of the border, while a shortage of the know-how and investment has been lingering on the other side of the border. To overcome the problems, collaborations often take place in border communities across the borders. A good example is found between the collaboration between Pingba village in Hekou County in Yunnan and Gufeng village in Vietnam, where the villagers are Miao/Hmong (Y. P. Wang, 2015). With connections to inland fruit markets, the Miao villagers in Pingba began to plan bananas and pineapples since the early 1990s, when they also hired Hmong farmhands, through family social networks, from Gufeng village for intensive planning and harvesting. With decreasing arable land, some villagers in Pingba, who accumulated sufficient funding and know-how, began to collaborate with Hmong villagers in Gufeng, who used their land and labor as their portion of the investment in joint ventures, in the early 2000s. The Miao villagers were in charge of funding, know-how, and the market for the cash crops, while the Hmong villagers took care of the farming daily. This kind of collaboration existed only between the Miao/Hmong communities across the border. The villagers explicitly stated that they did not understand the languages and cultures of other

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ethnic communities on the other side of the border and did not trust them for such a business relationship. Amazingly and unprecedentedly, the administrations of the two villages signed a transnational agreement, though its legality is questionable. This agreement reads: (1) Protect border marks and don’t do anything to change the border river’s direction of flow; (2) Don’t assist anyone involving in drugs, human trafficking, and any other things prohibited by Vietnam and China; (3) Educate border residents on both sides to consolidate our friendship and avoid quarrels and fights; (4) Go to console or pay sympathy when someone becomes sick or dies and help each other in economic development and village prosperity; (5) Protect the ecology, prevent natural disasters, protect wild animals and plans, and maintain and develop ethnic traditions; and (6) Continue to develop our long harmonious kinship and clanship relations and work together for peace, friendship, and permanent development (Y. P. Wang, 2015, p. 67). This agreement worked in lessening the villagers’ chances of being arrested or harassed by state border patrols on both sides of the border and increased their transnational collaboration in the labor division. The local language bridges labor exchange and labor-for-hire through family social networks and labor division via community social networks across the border while these working relations ensure secondary language maintenance at work in border communities. 6.4.3  Summary In China’s border communities, media, religions, and workplaces are still functional as the institutions for secondary language maintenance. From family social networks to IT, these institutions work across borders to maintain local languages, cultures, and ethnicities as the border communities negotiate with the Chinese state for their spiritual, cultural, linguistic, and economic lives in China’s borderization. Regardless of ethnicity, residents know the existence of the border but resist the border as a wall in their lives in their families and ethnic communities. The porous border appears to be favorable to secondary language maintenance in China’s border communities.

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6.5  Conclusion The promotion of Putonghua to its border communities and beyond is the linguistic dimension of China’s borderization. As the centrifugality of the national language order, the spread of Putonghua to border communities is mainly carried out via commerce and education. The Chinese state’s strong presence in its border communities is not the establishment of state institutions, such as border patrol stations or industry and business inspection stations, but its economic policies that ensure the nationalization and internationalization of the local markets and its education policies that provide quality education to local children. Successful spread of Putonghua effectively reorders languages in border communities, where Putonghua becomes dominant in commerce, education, and other domains. Borderization is an interactive process between the state and the border community in multiple dimensions. The linguistic interaction is the dynamic relationship between the local language order’s centripetality and the national language order’s centrifugality. As the centripetality, the loyalty to maintain and use of the local languages depends on the strength and intensiveness of individual, family, and community social networks within an ethnic community on one side of the border and across the border. These social networks build families as the institution for primary language maintenance and consolidate media, churches/temples, and workplaces as the institutions for secondary language maintenance. These institutions in border communities pose serious challenges to the state in its efforts to accommodate them in the state-desired language order in borderization.

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204  M. ZHOU Wang, Y. X. (2017). Language life of “two countries in one village”: A survey of language use and language attitude among Yunjing villagers of Ruili City in Yunnan Province. Journal of Shaanxi Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), 46(4), 147–160. Wang, Y., & Wang, G. N. (2016). Infiltration of transnational media and information in China’s border ethnic communities: A survey of Longle, Daluo and other villages in Yunnan [Bianjiang minzu diqu de jingwai meiti chuanbo yu xinxi shentou – jiyu Yunnan sheng Longle cun, Daluo cun deng diaocha]. News Tribune [Xinwen luntan], 6, 52–55.Wei, M. (2016). The 14th Dalai Lama’s image on Western and Chinese social media. Journalism and Mass Communication, 6(7), 397–408. Wenshan. (2011). Proposal on a better job on transnational marriage management for border residents in our prefecture (No. 99) [Guanyu zuohao wozhou bianmin kuajing tonghun fuwu guanli gongzuo de jianyi (99 hao)]. Retrieved from http://www.ynws.gov.cn/info/1303/90504.htm. Wenshan. (2014). Proposal on strengthening the management of transnational marriages in border communities along the Sino-Vietnamese border (No. 211) [Guanyu jiaqiang dui zhongyue bianjing diqu shewai hunyin guanli de jianyi (221hao)]. Retrieved from http://www.ynws.gov.cn/ info/1303/131305.htm. Wenshan. (2015). Proposal to build a radio and television wall in border communities in Funing County (No. 52) [Guanyu goujian Funing xian bianjing guangbo dianshi qiang de jianyi (52 hao)]. Retrieved from http://www.ynws. gov.cn/info/1303/137172.htm. Wiley, T. G., Peyton, J. K., Christian, D., More, S. C. K., & Liu, N. (2014). Handbook of heritage, community, and native American languages in the United States: Research, policy, and education. New York and Washington, DC: Routledge and Center for Applied Linguistics. Wright, S. (2004). Language policy and language planning: From nationalism to globalization. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Wu, H. L., & Wang, Y. L. (2012). New development in Ruili, Yunnan: A Myanmarese “Chinese official” [Yunnan Ruili xinxian shi: Miandianren “Zhongguo guan”]. Contemporary Highlights [Shidai fengcai], 20, 20–21. Wu, X. Z., & He, G. H. (2015). A study of cross-border ethnic marriage among inhabitants of Sino-Vietnamese border—Taking Jinping and Hekou counties as examples. Journal of Baise University, 28(3), 93–97. Xie, Q. F., & Hou, R. H. (2011). On utilizing outside internet media in the education of cross-border minority nationality university students—A case study of Kirgiz university students of Tarim University. Journal of Huaihua University, 30(12), 92–94. Yang, J. H. (2013). Religious belief and oral cultural transmission of the cross-border ethnic groups—A case study of Lisu people in Yunnan. Journal of Baoshan University, 1, 1–7.

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CHAPTER 7

Promoting Chinese Across Borders

To strengthen language and culture planning in order to enhance China’s cultural soft power [Jiaqiong yuyan wenhua jianshe – tisheng guojia wenhua ruanshili]. —A slogan from the annual national Putonghua Promotion Week (the third week in September since 1998)

7.1  Introduction In the “One World,” which is currently envisioned as “a community of shared future for humankind” (rennei mingyun gongtongti) (Xi, 2017), the Chinese language and culture are supposed to play a significant role in developing a Chinese linguistic and cultural hegemony in order to create a harmonious world, as imperial China tried to in Central Asia during the Han and Tang dynasties (206 BCE–907 CE) and the Sino-sphere since the Tang dynasty (Ding & Saunders, 2006; Fraleigh, 2016; Li & Wong, 2018; Wood, 2002, pp. 75–110). Current Chinese outreach, as the global promotion of the Chinese language, is carried out via the Confucius Institutes (CIs) and Confucius Classrooms (CCs) coordinated by Hanban (Office of Chinese Language Council International). Modeled after the British Council, Goethe Institute, Alliances of Françaises, and Instituto Cervantes, CIs and CCs are established to teach Chinese language and culture to non-Chinese speakers in foreign countries on every continent. This Chinese approach to the development of the harmonious “One World” has met a lot of criticisms and suspicions © The Author(s) 2019 M. Zhou, Language Ideology and Order in Rising China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3483-2_7

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though there is some favorable media coverage (Metzgar & Su, 2017). For instance, the criticisms of CIs and CCs include, but are not limited to, “Chinese government propaganda,” “Chinese government agency,” “promoting soft power,” “threatening academic freedom,” and “funded by the Chinese government” in the USA (Redden, 2012, 2014a). On the other hand, the British Council, Goethe Institute, Alliances of Françaises, and Instituto Cervantes are all agencies that are funded wholly or partially by their respective governments and carry out missions to promote their languages and cultures and to convey a comprehensive image of their respective countries to the world, but they seem to be welcomed everywhere. Why are those foreign agencies not criticized? Why are those agencies not accused of doing government propaganda, promoting soft power, and threatening academic freedom? Why are China’s CIs singled out for these accusations? In this chapter, I will examine these questions, with the conceptual framework of language ideology and order, in relation to rising China and its conception of the harmonious “One World.” First, I will analyze China’s global promotion of Chinese in terms of cross-border or transnational language planning, a mechanism that can materialize a language ideology as a language order. In my analysis, transnational language planning involves two levels, the surface level for the spread of language and culture and the deep level for the learners’ identification with the community of the spreading language and culture (Zhou, 2011b, 2017b). Second, I will scrutinize the deep level from the ideological perspective which involves the interplay of geopolitics, soft power, and public diplomacy. My analysis shows that the China’s global promotion of Chinese benefits from the legacy of Mao’s “three worlds” approach to (public) diplomacy that treated the superpowers, the developed countries, and the developing countries differently, but is challenged by the mediation among three Chinas: the real China, the official China, and the perceived China globally (Zhou, 2018). Third, I will investigate the operation of CIs and CCs from the institutional perspective. Specifically, I will explore the collaboration between CIs and their host institutions, the politics of the CIs on the hosts’ campuses, and the conflict of interest involving staff from China and local personnel. In conclusion, I argue that CIs do not represent China’s soft power, which China is short of, but its smart power that contextualizes the use of coercion, payment, and soft power. Thus, what people in the West are threatened by is not

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the CIs per se, but the introduction of China’s pragmatism and its practice of it that may be detrimental to the liberal system and its values in the West and beyond.

7.2  Challenging the Global Language Order The global language order is organized with, at least, three tiers of languages: global languages such as English, regional languages such as Arabic and Chinese, and numerous local languages (Fishman, 1998/1999). The top tier of the current order is dominated by English as the sole super language and trailed by a number of global languages, such as French, Spanish, and German, in terms of my proposed concept of language order where languages are ranked by their accesses to resources (see Sect. 2.3.2). No languages have equal or more access to resources to or than English does. However, as a rising global language, Chinese begins to challenge the existing global language order while the globalization of Chinese gradually has been unfolding since the turn of this century. The globalization of Chinese is characterized by (1) a shift from Chinese dialects to Putonghua in Chinese overseas communities across all continents, (2) the adoption of Putonghua, Pinyin, and simplified Chinese characters as the standard in schools all over the world, and (3) the establishment of CIs and CCs worldwide (Zhou, 2011a, 2011b, 2017b). I will focus on the last two dimensions of the globalization of Chinese here while leaving the first one for the next chapter. As the spillover of the dilemma of the Chinese scripts and the struggle for the standard from China to the international community (see Chapter 3), the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) used to face the question of which standard to follow, the Putonghua standard (including Pinyin and simplified characters) or the Guoyu standard (including Zhuyin fuhao and traditional characters) in textbook use and classroom practice for cognitive, pedagogical, and/or political reasons (Cheng, 1977; Hayes-Harb & Cheng, 2016; Laychuk, 1983). In the USA, for example, it was mostly a pragmatic decision though it started with political factors. In the 1980s and earlier, Guoyu, Zhuyin, and traditional characters were predominantly the standard used in CFL classrooms as the leftover of the US-Taiwan relationship cultivated during the Cold War. In the 1990s, the Guoyu and Putonghua standards were mostly equal in CFL classrooms on college campus as US-China trade

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and exchange increased. The Putonghua standard becomes prevailing in CFL classrooms from K-12 to college since the turn of the twenty-first century when the USA and China become the major trade partners of each other. Meanwhile, the spread of the Putonghua standard is greatly facilitated by China’s global promotion of Chinese. By the end of 2017, China had established a total of 525 CIs and 1113 CCs in 138 countries and regions on five continents, according to Hanban’s (2018) statistics. This is a crazy pace of the mushrooming of CIs and CCs in merely 14 years, particularly in comparison with the British Council’s (2018) pace of development, which has only over 200 offices in over 100 countries after over 80 years’ efforts, and the Alliance Française’s (2018) pace, which totals over 800 chapters in 130 countries after 136 years’ continuous work. Hanban’s statistics show how much efforts and financial support that China has invested in its global promotion of Chinese. The project is covered in the Chinese Ministry of Education’s 11th five-year plan (2006–2010), 12th five-year plan (2011–2015), 13th five-year plan (2016–2020), and medium- to long-term educational development plan (2010–2020). For example, the Ministry budgeted about US$34 billion for CIs, scholarships for international students, and related projects on China’s educational outreach to the world (MOE, 2018). This amount is just a tip of the iceberg of China’s resources invested in its global promotion of Chinese in order to accelerate the rise of Chinese as a global language. State efforts at language are known as language planning, which typically presents itself as language academies and mass literacy campaigns (Cooper, 1989, pp. 3–28). Language planning branches as status planning and corpus planning, the former of which focuses on the allocation of functions for a language, while the latter concentrates on the modernization or modification of the forms of a language (Cooper, 1989, pp. 99–150; Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997, pp. 37–49). Language planning is generally considered an expression of nationalism and an integral part of nation-building as well as the materialization of a language ideology (Fishman, 1971/1972, 1972; Smith, 2010, pp. 5–8; Wright, 2004, p. 8; Zhou, 2017a). Then, what are the Chinese state’s intensive and expansive efforts at its global promotion of Chinese? A distinction in language planning is made first between the spheres of jurisdiction and sovereignty and then between the spheres of sovereignty and influence (Kloss, 1998; Lo Bianco, 2007). Language planning beyond sovereignty

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into the sphere of influence, such as China’s global promotion of Chinese, is cross-border or transnational language planning (Zhou, 2011b). Transnational language planning works in some way differently from domestic language planning since it operates regionally or globally beyond sovereignty. It cannot rely on the traditional administrative measures, such as directives and policies, but mainly depends on public diplomacy, known as “charm offensive” (Kurlantzick, 2007, pp. 61–81). The operation of China’s transnational language planning is better understood in what I call “community second language acquisition (SLA) model” (Zhou, 2006, 2012a). Language planning is both acquisition planning and identity planning (Cooper, 1988; Pool, 1979; Spolsky & Shohamy, 1999, p. 35). Acquisition planning intends to increase the number of speakers of the target language, while identity planning aims at facilitating the learners’ identification with the community of the target language and culture. Language planning targets at communities and individuals who make up the communities. At the community level is macro-acquisition, which is the acquisition of a language by a community (Brutt-Griffler, 2002, pp. 126–148). When the acquisition by a community involves a second language, as it is in most cases, I term it “community SLA,” a model of which is presented in Fig. 7.1. Community SLA is fundamentally different from individual SLA in that it engages only the social aspects of language acquisition, but not the innately endowed aspects of language acquisition that is believed to be hardwired in our brains (Guasti, 2016, pp. 1–2). First, the input goes through the community SLA process, which produces the output as varieties of the target language instead of interlanguages or fossilized languages. Second, the process engages sociolinguistic factors, language

Fig. 7.1  Community SLA model (Zhou, 2006, 2012a). Note Arrows indicate the direction of development or influence

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identity, and language marketability, all of which influence the outcome of community SLA. Social factors include social class, gender, regions, and others that are studied in sociolinguistics. Language identity covers how the learners think of the target language, its culture, and its community of native speakers and how they use the target language, the latter of which is a complicated dynamic process (Zhou, 2012b). Ideologically, language identity is about the spiritual value orientation in second language learning and use. Language marketability concerns whether the target language gives its learners more opportunities for jobs, advanced study, career advancement, travel, and information. Ideologically, language marketability involves the material value orientation in second language learning and use. The advantage of this model is that it may show what is manageable and what is not manageable in language planning as shown in Fig. 7.2. The term “manageable” is developed from the concept of language management that modifies speakers’ language practice or beliefs (Spolsky, 2009, pp. 4–5). This model shows what elements may be manipulated to modify practice and beliefs in a SLA community. According to this model, first, input and output are manageable; second, language identity and marketability are manageable, but the sociolinguistic factor is not. In its global promotion of Chinese, for example, China may manage the input by providing textbooks, multimedia, and instructors, while using Chinese proficiency test, known as HSK (Hanyu shuiping kaoshi), to discourage nonstandard varieties and reward the standard variety. As China surges as the second largest economy, its trade and investment have astronomically expanded on every continent, creating numerous opportunities for people who speak Chinese. Thus, China

Fig. 7.2  Manageable Community SLA model (Zhou, 2006, 2012a). Note Arrows indicate directions of development, influence or management

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is now able to shape the market for the Chinese language to some extent. At the same time, by engaging them in Chinese language and culture activities, China is trying to sway Chinese learners’ and their communities’ affinity with the Chinese language, culture, people, and state. Thus, according to this model, China’s global promotion of Chinese as transnational language planning has two levels, a surface level and a deep level. The surface level covers Chinese teaching and Chinese cultural activities, whereas the deep level involves identity formation, such as shaping the learner communities’ image of China and affinity with China. However, the management of the latter is a big challenge for China because it has an image problem in the international community and is short of soft power to start with. Soft power is the ability to shape others’ agenda setting, attract them, and receive their co-optation through institutions, values, culture, and policies (Nye, 2004, p. 8). More directly, “soft power is the ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes one wants through attraction rather than coercion or payment” (Nye, 2008). Soft power is generally projected through public diplomacy that a state utilizes to mobilize soft power producing resources in order to attract the governments and public of the target countries. China has amassed many resources for its transnational language planning as its public diplomacy, but will it be as successful as it expects (Y. W. Wang, 2008)? In short, Chinese is emerging as a global language, posing a challenge to the global language order, as China rises to the position of the second largest economy. Stimulated by the surging economy, the pace of the emergence of Chinese is expected to be sped up by China’s transnational language planning, which is commonly known as its global promotion of Chinese by the CIs. China may manage its transnational language planning with relative ease on the surface level but faces some difficulties on the deep level where soft power works.

7.3  Strategic and Ideological Issues on the Deep Level On the deep level are questions about value orientations and soft power regarding the target language of transnational language planning. When it plans the CIs and CCs, China has both strategic and ideological considerations. Strategically, China considers how to invest in the CIs in countries where natural and energy resources are and where an extensive trade is involved. Thus, China wants to align the establishment of

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the CIs with its grand strategies, such as the Belt and Road Initiative (Hanban, 2016a; H. Wang, 2016). It also intends to set up the CIs in its primary trade partner countries, such as the USA, Japan, the UK, and Germany. This intention reflects China’s material value orientation of its transnational language planning. Equally important is China’s desire to increase its soft power and improve its global image through the CIs so that China develops the capability to shape the global public opinion, the capability that corresponds to its rising status (J. T. Hu, 2012; Xi, 2015). This objective manifests China’s spiritual value orientation of its transnational language planning. However, the success of China’s global promotion of Chinese depends not only on China’s investments and strategies but also on the cooperation of its target countries in this project. I will first look into China’s project from the strategical perspective and then examine it from the ideological perspective. 7.3.1   Strategic Issues and Distribution of the Confucius Institutes The distribution of the CIs and CCs does not seem to be even according to Hanban’s (2018) new statistics. In Africa, there are 54 CIs in 39 countries and 30 CCs in 15 countries. In America, 161 CIs are found in 21 countries and 574 CCs in nine countries. In Asia, there are 118 CIs in 33 countries and 101 CCs in 21 countries. In Europe, 173 CIs are found in 41 countries and 307 CCs in 30 countries. In Oceania, there are 19 CIs and 101 CCs in four countries. The CCs are mostly operated by the CIs, though not all the CIs operate any. This distribution shows that China is most successful in Europe where it has the CIs in 41 of the 50 countries (80%), next successful in Africa where the CIs are set up in 39 of the 54 countries (72%), then in Asia where China has opened the CIs in 33 of the 48 countries (68.8%), and barely successful in America where China operates the CIs only in 21 of the 35 countries (60%), but China manages to set up the CIs merely in 4 of the 14 countries in Oceania. This distribution appears to suggest that geopolitics and trade are crucial in the establishment and operation of the CIs and CCs. Geopolitically, rising China benefits from the legacy of Mao Zedong’s three-world diplomacy that approaches the superpowers, the developed countries, and the developing countries differently (Wei, 2011). Abandoning the communist world and following Mao’s theory, China skillfully played the politics between the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the USA, and extensively outreached to other industrialized

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countries, while greatly expanded its support for national liberation movements in developing countries in the 1970s (Altehenger, 2015). For example, the learning of Chinese started in some African countries, such as Egypt, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Cameroon, and Mozambique, in the 1950s and continued through the 1990s when China’s military, medical, and agricultural aids were involved (Mushangwe, 2017; L. H. Xu, 2012; Xu & Bao, 2017). With successes and failures, China’s medical and agricultural aid teams were providing needed technical assistance and promoting Chinese models such as the “barefoot doctor” program for the rural and the “Dazhai” collective approach to agriculture along with Mao Zedong though (H. J. Jiang, 2013, 2015). China’s military assistance in Africa is not declassified yet since my search of CNKI, the Chinese academic database, did not come up with any results. However, I observed the PLA Guangzhou Command’s frequent training of African officers for guerrilla warfare on the hills by my university outside Guangzhou in the middle 1970s. The continuation of Mao’s threeworld diplomacy developed through the South–South Cooperation since the late 1970s, the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation since 2000, and all the way to today’s Belt and Road Initiative, culminating in Xi Jinping’s 2015 pledge of US$60 billion investment in Africa and 2018 promise of US$60 billions more at the 2018 the Forum on China– Africa Cooperation Summit in Beijing (Robertson & Benabdallah, 2016; J. Wang, 2011; V. Zhou, 2018). The relationship between China and Africa is frequently questioned in the West, but it is viewed more positively in Africa (Corkin, 2015; Hankings-Evans, 2016). China’s engagement with Africa may be both an opportunity and an opportunist (Umejei, 2015). Thus, the promotion of Chinese through the CIs and CCs is a continuity of China’s half-century outreach to Africa, an outreach that appears to be both ideologically and institutionally well accepted there as I will discuss in the following sections. However, geopolitical factors do not always favor China. China’s global promotion of Chinese appears to meet challenges in Muslim countries along the Belt and Road, in its uneasy neighboring countries, and in Latin America. In Muslim countries, there is an essential question of the compatibility between Islam and Chinese culture, the latter of which contains elements of Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, and other religions. This question represents the essence of the clashes of civilizations, ideologies, and political systems. For this reason, while CIs and CCs were mushrooming everywhere else, only nine were set up in seven

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of the 22 Arabic countries by 2012 (Liu, 2012). The situation is not changed significantly six years later in 2018, when China has 11 CIs and three CCs in the same seven countries of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, and Bahrain, with a radio and television CC in Tunisia. China is not happy with this snail movement, but there are issues with the CIs in Muslim countries. For instance, Confucianism is legally considered a religion and Confucius a religious leader in Indonesia where China’s Confucian brand becomes a problem in addition to the suspicion of China’s past communist connection there during the Cold War (Theo & Leung, 2018). After hard negotiations, both sides made compromises in order to accommodate the vast trade and investment between the two countries. Indonesia allows the operation of the CIs as Pusat Bahasa Mandarin (the Mandarin Center) in Indonesian and sometimes in English, while China retains the brand name of the CI in Chinese and sometimes in English, as shown in Hanban’s Website (http://english. hanban.org/node_13633.htm). Even when the CIs are set up in Muslim countries, it does not mean that they function as China expects. For instance, China opened a CI at the University of Tehran in 2009, but it was closed by Iran in 2010 and reopened by China in 2013 though it never became fully functional (N. Jiang, 2017; Yao, 2009). In addition to the clash of civilizations, neither of these two authoritarian states is willing to give up their total control of the propaganda by allowing the infiltration of foreign soft power. That is one of the primary reasons why China’s CI project has met more challenges in opening shop in countries governed by totalitarian governments like itself. The second geopolitical barrier for China’s is its close neighbors who were threatened by China in the past or perceive possible threats from China now. India and Vietnam, both of which had border wars with China in the 1960s and 1970s, are highly vigilant about the CI project. After its efforts and in spite of the increased economic exchange, China was able to open only two CIs and two CCs in India, where the local media responded by calling for countering the CI challenge by expanding India’s international presence of its culture and leveraging its strengths in cinema, music, and traditional medicine (Chadalavada, 2015). On the other hand, Vietnam symbolically permitted the establishment of a CI at Hanoi University in 2014 after it refused to consider a number of applications by Vietnamese universities (Chen & Xu, 2015). Vietnam’s response is understandable because the memory of the border war in the late 1970s is still fresh and it lifted its ban on the teaching

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and learning of Chinese only after the normalization of its relations with China in 1991. Even neighbors, who did not have any border conflicts in the past few decades, appear to be cautious about accepting the CI in their countries. For example, Myanmar has only three CCs operated by businesses and trade schools, while Laos has only one CI at its national university and radio and television CC despite increasing demand for workers with Chinese from over 200 Chinese-invested businesses there (Viphaphone, 2018). More curious are China’s former and current communist neighbors’ attitudes to the CI project. North Korea does not allow any CI or CC in its territories, whereas South Korea has 23 CIs and 13 CCs. On the other hand, Russia has 17 CIs and five CCs, but Russians do not feel comfortable about the presence of these Chinese institutions and their missions there. When a CI was set up in Yakutsk in 2009, it was closed, in the following year, by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, which suspected China’s intentions in operating a CI in such a cold and remote town close to the North Pole (Han & Mou, 2016). In addition to security concerns, the legality of the Confucius Institutes is in question in Russia. In 2012, the Office of the Prosecutor of Novosibirsk accused the CI at Novosibirsk State University of failure to register as a nonprofit organization and tax violations. It did not withdraw its prosecution from the court until the Russian federal government intervened. A similar case was found in Blagoveshchensk near the Chinese border in 2015, but with broader consequences for all the CIs in Russia. The CI at Blagoveshchensk State Pedagogical University was accused of tax violations and functions as a foreign agent by the local prosecutors’ office, which asked the local court to close down the institute. After mediations by the Chinese government and the Russian federal government, the local prosecutors’ office finally backed off, but Russia began to subject the CI’s cultural programs and activities to more scrutiny and limit. Russia’s suspicion of and permission for the operation of the CIs and CCs reflect the conflict between a deep distrust and an economic need of its former communist ally after their ideological departure. The last geopolitical barrier for China’s CI project is Latin America, which used to be the backyard of the US influence during the Cold War. China tried then to outreach to Latin America, but never received warm responses, not even from Cuba, though military dictators in Brazil and Chili developed diplomatic relations with China to counter the US dominance in the 1970s (Dominguez, 2006, pp. 1–6). Thus, there is

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not much legacy from Mao Zedong’s three-world diplomacy in Latin America despite Che’s zeal for Mao’s ideology. China’s relations with Latin America have boomed only through the South–South Cooperation and the BRICS since the turn of this century when China began to expand trade and pour investments for resources there. However, except for its successful economic model, China seems to have challenges to develop soft power in Latin America, though it has been continuously working on its outreach there and has currently opened 39 CIs and 38 CCs (S. Ding, 2008; Zuo, 2014). The first challenge is the lack of local cooperation with the CIs and CCs (S. Feng, 2016; Yang & Xu, 2018). Local CI directors, staff, and funding are often not in place after the Chinese institutions are set up. Studying Chinese with the CIs and CCs is usually not recognized by any local educational authorities for any credit. The second challenge is the difficulties for the CIs to retain their students. For instance, the CIs in Brazil saw a close to 90% attrition rate in their lower-level Chinese classes and about a 75% attrition rate in their middle-level classes. The problem reveals those institutes’ poor quality of education, on the one hand, and the students’ low motivation, on the other hand. The third challenge is a lack of genuine interest in China and Chinese culture in many countries there. A survey of 206 students from eight Latin American countries, who were either studying Chinese in Beijing or at local CIs, uncovered where the problem is (Ma & Guo, 2014). The majority of the students first heard of Chinese through cheap products made in China (61%) and Chinese companies (19%), got to know China because of its global power status (73%) and its rising economy (74%), and started to learn Chinese for job opportunities (59%) and international trade (65%). The results from this survey suggest only a material value orientation held by those learners of Chinese from Latin American. China has a long way to go before it could influence public opinion there through the CIs and other measures of public diplomacy. The legacy of Mao’s three-world diplomacy and China’s open-door policy have created a favorable environment for China’s public diplomacy outreach to industrialized countries, which become China’s major trade partners in the last three decades. Of China’ 525 CIs and 1113 CCs, 335 Institutes (63.8%) and 866 Classrooms (77.8%) are located in industrialized countries with a dense concentration in China’s major trade partner countries (Hanban, 2018). For example, there are 29 CIs and 148 CCs in the UK, while 110 CIs and 501 CCs are found in the USA. The data indicate two situations: (1) extensive trade between China

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and the industrialized countries leads to a demand for a workforce with Chinese capability, and (2) China is taking advantage of the liberal system in these democracies to deliver its soft power. Are these Institutes Trojan horses that will attack the liberal system from inside or can the liberal system fully accommodate them? This is a question that many have been trying to ask and answer (Lo, 2018; Mosher, 2012; Paradise, 2009; Yang & Hsiao, 2012). Geopolitics and international trade show why and where the CIs and CCs are set up or rejected but do not demonstrate how they work to shape the global public opinion on China. 7.3.2   Ideological Issues and Three Chinas Hartig (2015) argues that the CIs present a “correct version” of China rather than the real one. I would argue that there are at least three versions of China. Inspired by our 2018 AAS panel on “Globalization of Chinese: localizing the teaching of Chinese language, literature, and media,” which covered the topic from the perspectives of South Korea, the USA, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe, I proposed to view the global spread of Chinese from the perspective of the mediation of three Chinas: the real China, the official China, and the perceived China (Zhou, 2018). These three Chinas represent the different ideological dimensions of what China was, is, and should be. The real China is the closest to the reality in China judged from both the synchronic and diachronic perspectives. The official China is the one that the Chinese state presents to the world and wants the international community to see and believe in. The perceived China is the one that is imagined by the public, particularly outside China, whose imaginations of China are conditioned by each individual’s and community’s experience with “China” in person, media, and knowledge. China’s transnational language planning promotes the Chinese language and culture globally on the surface level but attempts to align the real China and the perceived China with the official China globally on the deep level. Thus, how the CIs and CCs operate and how well they function may be observed in their mediation among the three Chinas. The real China exists in everyday life in China and is what every Chinese citizen experiences materially and spiritually. Material life has dramatically improved in China since its economic reform started in the late 1970s. Officially, according to the 2017 personal disposable

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income, China grouped the Chinese people into five classes: upper class with about US$10,309 per person, upper middle class with about US$5400, middle class with about US$3500, lower middle class with about US$2160, and low class with about US$930, but did not provide the number of people of each class (China, 2018a). However, it is estimated that about 100 million people were still living in poverty, about 50 million in urban China and another 50 million in rural China, according to the Chinese standard of about one US dollar per person per day, not the World Bank standard of about two US dollars per person per day, in 2015 (Cai, 2015). Thus, Xi Jinping promised, at the 2015 Global Poverty Reduction and Development Forum in Beijing, that China would lift 70 million people out of poverty, according to the Chinese standard, in five years (Xinhua, 2015). In 2017, China claimed a reduction of about 13 million, but today there are, at least, over 30 million rural people living under the official poverty line, with an undisclosed portion of the urban population (China, 2018b). The population which lives barely above the official poverty line may be even larger than those below though there is no official estimate published yet. This is a sketch of the reality of the material life in China. China’s spiritual life is more troublesome than its material life. First, traditional Chinese culture has gradually been abandoned since the late 1910s and finally substituted with a communist culture since 1949 (Billoud, 2007; Spence, 1990, pp. 310–319 and 635–636). I define traditional Chinese culture as a system of thoughts, values, and practices guided by Confucianism that was the state orthodoxy from the Han dynasty to Republican China (Ebrey, 1996, pp. 75–85; Spence, 1992, pp. 93–161). The foundation of traditional Chinese culture includes Confucian benevolence (ren), righteousness (yi), propriety (li), wisdom (zhi), and trustworthiness (xin). These five values used to be attacked by the CCP, which even rejected any attempt to reinterpret them within a Marxist framework (Spence, 1999, p. 520). Three decades of criticism and another three decades of rejection discontinued two thousand years of beliefs in and practice of Confucianism in China. As part of the program of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation since the turn of this century, Confucius and Confucianism become hot topics of popular culture in television lectures and subjects of after-class activities. Confucian values were even modeled after in the CCP’s official discourse, such as Hu Jintao’s eight shames and eight glories (ba chi ba rong) and people-oriented governance (yi ren wei ben) (Billioud, 2007).

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However, the most significant challenges are how these Confucian values might be genuinely integrated into the CCP’s discourse and how they might be fully readopted in the restoration of traditional Chinese culture in rising China (Bell, 2010). The value discourse of the 18th CCP National Congress in 2012 appears remotely similar to Confucian values, a discourse that includes the state-level values of prosperity, democracy, civility, and harmony; the societal-level values of freedom, equality, justice, and rule of law; and personal-level values of patriotism, dedication, integrity, and friendship (China, 2014). There is little evidence that the Chinese state believes in Confucianism and has practiced the little that it tries to preach domestically and globally. Confucian values are more often utilized to justify the Chinese state’s pragmatic policy and practice (L. Chen, 2014). Second, China’s communism was replaced with pragmatism since the early 1990s. China’s economic reform started with a deep dissatisfaction with the Soviet-style communism in the late 1970s, but its crash of the democratic movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989 became a watershed between communism and pragmatism (Béja, 2009; M. Li, 1996; Naughton, 1995). China’s pragmatism is branded with Deng Xiaoping’s cat theory, “Whether a black cat or a white cat, it is a good cat if it catches mice,” which is often understood as that it does not matter whether it is communism or capitalism it is a good ism as long as it helps with China’s material modernizations (Zhao, 1993). Inspired by Deng Xiaoping’s tour of economic reform hotspots in Southern China in 1992, China adopted marketization with Chinese characteristics for a socialist market economy and new authoritarianism in cooperation with the intellectual elite and other elite groups that it “bought” with material and political privileges (Klein, 2010; Sigley, 2006; Teets, 2014, pp. 119–144). Both the Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao regimes followed this pragmatic approach until the power transition to Xi Jinping in 2012. Abandoning three decades of political reform and reverting the separation between the party and the state in daily governance, Xi Jinping began to reintegrate the party and the state, and set up CCP committees in Chinese-foreign joint ventures and sole foreign ventures in China, after he came to power. For example, the CCP has a committee at the University of Nottingham Ningbo, which recently removed a British associate provost for his criticism of the CCP 19th National Congress (E. Feng, 2018; Nottingham, 2018). At this congress, Xi Jinping asked the whole party to “remain true to our original aspiration and keep

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our mission firmly in mind” (bu wang chuxin, lao ji shiming). This call is interpreted by the party propaganda machine as Xi’s instruction for the re-instilling of communism in China (H. F. Li, 2018). Despite the CCP’s recently tightened control, it is doubtful that communism could win over pragmatism in the Chinese people’s hearts and minds after three decades of disillusion with it and its failure worldwide. In short, the real China is torn among communism, Confucianism, and pragmatism with the latter prevailing at the state level, societal level, and personal level. China has too many values, but, except for pragmatism, few of which are genuinely believed in and followed in practice by the Chinese state, society, and citizens. The official China is the China that exists in the Chinese state’s ­official discourse, which is presented through its press, media, and s­pokesmen for domestic and international consumption (J. Wang, 2011). The focus here is China’s public discourse for international consumption, which is the charge of the CCP Central Committee’s and State Council’s international communication agency, one agency with two faces, which controls all Chinese media with international outreach missions. International communication (duiwai xuanchuan or waixuan in short) is China’s public diplomacy (Y. W. Wang, 2008). Soon after the founding of the PRC and long before the birth of this international communication agency in 1991, Mao Zedong asked Chinese news agencies to “take care of the whole world so that it can hear our voice in every corner” (China, 1983, p. 182). As China rises since the turn of this century, this party-state agency is further aided by Hanban to communicate the image of the official China through the CIs and CCs globally. These agencies are instructed by the CCP leadership as to what images of the official China should be conveyed to the international community and how it should be done. No CCP leader worked as much as Xi Jinping has done on China’s international communication regarding “how to” (China, 2017; Wu, 2017; Xiang, 2014). Xi expected Chinese international communication professionals to improve their abilities in doing a better job in telling the Chinese story, communicating China’s voice, promoting China’s spirit, and demonstrating China’s images. To counter the hegemony of the Western discourse on China, he demanded that the Chinese agencies develop China’s international communication discourse, a discourse that is innovative, attractive, and trustworthy so that China’s story, voice, spirit, and images are convincing and acceptable to the international

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community. Further, Xi instructed that China strengthen its international communication capabilities for mass, targeted group, and interpersonal communication, including the use of traditional and new media. As a result, the Internet, radio, and television CIs and CCs are recently being developed to reach a broader audience. As for the contents of China’s international communication, Xi Jinping requested to focus on four images of China: Chinese dream, China’s peaceful rise, China’s values, and Chinese strategies such as the Belt and Road Initiative (China, 2017; Wu, 2017). The four official images of China are (1) a harmonious global power with a long civilization and rich cultural diversity; (2) a beautiful oriental power with ethical politics, well-developed economy, prosperous culture, stable society, and unified peoples; (3) a responsible and contributing power that is devoted to peaceful and cooperative development and maintenance of international justice; and (4) a more open, friendlier, and more vigorous socialist power full of hope. The Chinese dream means a prosperous China, rejuvenated Chinese nation, and happy Chinese people. It is to be realized through the Chinese path, spirit, and consolidation of power. The dream is for peace, development, cooperation, and mutualism that will benefit both the Chinese people and the international community. The Chinese dream fully represents Chinese values. China will persist in peaceful development and maintenance of the world order and world system prescribed by the principles in the UN Charter. China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Silk Road Fund, and other projects are proposed for the co-development of other countries along with China. These projects are open without any intention to seek a Chinese sphere of influence or power. Their missions are the development of a peaceful, secure, prosperous, open, and environmentally-friendly shared community of the humankind or “One World” under Heaven. In summary, the above is the official China that the Chinese state wants the world to know through China’s international communication presented by Chinese media, the CIs and CCs, and other means of China’s public diplomacy. Is the official China attractive to the global community? Is it close to the real China? If not, China’s public diplomacy may produce the opposite effects (Nye, 2008). In sharp contrast to the real China and the official China, the perceived China is much more diverse because every person and community have their own experiences with China through different channels and with different histories. I will examine the perception of China by the

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developing countries with Africa as the representative as well as the perception by the West with the USA as the representative. First, the West generally believes that China has an image problem in Africa (Aidoo, 2012), but as for China how the Africans perceive China really matters in Africa. The general picture of Africans’ current perception of China is provided by an AFRO Barometer survey, which was carried in 36 African countries in 2014–2015 (Lekorwe, Chingwete, Okuru, & Samson, 2016). The survey had four significant findings of China. First, 63% of the surveyed Africans saw China as a “somewhat” or “very” positive influence in their own countries because they liked China’s investments in infrastructure and business development there, but they did not like the poor quality of products made in China nor did they consider political and social factors important for their views of China. Second, of the American, Chinese, and South African models of national development, 24% of the Africans cited the Chinese model as the most appropriate one for their countries, second only to the American model (30%). The Chinese model was as popular as the American model in Southern and North Africa, but more popular than the American one in Central Africa (35% vs. 27%). Third, regarding foreign influence, the Africans viewed China second (23%) only to their former colonial powers (28%) in their countries, slightly exceeding that of the USA (22%). China’s influence was extensive in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Sudan, Zambia, South Africa, and Tanzania, where China provided political, military, and/or economic assistance since the 1960s. Fourth, the majority of the surveyed Africans (56%) considered China’s development assistance as adequately meeting their countries’ needs. Without consideration of political and social issues, China’s overall image in Africa is currently more favorable than any other global powers. My field trip to Zimbabwe and South Africa in March 2017 generally confirmed these survey findings. In Zimbabwe, I visited the University of Zimbabwe, its CI, and some Chinese and Zimbabwean businesses in Harare. My communication with the Zimbabwean students who studied Chinese at the CI obtained these three main views. First, they looked at China positively and wanted to apply for a scholarship to study in China. Second, they believed that their Chinese would help their careers with Chinese companies there and do business with China when they graduate. Third, the female students, the majority of the Chinese learners there, considered Grace Mugabe as their role model, who was the then-first lady of Zimbabwe and studied Chinese at Renmin University

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in Beijing between 2007 and 2011. I visited a huge Chinese mall in the suburb of Harare, which was an investment from Zhejiang Province. As everywhere else, the customers there liked the price of Chinese products but not the quality nor the inconvenience of the location of the mall. However, the products in the Chinese mall were affordable, particularly compared to those in the two Zimbabwean supermarkets I visited, where the prices were comparable to those in supermarkets in the USA. I also visited and dined in three Chinese restaurants in Harare, which surprised me with their luxurious VIP rooms and overall environments. These restaurants were as upscale as good ones in Beijing, much better than those in Washington, DC, My friends there told me that Chinese companies and businesspeople mostly got business done with their Zimbabwean partners in these restaurants. This situation reminded me how business was done in China in the last three decades. It appears that the whole package of the Chinese society, including its values and practice, has been going out with China’s global outreach. In South Africa, I visited Rhodes University and its CI in Grahamstown. One of the classes that I audited at the Institute was “Understanding China” taught in English by a South African instructor. During the class when he discussed the double-digit growth of China’s economy in the last two decades, he compared the estimated GDP growth rates of 6.5% in China, 3% in the USA, and 0–1% in South Africa in 2017. In comparison, he commented that the Chinese economic growth benefited Africa, while the American growth was to be invested in the military to kill people elsewhere. I did not expect the instructor’s comment, but the students’ responses were within my expectation. A student from Angola responded that China helped build infrastructures, such as ports, roads, and oil refineries, in his home country, while a student from Tanzania added that China had been building roads and airports in his country. These students’ views of China are in agreement with the findings from the AFRO Barometer survey. However, it does not mean that the CIs are always viewed positively in Africa. For example, a case study of the CI at the University of Nairobi reveals some negative perceptions in addition to positive views (Wheeler, 2014). The Kenyans considered the Institute with missions regarding “China’s economic interest in the region,” “training Africans to do business with them,” and “appearing that China cares about teaching Africans.” They perceived the Chinese staff as “not well prepared for teaching in Kenya,” “having little education on Kenya’s history, culture, and geography,” and

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“being quite negative.” The Kenyans apparently do not trust the Chinese outreach nor the Chinese personnel at the local CI. In South Africa and Zimbabwe, the Chinese learners’ views of China are generally material value oriented. The same value orientation is found cross continents in Central Asia where I visited CIs in Bishkek and Osh of Kirgizstan in April 2017. Through my conversations with the Chinese learners there, I found that they were interested in scholarships for study abroad in China, studying in or visiting Shanghai—the most modern city in Asia—and job opportunities in Chinese businesses in their communities, which often offered a monthly salary of about US$500, a high pay in a country where the annual GDP per capita was about US$1000. The only non-material Chinese attraction that I observed is Chinese Gongfu or martial arts which drew groups of devoted young people across the two continents, though the effectiveness of martial arts in China’s public diplomacy is debatable (Procopio, 2015; Stambach & Wamalwa, 2018; X. Wang, 2014). The perception of China is different in the West, particularly in the USA where China is viewed more negatively than a decade ago according to the Pew Spring 2016 Global Attitudes Survey (Manevich, 2017). The Pew surveys show that between 2005 and 2011 about 36% Americans had negative views of China, but between 2012 and 2017 about 50% of Americans had unfavorable attitudes toward China (Wike, 2017). About half of Americans regarded China as an economic threat, causing trade deficit and job loss (44–53%), while a third of American considered China a military threat (36%) and more than half Americans the perceived China as the source of cyberattacks (55%). The views could get worse with the trade war going on without a satisfactory settlement. Despite the negative views of China, Chinese became a popular foreign language, behind Spanish, French, and German, in K-12 schools in the USA. In 2016, 46,735 students were studying Chinese in 1145 K-12 schools in 49 states (MLA, 2017, p. 20). Meanwhile, Chinese enrollment at college peaked in 2013 with 61,055 students enrolled in Chinese classes but declined to 53,069 in 2016 (Looney & Lusin, 2018, p. 13). A subtle change during this period that is not reported is the numbers of Chinese majors and minors. At my university, for instance, the number of Chinese majors was about 80 and minors about 40 in 2011–2012, but the number of majors decreased to about 40, while the number of minors increased to about 80 in 2017–2018. These changes suggest that American students began to reduce their investment in

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Chinese as a linguistic capital. A study of the attitudes of learners of Chinese at American colleges found that students with Chinese heritage had more favorable views of the language than students without such a heritage, while these students learned Chinese for both instrumental and integrational purposes (Sun, 2010). This study may be biased for the integrational reasons because of the mix of students with and without Chinese heritage. When studying Chinese, American students without Chinese heritage tend to be more instrumentally motivated while those with such a heritage are more often motivated on the integrational ground. A fine-grained picture of the attitudes of American learners of Chinese toward China only comes from classrooms, particularly from the CIs and CCs. Ethnography of language planning and policy treats language classrooms as the site of policy, linguistic, and cultural interaction, where the process of China’s transnational language planning is observable as it is in action (Hornberger & Johnson, 2007; McCarty & Warhol, 2011). Such a picture came from Hubbert’s (2014) case study of the CC at a college preparatory school on the West Coast, where American students and parents negotiated and imagined China in their classroom interactions with their CC teachers. The official China was presented through their official textbook, Chinese Paradise (Hanyu leyuan), which provided an image of a cosmopolitan China through the juxtaposition of pictures of avant-garde architectures, upscale shopping malls, and Buddhist temples. However, the American students had different pictures of China. When a picture of Tiananmen Square was shown, they were reminded of the scene of 1989 on the Square. When a map of China was shown, they thought of an independent Taiwan and an independence-seeking Tibet. When they raised these issues, they were ignored by their Chinese teachers who moved on with a stern look. The students considered this pedagogical practice as the result of China’s authoritarian oppression of their teachers. These students had been prepared by their parents and American media for China’s charm offensive, a preparation in terms of the Cold War discourse that associates communism with certain values, such as authoritarianism and lack of freedom of speech. Even when the students were influenced in their Chinese classrooms, they conceded that communism works in China, but not in the USA. In the end, the American students’ perceived China is different from the official China that the Chinese state plans to communicate to the world through its global promotion of Chinese.

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7.3.3  Summary Ideologically speaking, geopolitics and public opinions are main challenges for China’s transnational language planning on the deep level. China geopolitically benefits from the legacies of Mao’s three-world diplomacy and Deng’s open-door policy, which have opened doors for the CIs and CCs in Africa and industrialized countries across continents, respectively. However, China has difficulties in opening doors for CIs or operating them in its neighboring countries, which are threatened or perceive a threat from China, and in Muslim countries along the Belt and Road, which find Chinese culture incompatible with Islam despite their increased trade relations with China. As China rises, its greatest strategic threat is its national image in the international community (Ramo, 2007, p. 12). More precisely, China worries mostly about its image in the West that dominate the existing world order since its image in Africa is much better than outside Africa. However, so far, China’s main channel of public diplomacy, the CIs, and CCs failed to mediate successfully the real China, the official China, and the perceived China in the West. The Chinese state wants to project an image of a benign China but is unable to purge its image as a communist China that is perceived to be threatening to the global community.

7.4  Institutional Issues on the Surface Level Metaphorically, ideological and institutional issues are different sides of the same coin, the reverse side of which is less visible on the deep level, and the obverse side of which is more visible on the surface level, but they are closely related. On the surface level of China’s transnational language planning are the negotiation, establishment, and operation of the CIs and CCs, which involve some crucial institutional issues, typically collaboration, politics, and conflict of interest. The CIs and CCs are an opportunity for some countries and institutions, while they are also an opportunist that seeks the landing on key geopolitical locations and institutions for its missions. They are an opportunity for schools that face an increasing demand for Chinese instruction because their communities or countries have growing trade and expanding economic exchanges with China. They are an opportunist because they set up shop in universities, where the demand for Chinese instruction is already met so that they can take advantage of the hosts’

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reputation and/or strategic locations to shape the local public opinion of China. Whether an opportunity or opportunist, China offers a host university an initial funding up to a few million US dollars as the CI foundation, the amount of which depends on the reputation of the host, an annual budget of up to US$150,000 for at least five years, a huge academic network, and a vast market for talent recruitment or for alumnus placements, in addition to the expanding Chinese business and investment activities in the host community. It is too attempting for a university to reject it when the Chinese embassy or Hanban extends an invitation for the establishment of a CI. Moreover, a potential host institution often receives pressures from its larger community about the demand for Chinese and the possibility of damaging the existing relationship with China. Thus, rejecting such an invitation has negative consequences for the institution, while China’s pressure grows as the second largest economy. 7.4.1   Confucius Institutes and Collaboration The CIs and CCs are generally an opportunity for developing countries, but sometimes also for some schools in developed countries. For example, the CIs and CCs are often considered an opportunity in Africa where China was asked for assistance in teaching CFL since the 1950s when China began to expand its relations there (Mushangwe, 2017; L. H. Xu, 2012; Xu & Bao, 2017). China’s vast trade with and investment in Africa make the CIs more welcomed than anywhere else. There are three general models of collaboration between the CIs and African universities, the first two of which I visited during my 2017 field trip. The first is that the CI fully functions as the Chinese studies program of the host university. This is the case that I found at Rhodes University in Grahamstown in South Africa, where the CI functions as the Chinese Studies Division of the School of Languages. The Chinese co-director worked with Rhodes University in designing the curriculum and administering it in offering a Chinese major degree. All the Chinese courses are currently taught by CI staff, except the course “Understanding China” which is taught in English by a South African. To the students and faculty, the CI is the Chinese Studies Division on campus, but it is still CI in its outreach. For example, it offered weekly Chinese training for public servants, such as policemen, in Port Elizabeth in 2017, where

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China was investing in the construction of a vast auto factory. Rhodes University seems to be happy with the current collaboration and setup. During my visit, I did not find any information that the university was going to make any changes to this model soon. The second model is the collaboration between the CI and the host university with gradual nativization of the Chinese studies program at the host institutions. The nativization is to replace staff from China with local staff for sustainability. For example, when I visited the University of Zimbabwe in 2017, the CI was functioning as the Chinese Language and Cultural Studies Program in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, but nativization was underway. A native Zimbabwean, who obtained a doctoral degree in Chinese from China in 2015, first became the Chairman of the Department and Director of the Chinese Studies Program in 2017 and then the Zimbabwean Co-director of the CI in 2018. At the same time, the university had already sent a few Zimbabwean students to China for doctoral degrees in Chinese, who are expected to graduate in two years. These doctoral students are sponsored by Hanban’s new sinology program, known as Confucius China Studies Program (xin hanxue jihua), that aims to train a new generation of sinologists who will favor China and dominate China studies in their home countries (Hanban, 2012). They will influence their students’ view of China more effectively than those staff from China. In a few years, the CI is expected to shift from the leading role to a supplementary role in Chinese Studies at the University of Zimbabwe. However, before nativization fully takes place, there are a shortage of local teachers of Chinese and a problem with the quality of local teachers of Chinese in Zimbabwe and broadly in Africa (X. Xu, 2012). The third model is the separation of the Chinese studies program and the CI on campus though the latter plays a significant supporting role for the former. For Instance, after the CI began to operate on campus in 2009, the University of Botswana developed a BA program in Chinese studies in 2011 and established the Department of Chinese Studies with four instructors in the Faculty of Humanities in 2013, but has kept the department and CI physically and academically separated to ensure the department’s academic autonomy (Youngman, 2014). However, the University still relied on the CI for academic, staff, and funding development. For example, the founding professor of the department was sent by the CI from the sponsoring Shanghai Normal University. This individual helped the creation of the curriculum, trained the teaching staff,

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and rolled out the program for an inaugural enrollment of 20 students. This reliance will go on for a period. I suspect that a Chinese Studies Department founded by the CI staff will be able to be critical of China academically in the foreseeable future even when it is academically and administratively separated from the CI on the campus. The first two models of collaboration are more common in developing countries which lack local resources. However, even the second model meets challenges in nativization of Chinese language and culture teaching staff. When I visited the CIs at the Kyrgyz National University in Bishkek and the Osh State University in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, in 2017, I found that both CIs functioned as the Chinese studies programs of the host universities in offering a BA in Chinese. There were intentions to nativize the programs, but there was a lack of qualified local candidates for the teaching jobs, in addition to the shortage of funding. After graduation, most Kyrgyz learners of Chinese were happy to move on to jobs at Chinese-invested businesses for a good monthly salary. For example, I had conversations with two receptionists at the Chinese-invested hotels where I stayed in Bishkek and Osh, one of whom graduated with a BA in Chinese and worked full-time and the other of whom was still a student of Chinese, working part-time. The full-time receptionist told me that her monthly salary was close to $500, but the conversation with the part-time receptionist did not go far because I do not speak Russian or Kyrgyz and she did not speak Chinese and English well. This difficult situation with the second model will continue for a long time for the nativization of Chinese language and culture teaching staff. The CIs and CCs are an opportunity for some schools in the industrialized countries too, where schools also have financial challenges in meeting increasing demands from globalization. In the USA, some public K-12 schools and public and private universities have financial difficulties as well. According to some university administrators, “Confucius Institutes are one solution to today’s university funding crisis” (Stambach, 2014, p. 64). Thus, the first model of collaboration in administrating a Chinese studies program commonly found in Africa is also found, to the surprise of many, in some universities in the USA. For example, through the collaboration with Guizhou University since 2009, the CI at the Presbyterian College in South Caroline has two functions (Presbyterian College, 2018). As the collage’s Chinese studies program, the CI offers credit-bearing Chinese courses and a Chinese minor. As the CI, the institute outreaches to local K-12 schools and administers

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CI China Studies Scholarships and HSK, HSKK (HSK Speaking Test), and YCT (Youth Chinese Test) testing to the campus and communities in South Caroline. It appears that this model works well at this private college where no criticism by the faculty and students is made public so far, nor is any from the local media. More common cases are found in K-12 schools which embrace 501 CCs to counter the funding shortages and meet the demands for Chinese language instruction. However, these CCs work in a model different from those found in developing countries because each state in the USA has specific requirements for licensing K-12 school teachers. Without local licenses, CI teachers are generally not eligible to teach in K-12 schools, except for receiving a temporary license for a short term. For instance, the CI at the University of Maryland operates 10 CCs at public and private K-12 schools in Maryland and Washington, DC. The CI mainly provides funding, materials, cultural, and technical support to those CCS and sometimes provides teachers for Chinese language and culture instruction. Some of these K-12 schools may have financial needs, but the private schools and public schools in Howard and Montgomery counties, two of the wealthiest counties in the nation, have no pressing financial needs but welcome the extra financial and other support from the CI. These CCs appear to be accepted by these K-12 schools and their communities though the CI at the University of Maryland drew some criticism from the media. In short, the collaboration between the CIs and host institutions works in three models: the CI as the Chinese studies program, the CI as the Chinese studies program with progress toward nativization, and the academically separated CI and Chinese studies program, the first two of which are mostly seen in developing countries and the last of which is often found in developed countries. CCs work in a variety of ways, depending on the local laws and local needs. 7.4.2   Politics of Confucius Institutes on Campus “Is Stanford collaborating with Chinese propaganda? Just asking” reported Forbes (October 5, 2014) among the US mainstream media (Fingleton, 2014). “Confucius confusion: China-funded Columbia Institute raises questions” alerted the Current, a student-run journal on Columbia University campus (Hirt, 2017). These reports alert Americans that the CIs are an opportunist that seeks to take any strategic

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positions for their missions regardless of the local needs. For example, Harvard University, Yale University, Stanford University, Columbia University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Michigan have excellent China studies program without funding problems, but Hanban still tried to set up the CIs at these institutions with successes and failures. Commercially, it is a good deal to buy such brand names for the CIs on these campuses for a few million US dollars since the naming of a classroom there costs a million US dollars or more and the naming of a building there cost minimally 15–20 million US dollars or more. Politically, it legitimizes the CIs at any US universities after Hanban’s success at these top universities. Thus, it is a smart buy for China in both commercial and political terms. On the other hand, top Chinese universities are not sold this cheap though they are not as excellent as the top universities in the USA. For example, Steve A. Schwarzman donated 100 million US dollars for Schwarzman College on Tsinghua campus without as many privileges, except for ceremonials. Politically, China does not allow the British Council, Goethe Institute, Alliances of Françaises, and Instituto Cervantes on any university campus and asks them to move out even if they were once allowed (Sahlins, 2015, p. 40). Then, why are US universities sold cheaply? The answer is found on the US campuses. On US university campuses, there are usually two camps, those who are supporters of the CIs and those who are critics of the CIs (Sahlins, 2015, pp. 40–60; Stambach, 2014, pp. 62–67). The supporters are mostly administrators and faculty in professional, engineering, and sciences schools, who see the potentials of China’s extra funding, extensive social and academic networks, and vast market of recruitment and placement, and consider the CIs as the bridge to those potentials. On the other hand, the critics are often faculty in humanities and social sciences, such as China studies, political science, history, and anthropology, who view the Chinese state as a perpetrator of human rights and liberal values and regard the CIs as the Chinese state’s propaganda machines on the US campuses. Thus, the supporters often tried to sign the deal with Hanban in secrecy so that the critics have no time to sabotage it. The Chinese studies programs, which are supposed to advice university administrators on China affairs, are often the last unit to learn of the establishment of the CI on campus. It is clear that China has entirely taken advantage of the politics on campuses throughout the USA for its goal, using the legacy of Confucius for geopolitical influence (Kluver, 2014).

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Given this ill beginning, the politics involving the Chinese studies programs and the CIs is ensured to be tense on campus, in addition to the Chinese saying that one mountain cannot accommodate two tigers (yi shan bu rong er hu). Politically, it is about the leadership role in Chinese studies on campus. The role involves the promotion of Chinese studies and education of students, staff, administrators, and community leaders on and around campus, both of which influence the direction of development for Chinese studies and university relations with China. The CIs often try to claim the credit for Chinese academic and cultural events on campus whether they are sponsored by the CI or not. For example, almost every time in the last few years when the Chinese studies program at a university in Maryland hosted a cultural activity or talk on China without the CI sponsorship, the CI Chinese director stopped by and took some photos. The information on these events would be reported as the CI’s activities to the university administration and particularly to the CI Headquarters in Beijing. Moreover, some CIs began to shadow the host institutions’ Chinese studies programs through the “buying” of access to university administrators, such as VIP trips to China (Peterson, 2017; Sahlins, 2015, pp. 56–57). Through such access, CIs can obtain opportunities, such as private events and public workshops, to educate administrators and community leaders about China, the official China, and teach them how to establish relationships with Chinese partners and institutions (Stambach, 2014, pp. 67–71). Through such means of public diplomacy, the CIs may be able to change the campus and broader communities’ views of China, whereas the Chinese studies programs’ influence is generally confined in the classrooms. Academically, Chinese studies programs are often challenged by the CIs in the mediation of the real China, the official China, and the perceived China beyond classrooms on campus. The censorship and self-censorship by the CIs are one of the crucial issues, which have been extensively covered (Hartig, 2012, 2015; Hubbert, 2014; Peterson, 2017; Sahlins, 2015, pp. 14–24). Less apparent issues include advising students of Chinese, assessing their Chinese proficiency, and administering scholarships. Chinese advisors of the Chinese studies programs sometimes find that students do not follow through their advice on courses and study abroad plans or come to see them already with advice from the CIs. The assessment of students’ Chinese proficiency is an important measurement of an individual student’s learning outcome as well

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as a program’s learning outcomes. Chinese studies programs usually do not have the resources to make or control such assessments, while the CIs have the advantage of the Chinese state’s resources, such as HSK, HSKK, and YCT, and certify students’ Chinese proficiency on campus. The assessment of students’ merits and awarding them scholarships are one of the essential functions of an academic unit, but this function of Chinese studies programs is seriously challenged by the CIs because the latter have plenty of resources from the Chinese state, and the US universities tend to relinquish this function to the CIs. That is one of the reasons that US universities have CIs on campus. The most challenging is the situation where the CI was brought to campus to offer a Chinese minor or major before a university founded a Chinese studies program. The new Chinese studies program has to accept the curriculum created by the CI and the direction of development set by the CI. It takes time before such a program develops its curriculum free of the CI’s influence. For instance, amid faculty criticism, the University of New Hampshire opened a Confucius Institute and entrusted it to offer a Chinese minor in 2010 (Sahlins, 2015, pp. 56–57). The university hired its first tenure-track assistant professor of Chinese three years later in 2013. The assistant professor will not be able to reduce the CI’s influence on the Chinese program until she is tenured if she wishes to. Thus, the CIs that initiate Chinese studies programs have even greater political and academic impact on campus in the USA. Outside the USA, the situation appears to be worse in some countries in the West. Universities always claim that the CIs are introduced to their campuses to enrich the sources for Chinese studies. However, for instance, the University of Newcastle in Australia proposed that the CI join the regular China faculty in 2011 (Sahlins, 2015, pp. 40–42). After some struggle, the CI is finally affiliated with the university’s international and advancement division, but the Chinese studies major program is reduced as a minor program. This case shows how the CI on campus may sabotage the host university’s Chinese studies program by creating divisions on campus. 7.4.3   Confucius Institutes and Conflict of Interest The CIs have caused the greatest crisis of conflict of interest on campus in the USA when these foreign institutions operate within American universities. This is a critical issue that deserves coverage, but only

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marginally covered (Peterson, 2017; Sahlins, 2015). In reality, conflict of interest is found from the CI Headquarters in Beijing down to every CI and CC. According to Article 13 of the CI Constitution and By-Laws, Council of the CI Headquarters should have ten international members. It also appoints some senior advisors, including some internationals, which is not specified by the by-laws. As of this writing, Council members from the West include Dr. Peter-André Alt (President of Free University, Berlin), Dr. Sibrandes Poppema (University of Groningen), Dr. Chris Husbands (Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University), Dr. Timothy O’Shea (Principal and Vice-Chancellor, University of Edinburgh), Dr. Steven Knapp (President of the George Washington University), and Dr. C. D. Dan Mote (President, National Academy of Engineering) (Hanban, 2016b). Known CI Headquarters’ senior advisors from the West include John L. Thornton (Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Brookings Institution and Chairman of Barrick Gold Corporation). In the West, it is expected that these people would advise China how to conform to the liberal world order and values. However, from the Chinese publication of their speeches in China, it appears that they often speak for the Chinese state instead. For example, in a speech titled “The state of the world and the vital nature of your work” made at the Forum of the Ninth Confucius Institute Conference in December 2014, John L. Thornton (2015) piled up criticisms of the US economic system, political system, value system, and foreign policy along with his praises of China and Xi Jinping’s foreign policy. There is no problem to criticize the USA, but this juxtaposition of the criticisms and praises at this event leads to readers’ questions about whom those Western CI Council members and senior advisors speak for and what they advise the CI to do. It appears that they advise China how to fight the liberal world order and value system from inside out instead of conforming to them. There is the same question for local CI directors or co-director about their representation of interest. Do they represent the universities that employ them for their jobs or the CI which they direct? This question appears to be unclear to some (Peterson, 2017; Sahlins, 2015, pp. 14–24 and 40–60). In many cases, they appear to be accountable to the CI Headquarters more than to the home universities. For example, when a Chinese studies faculty applied for small funding support for a symposium from the CI at a university in Maryland, the local director invited the faculty for five meetings about the funding and at the last meeting asked the faculty to censor any speaker who would say anything

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inappropriate at the symposium. The faculty told the local director that he could not, and he could only stop speakers who exceed their allocated time because that was the American practice of academic freedom. In the end, the CI director did provide the support, though the faculty refused to promise any censorship. It is apparent that the local CI director knew it was not right to ask for censorship and hesitated to do so openly until the fifth meeting, but he eventually did ask for something unthinkable as a US administrator on a US university campus. In addition to administrative work, some local CI directors do some dubious academic work to represent the CI’s interest. For instance, a local CI director at a university in Texas published some papers, claiming the CIs’ effect on trade and economy (Lien & Co, 2013; Lien, Oh, & Selmier, 2012). There are major problems with such studies. First is the logic of the causal relationship between the CIs and trade/economy, in addition to the difficulty in the establishment of such a relation in social sciences. The CIs are set up in countries and communities where there have already been demands for Chinese language instruction brought about by increasing trade and economic exchange, not the other way around. If there is any causal relation, that is when China punishes a country or community economically for its refusal to accept the invitations to open the CIs or award it economically for acceptance of the invitations. The second problem is such a claim or assumption that “through enhanced understanding of Chinese language and culture, CIs also help promote trade and foreign direct investment between China and the host country of the CI” (Lien & Co, 2013). Despite the censorship in China, there are still many articles published in China that list three major problems, namely poorly trained teachers, inappropriate teaching materials, and lack of proper pedagogy, that lead to the CIs’ global inefficiency (Q. L. Hu, 2014; Ji & Liu, 2017; Shen, 2014). It is reported that the attrition rates of students at the CIs in Latin America and Africa range from 50 to 90% (Feng & Zhao, 2015; Yang & Xu, 2018). Thus, very few students have advanced to the proficient level after four or five years’ study at the CIs. How much could they help with the trade and economy? Compared with those locals associated with the CIs, Chinese staff with the CIs know better where their loyalty lies and what their missions are. General Director of the CI Headquarters, Xu Lin, personally set a good example for the Chinese staff in the CIs worldwide. When she discovered the official conference program of European Association of Chinese Studies containing abstracts on sensitive topics and advertisement of the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation in Portugal in July 2014,

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she first ordered her entourage to seize the programs and, after the conference organizers’ intervening, had the concerned pages torn before returning them to the conference (Redden, 2014b). She did all these in Portugal, not in China. The Chinese staff with the CIs in the field follow her example well. A few years ago, a student was going to talk about Falun Gong at a regional Chinese proficiency contest held at the CI at a university in Maryland. The Chinese CI director first asked the panel of contest judges, who are Chinese language instructors from the greater DC area, to censor the student, and then went on to press the student to change the topic of the talk. Under pressure, the student finally gave up the topic. This is one of many such cases with the CIs in the USA and beyond. Not just the Chinese CI directors, other Chinese staff with the CIs do their double job too, functioning as the Chinese language instructor as well as the promoter and safeguard of the official China. At a university in Virginia, the Chinese staff with the CI were assigned to teach some Chinese language classes offered by the university Chinese studies program because of its shortage in personnel and funding. When there was any China-related public event on campus, such as a guest speech or forum, the Chinese studies program always requested its course instructors to remind their students of the event and encourage them to participate. However, the Chinese staff with the CI always blocked this kind of program communication to the students in their classes whenever they considered the guest speaker or forum as a sensitive person or topic. In short, the Chinese staff with the CI generally follow the Headquarters’ rules and orders well in carrying out their missions worldwide, usually at a cost to the interest of local host institutions. However, the local CI directors often neglect their duties as the representatives of the local institutions but function in the interest of the CI at a cost to that of the local host institutions. 7.4.4  Summary This section covers China’s transnational language planning on the surface level globally. It specifically examines three major issues of the CIs, the collaboration, politics, and conflict of interest. Despite their propaganda work, the CIs may be helpful where there is a lack of local programs engaging in the needed Chinese language and cultural instruction. However, when there are local Chinese studies programs, the CIs cause

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more divisions than collaboration on campus. Conflict of interest is a critical issue, but only institutional conflict of interest is reviewed here since the personal conflict of interest is beyond the topic of this chapter.

7.5  Conclusion China’s global promotion of Chinese is defined as transnational language planning, which involves a surface level and a deep level in terms of the community SLA model (Zhou, 2006, 2012a, 2017b). On the surface level, China’s transnational language planning can be considered successful for three reasons. First, the CIs have been able to land in over 1500 strategic locations in over 100 countries on five continents for its grand mission. Second, the CIs have successfully caused divisions in local communities since divided communities are easier to defeat than united ones. Third, the CIs have successfully found local agents who are willing to work for China’s interest at a cost to local interest. In this process, China has successfully employed its smart power, a combination of coercion, payment, and attraction, in its pragmatic approach. However, on the deep level, China’s transnational language planning still has serious challenges. Geopolitically, it has problems with many of its neighbors, Muslim countries along the Belt and Road, and countries in Latin American where China is still considered a threat to various degrees. Ideologically, China is unsuccessful in mediating three Chinas: the real China, the official China, and the perceived China. It has not yet rid itself of the image of a threatening Communist China because of its failure to convey an image of a benign China. To establish the benign image, China needs soft power, not smart power, but it is unlikely that China is able to develop sufficient soft power given the recent political developments in China.

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244  M. ZHOU Lo, A. (2018). Confucius Institutes: China’s benign outreach or something more sinister? Retrieved from https://www.scmp.com/ week-asia/geopolitics/article/2154444/confucius-institutes-chinas-benignoutreach-or-something-more. Lo Bianco, J. (2007). Emergent China and Chinese: Language planning categories. Language Policy, 6(1), 3–26. Looney, D., & Lusin, N. (2018). Enrollments in languages other than English in United States institutions of higher education, summer 2016 and fall 2016: preliminary report. Retrieved from https://www.mla.org/content/download/83540/2197676/2016-Enrollments-Short-Report.pdf. Ma, H. C., & Guo, C. H. (2014). China’s soft power in Latin America and the spreading of Chinese as a foreign language. Journal of Latin American Studies [Lading meizhou yanjiu], 36(6), 48–54. Manevich, D. (2017). Americans have grown more negative toward China over the past decade. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/facttank/2017/02/10/americans-have-grown-more-negative-toward-chinaover-past-decade/. McCarty, T. L., & Warhol, L. (2011). The anthropology of language planning and policy. In B. A. Levinson & M. Pollock (Eds.), A companion to the anthropology of education (pp. 177–196). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Metzgar, E. T., & Su, J. (2017). Friends from afar? American media coverage of China’s Confucius Institutes. Journalism Practice, 11(8), 1000–1025. MLA. (2017). The national K-16 foreign language enrollment survey report. Retrieved from https://www.americancouncils.org/sites/default/files/FLEreport.pdf. MOE. (2018). 2017 national education budget statistics news [2017 nian quanguo jiaoyu jingfei tongji kuaibao]. Retrieved from http://www.jyb.cn/zcg/ xwy/wzxw/201805/t20180508_1066983.html. Mosher, S. W. (2012, March 28). Confucius Institutes: Trojan horses with Chinese characteristics. Testimony presented to the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://pop.org/content/confucius-institutestrojanhorses-chinese-characteristics. Mushangwe, H. (2017). Critical exploration of the teaching of Chinese in Zimbabwe. Abstract for the panel on “Globalization of Chinese: Localizing the teaching of Chinese language, literature and media” for the 2018 AAS Annual Conference. Washington, DC. Naughton, B. (1995). Growing out of the plan: Chinese economic reform, 1978– 1993. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nottingham. (2018). Introduction to the CCP Committee leadership [Dangwei lingdao jieshao]. Retrieved from https://www.nottingham.edu.cn/cn/life/ campusorganisation/introductionofthecommitteemembers.aspx.

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246  M. ZHOU Spolsky, B. (2009). Language management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spolsky, B., & Shohamy, E. (1999). The languages of Israel: Policy, ideology and practice. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Stambach, A. (2014). Confucius and crisis in American universities: Culture, capital, and diplomacy in U. S. public higher education. New York: Routledge. Stambach, A., & Wamalwa, K. (2018). Students’ reparticularization of Chinese language and culture at the University of Rwanda Confucius Institute. Signs and Society, 6(2), 332–348. Sun, K. Y. (2010). Language attitudes among American college students in Chinese language classes. In J. G. Chen, C. Wang, & J. F. Cai (Eds.), Teaching and learning Chinese: Issues and perspectives (pp. 101–116). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Teets, J. (2014). Civil society under authoritarianism: The Chinese model. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Theo, R., & Leung, M. W. H. (2018). China’s Confucius Institute in Indonesia: Mobility, frictions and local surprises. Sustainability, 10, 530. https://doi. org/10.3390/su10020530. Thornton, J. L. (2015). The state of the world and the vital nature of your work. Confucius Institute, 36(1), 74–77. Umejei, E. (2015). China’s engagement with Nigeria: Opportunity or opportunist? African East-Asian Affairs: The China Monitor, 3 and 4, 54–78. Viphaphone, B. (2018). The investigation and countermeasure analysis on the development of Confucius Institute at the National University of Laos. Modern Chinese [Xiandai yuwen], 3, 1987–1991. Wang, H. (2016). The “Belt and Road Initiative” and the Confucius Institute. Retrieved from http://www.cim.chinesecio.com/hbcms/f/article/ info?id=830e15bc70bb43b6a3d1e5de4e02b201&langType=zh. Wang, J. (Ed.). (2011). Soft power in China: Public diplomacy through communication. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Wang, X. (2014). A study and survey of martial arts classes offered by the Confucius Institutes in five African countries [Dui feizhou wuguo kongzi xueyuan wushu ketang kaishe qingkuang de diaocha yu yanjiu]. Contemporary Sports Technology [Dangdai tiyu keji], 28, 145–146. Wang, Y. W. (2008). Public diplomacy and the rise of Chinese soft power. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 616(1), 257–273. Wei, G. C. X. (2011). Mao’s legacy revisited: Its lasting impact on China and post-Mao era reform. Asian Politics & Policy, 3(1), 3–27. Wheeler, A. (2014). Cultural diplomacy, language planning, and the case of the University of Nairobi Confucius Institute. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 49(1), 49–63.

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248  M. ZHOU Yao, J. D. (2009). Chinese teaching in Iran and the Confucius Institute at the University of Tehran. Journal of Yunnan Normal University (CFL Teaching and Research Edition), 7(6), 85–89. Youngman, F. (2014). Engaging academically with China in Africa—The institutional approach of the University of Botswana. African East-Asian Affairs: The China Monitor, 3, 18–36. Zhao, S. S. (1993). Deng Xiaoping’s southern tour: Elite politics in post-Tiananmen China. Asian Survey, 33(8), 739–756. Zhou, M. (2006). Theorizing language contact, spread, and variation in status planning: A case study of Modern Standard Chinese. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 16(2), 159–174. Zhou, M. (2011a). Globalization and language order: Teaching Chinese as a foreign language in the United States. In L. Tsung & K. Cruickshank (Eds.), Teaching and learning Chinese in global contexts (pp. 131–150). London: Continuum. Zhou, M. (2011b, August 23–28). A global Putonghua? Globalization of Chinese and the PRC’s global promotion of Chinese. Paper presented at the 16th World Congress on Applied Linguistics, Beijing. Zhou, M. (2012a). Introduction: The contact between Putonghua (modern standard Chinese) and minority languages in China. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 215, 1–17. Zhou, M. (2012b). Language identity as a process and second language learning. In W. M. Chan, K. N. Chin, S. K. Bhatt, & I. Walker (Eds.), Perspectives on individual characteristics and foreign language education (pp. 255–272). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Zhou, M. (2017a). Language ideology and language order: Conflicts and compromises in colonial and postcolonial Asia. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 243, 97–118. Zhou, M. (2017b). A global standard Chinese? Chinese Journal of Language Policy and Planning, 2(1), 18–24. Zhou, M. (2018, March 22–25). Globalization of Chinese: Localizing the teaching of Chinese language, literature and media. Panel chairman’s remarks presented at the 2018 AAS Annual Conference, Washington, DC. Zhou, V. (2018). Here’s why Africa rolls out the red carpet for Xi Jinping. Retrieved from https://www.inkstonenews.com/politics/ xi-jinping-pledges-big-loans-africa-his-latest-visit/article/2157463. Zuo, P. (2014). Analysis of China’s public diplomacy in Latin America [Shixi Zhongguo dui lamei de gonggong waijiao]. International Monitor [Guoji guancha], 5, 146–157.

CHAPTER 8

Outreaching to Overseas Chinese Communities

With the same ancestry and root and with the same pronunciation and heart, let us speak Putonghua and share our love for China [Tongzu tonggen, tongsheng tongxin, tongjiang Putonghua, tongchuan Zhongguo qing]. —A slogan from the annual national Putonghua Promotion Week (the third week in September since 1998)

8.1  Introduction Broadly speaking, the term “overseas” (haiwai) in the PRC discourse traditionally means areas beyond its jurisdiction. In this sense, overseas Chinese communities include Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and ethnic Chinese overseas (Liu & Dongen, 2017). Since China’s open-door reform and particularly after China signed the Sino-British declaration on Hong Kong’s return and Sino-Portuguese declaration on Macao’s return and outreached to Taiwan for unification in the 1980s, “overseas” has been mostly used to refer to areas beyond China’s sovereignty. Thus, the traditional overseas Chinese communities are now divided to communities of (1) Taiwanese (Taiwan tongbao), (2) Hongkongers and Macaoers (Gangao tongbao), and (3) ethnic Chinese overseas (haiwai qiaobao and haiwai tongbao). For the last communities, the Chinese terms, haiwai qiaobao and huaqiao, alternatively refer to those who are legally Chinese citizens whereas the term, haiwai tongbao, means, those who are not, but may cover all the above three groups in the traditional sense. In this chapter, I use the term, overseas Chinese, in the traditional © The Author(s) 2019 M. Zhou, Language Ideology and Order in Rising China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3483-2_8

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and broad sense but the term, ethnic Chinese, in the discussion of those who are citizens or residents of other countries instead of China. I will examine China’s linguistic outreach to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and ethnic Chinese overseas, in terms of transnational and trans-jurisdictional language planning, in relation to its great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Within this framework, I first review how China expects to unify Taiwan through its linguistic and cultural approaches and how these approaches are challenged. Secondly, I will investigate China’s pragmatic approach to its linguistic unification with Hong Kong and Macao where identity politics resists the Chinese approach. Thirdly, I will explore China’s exploitation of ethnic Chinese overseas, through the Chinese language and culture, for its rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and rise, former of which victimized Chinese overseas in Southeast Asia twice in the twentieth century, and the latter of which has the potential to do harm to ethnic Chinese globally in the twenty-first century. I will conclude with a brief discussion on the linguistic link to Chineseness as ethnicity and nationality.

8.2  Linguistic Outreach to Overseas Chinese Communities The overseas Chinese communities are multilingual. Of Taiwan’s population of twenty-three million, 98% are native speakers of various Chinese dialects, mostly Minnan or Taiwanese, while about 2% speak indigenous languages of the Austronesian family (Wu, 2011). Hong Kong is primarily a Cantonese-speaking community, where about 89% of its over seven million residents are Cantonese speakers, nearly 2% speak Putonghua, about three percent speak other Chinese dialects, and over six percent speak English and other languages (Hong Kong, 2017). Of Macau’s over half million residents, about 83% speak Cantonese, 5% speak Putonghua, nearly 4% speak Hokkien, 2% speak other dialects, and 6% speak Portuguese, English, and other languages (Macao, 2012, pp. 12–13). Multilingualism is common in ethnic Chinese communities in Europe, North America, and Southeast Asia, where the majority speak Chinese dialects, despite an increasing shift to Mandarin in the younger generation (He & Xiao, 2008; W. Li, 1994; Li & Zhu, 2011; X. M. Wang, 2017; Wiley, 2005). China’s linguistic outreach to overseas Chinese communities was traditionally planned and administered by various offices within the Chinese government. Its outreach to Taiwan was taken care of by the

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State Taiwan Affairs Office. Its outreach to Hong Kong and Macao was overseen by the State Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, and to the overseas was coordinated by the State Overseas Chinese Affairs Office. The PRC State Language Commission was not actively engaged then. For example, in its tenth five-year plan (2001–2005), the Commission simply mentioned, in passing, “to strengthen exchange and collaboration with Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan” in the seventh of its eleven working measures (China, 2004). However, during those five years, the Commission actually increased its engagement, participating in the planning and implementation of China’s global promotion of Chinese and Chinese language education in overseas communities, an increased engagement that was followed in all the subsequent planning work (China, 2007). In its eleventh five-year plan (2006–2010), the last of its seven tasks was to (1) “use the special role of the Chinese language and script in the unification of the motherland and promotion of peace,” (2) “strengthen its exchange and collaboration with Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan in order to study and resolve practical problems and increase communication and coordination in applied linguistics in various domains of use,” and (3) “fully implement the global promotion of Chinese for cultural exchange with other countries” (China, 2007). In its medium-to-long-term plan (2012–2020), the Commission stresses, in its guiding principles (Chapter 1), that the promotion of the state common language and script and the implementation of the language law are vital aspects of China’s unification, socioeconomic development, cohesion of the Chinese nation, and cultural soft power (China, 2016). In Chapter 3 of the plan, the commission specifically enlisted several approaches to Hong Kong and Macao, Taiwan, and ethnic Chinese overseas, respectively. Thus, language planning for the overseas Chinese communities has evolved from the passive and sporadic to the active and fully fledged since the turn of the twenty-first century. Unlike its global promotion of Chinese, China’s linguistic outreach to overseas Chinese communities involves both transnational and trans-jurisdictional language planning (Kloss, 1998; Lo Bianco, 2007; Zhou, 2011b). In the case of ethnic Chinese overseas, China’s language planning is transnational whether those communities include Chinese citizens or non-Chinese citizens. In those ethnic Chinese communities, China engages in linguistic activities beyond its sovereignty. On the other hand, Taiwan has never been under the PRC’s jurisdiction, though the latter has been trying to unify it since 1949. Hong Kong and Macao are

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special cases, though they have reunified with the Mainland since 1997 and 1999, respectively. Based on the legal arrangements of “one country and two systems” for their returns, Hong Kong and Macao enjoy high autonomy for fifty years, except the military and foreign affairs, which are taken care of by the Central Government (Hong Kong, 2012; Macao, 1998). In this legal framework, language planning is currently outside the PRC’s direct jurisdiction, though it may influence the planning. Both transnational and trans-jurisdictional language planning can be viewed in terms of the surface level and deep level in the Manageable Community SLA model that I presented in Fig. 7.2 in Chapter 7 (Zhou, 2006b, 2012c). The essential difference between transnational and trans-jurisdictional language planning, on the one hand, and national and within-jurisdictional language planning, on the other hand, is a question of degrees of direct control and engagement. The PRC has much less control of the linguistic input, output, and market overseas and needs the collaboration from the other parties on the surface level. Thus, it has to appeal to ethnic, cultural, and political identities on the deep level to promote its linguistic unification (Zhou, 2017c).

8.3  Linguistic Outreach to Taiwan The unification with Taiwan is an essential part of China’s great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, without which there is no rejuvenation in the eyes of the PRC. Thus, China’s linguistic outreach to Taiwan is a crucial mechanism, as crucial as language does in any nation-state building, that is expected to strengthen the linguistic and cultural integration of the two separated polities. The outreach includes the linguistic unification on the surface level and cultural identification on the deep level. Linguistically, after near four decades of complete separation between the Mainland and Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, Mandarin Chinese became phonologically, syntactically, and lexically diverged across the Strait in addition to the different versions of Chinese characters. First, these linguistic differences are caused by the PRC’s language planning that deviated from the ROC’s (Republic of China) since 1949. The ROC used to have two versions of spoken standard for Guoyu, the Old National Pronunciation (Lao Guoyin) and the New National Pronunciation (Xin Guoyin). The former one was a hybrid system of varieties of Mandarin developed in the 1910s, while the latter was based on the speech of educated speakers of the Beijing variety developed in

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the 1920s (P. Chen, 1999, pp. 13–23). Thus, Guoyu’s spoken standard was moving closer to the vernacular, but its written standard remained more distant from the vernacular. In contrast, in the 1950s, the PRC set the spoken standard of Putonghua solely on the pronunciation of the Beijing variety and the written standard on the basis of vernacular literary works (China, 1996, p. 12). As a result, when the two sides resumed linguistic communication in the late 1980s, Mainland residents wrote more vernacular Chinese in simplified characters, whereas Taiwan residents wrote less vernacular Chinese in traditional characters, the difference of which is more or less reflected in their spoken language too. Secondly, Guoyu’s intensive contact with Taiwanese or Minnan has resulted in Taiwan Guoyu or Taiwanese Mandarin, which are phonologically, syntactically, and lexically different from the standard Guoyu (Kubler, 1985). At the same time, Putonghua’s extensive contact with various varieties of Chinese and minority languages on the Mainland has led to numerous localized (difang) Putonghuas, which phonologically, syntactically, and lexically deviate from the standard (Saillard, 2004; Zhou, 2006a, 2012b). Third, within the two separate polities, the lexicons of Putonghua and Guoyu have independent tracks of development, following their respective standardization processes and social evolutions (X. J. Li, 2013a). The divergence in these areas will increase if efforts are not made to contain it. Considering the linguistic divergence across the Taiwan Strait as a threat to its goal of the unification, the PRC has linguistically outreached to Taiwan since the 1990s. However, without jurisdiction, the PRC mainly relies on scholarly collaboration with the other side of the Strait in its language planning, though sporadic political collaboration does exist. For instance, the PRC medium-to-long-term plan (2012– 2020) for its language and script work specifies five projects and four areas of research in collaboration with Taiwan (Item 16 of Chapter 3, China, 2016). These five collaborative projects include the compilation of Chinese dictionaries as a means of standardization, the construction of an online Chinese language knowledge database, the organization of a Chinese language think tank, the training and testing of Mandarin proficiency, and linguistic and cultural exchange program for the youth. The four areas of collaborative research involve the standardization of technical terms and proper nouns, the standardization of deviant pronunciations of the same words, software for the conversion of texts in simplified and traditional characters, and database for the correspondence between

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characters/words across the Strait. Research results are often exchanged through scholarly conferences and forums. For instance, the Cross-Strait Symposium on Modern Chinese Language has been held at academic institutions in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and the Mainland for eleven times since 2005. It becomes one of the channels through which collaborative and individual research results on Chinese are exchanged. These collaborations and exchanges appear to be fruitful. For example, software for text conversion was published for free use in 2014. Among the above five collaborative projects, the compilation of dictionaries is the earliest and the most successful for three reasons. First, dictionaries are traditional and practical means in language standardization, which have been used for centuries (Wright, 2004, pp. 55–57). Thus, they are readily acceptable to both sides of the Strait despite the political differences. Secondly, both sides have felt the urgent need of dictionaries because of the large gap between the words and terms used across the Strait, a gap that causes misunderstanding. Thirdly, both sides have accepted a pragmatic approach in the cross-strait dictionary compilation. This approach recognizes the coexistence of two standard varieties of Mandarin (yiyu lianghua), Putonghua and Guoyu, and of two scripts for one language (yiwen liangti), the simplified and the traditonal (Zhang & Li, 2014). The first successful effort was made by the collaboration between individual scholars from both sides of the Strait (Chen & Zhang, 2011). The fruit of this collaboration, the Cross-Strait Modern Chinese Dictionary (Liangan xiandai hanyu cidian), was published in two versions in simplified characters and traditional characters by the Beijing Language and Cultural University and Taipei Language Institute, respectively, in 2003. The first semiofficial effort at a Comprehensive Chinese Language Dictionary (Zhonghua yuwen da cidian) was proposed by Ma Yingjiu, then President of the ROC, in 2009, and coordinated by the Department of Language and Script Use Management of the PRC State Language Commission and ROC’s General Association of Chinese Culture (Sina, 2009). Either side organized its compilation committee which worked out its version and then exchanged their versions and cross-checked both versions. The dictionary was successfully published in Taipei in April 2016, right before Mr. Ma Yingjiu finished his last term of the ROC presidency. On the PRC side, the expectation of this dictionary is so high that it is supposed to provide linguistic support to cross-strait exchange and full unification of China (X. Li, 2013b). The linguistic collaboration continued since Ms. Cai Yingwen took office as the President of the ROC in 2016, but the pace has slowed down officially.

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However, on the deep level, the PRC’s linguistic outreach to Taiwan did not go as smoothly as it did on the surface level for cultural and political reasons. Culturally, there are fundamental differences between the PRC and ROC about their relationships with Chinese traditional culture in general and Confucianism in particular. The first president of the ROC, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen believed that “his thought was a development and continuation of the ancient Chinese Doctrine of Confucius,” and conceived his Three Principles, nationalism, democracy, and people’s livelihood in terms of Confucianism, whether this line of thinking is fully compatible with modern nation-state building or not (Gregor, 1981). As Dr. Sun Yat-Sen’s successor, President Chiang Kai-Shek “felt impelled to conduct himself as the legitimate inheritor of the ideological mantle of Sun Yat-Sen and the moral patron of his people” (Loh, 1970). As an individual, Mr. Chiang’s thought was informed by Confucianism, Sunyatsenism, and Christianity. All these thoughts influenced him as the chairman of the ruling Nationalist Party (Guomindang or GMD). Chiang’s New Life Movement in the Mainland in the 1930s was continued through the Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement in Taiwan in the 1960s and 1970s, the latter of which is seen to have preserved and revived Chinese culture in Taiwan (Guan, 2001). On the other hand, the first president of the PRC, Mao Zedong, denounced the Confucian order in rural China by supporting the riffraff against the gentry in the peasantry movement in Hunan, China in the 1920s, and struggled with Confucianism through his whole life, a struggle that ridded Confucianism off a place in the PRC in its first three decades (Boer, 2015; Mao, 1927). With Mao’s participation and leadership, the eradication of Confucianism was continued from the May Fourth Movement in the late 1910s through the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s (He & Zhang, 2009). This historical rupture in Chinese culture underlies the contemporary gap between the PRC and ROC in the former’s effort at its rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The PRC recognizes and admires the ROC’s efforts at and success in the resinicization of Taiwan after its return from Japanese occupation since 1945 (R. Z. Li, 2013; L. X. Yang, 2016). Traditional Chinese morality, as the core of Chinese culture, is commonly believed in and practiced in Taiwan. These belief and practice make the Taiwanese society the most cultivated and polite Chinese society among all Chinese societies. The PRC is inspired to learn from the ROC in the Chinese cultural indoctrination in primary education and the enhancement of individual

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cultivation and social harmony. However, the PRC is humiliated by and despises the ROC’s sense of cultural superiority and authenticity in the context of the Chinese cultural renaissance (Xu, 2009; L. X. Yang, 2016). A typical example of this attitude is found in the PRC’s response to Mr. Ma Yingjiu’s proposal on “reading in the traditional script and writing in the simplified one” (shizheng shujian). Instead of accommodating this pragmatic approach to the unification of the written language, the PRC had two major issues with Mr. Ma’s proposal then (China News, 2009; Xu, 2009). First, it considered Mr. Ma’s proposal as a rejection of the simplification of Chinese characters as a part of the Chinese communist revolution since the 1920s and a key component of the PRC’s language planning since 1949. Secondly, it saw Mr. Ma’s use of the word “zheng,” which means “legitimate, standard, authentic,” as his strategy to take the high ground of the cultural authenticity and superiority in the cross-strait relationship. As a result, Mr. Ma’s proposal was attacked, from both sides, by pro-independence groups in Taiwan and the PRC government on the Mainland. When the PRC began to consider this proposal seriously, the opportunity was gone with Mr. Ma’s departure from the office of the presidency of the ROC because of the GMD’s loss of the election. Politically, the PRC and ROC have diverged in their respective language policies since the turn of this century. Ideologically, the PRC has shifted from the Soviet-style multilingualism to monolingualism with a limited and ordered multilingualism, according to the latter Putonghua and its corresponding written form are legalized as the top language with minority languages being marginalized as transitional and complementary languages in the building of an inclusive Chinese nation (Zhou, 2010, 2012a). In this new language order, the PRC requires every citizen to learn and use Putonghua while limiting the use of their mother tongues. On the other hand, the ROC has evolved in the opposite direction (Su & Guo, 2018; Wu, 2011; Zhou, 2017b). Ideologically, the ROC has shifted from monolingualism to multilingualism in its democratic process since the early the 1990s. This ideological evolution leads to the development of a new multilingual order in Taiwan. First, Guoyu as the sole medium of instruction in schools was legally challenged since the Constitution of the ROC does not specify the status of Guoyu. The GMD had to consider linguistic diversity, conceding that local languages could be offered as electives in 1993 (Wu, 2011). The GMD government began to encourage the study and compilation of teaching materials for indigenous languages, effectively offering

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bilingual education. Secondly, during its rule between 2000 and 2008, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took a further step and drafted the State Language Equality Law (guojia yuyan pingdeng fa), proposing that Taiwanese, Hakka, and Austronesian languages become national languages along with Guoyu (Wu, 2011). However, it failed to pass the legislature because it was considered a threat to the status of Guoyu. Around the failed legislation, the DPP government took an administrative approach to indigenous language education. In 2006, the Council on Indigenous Affairs (Yuanzhu minzu weiyuanhui) passed a six-year plan to revitalize indigenous languages in eight concrete ways (Zhou & Shi, 2011). With the GMD’s return to power in 2009, the ROC continued the policy for diversity, but prevented any threat to the status of Guoyu. After the DPP won the election again in 2015, President Cai Yingwen took two steps for further development of a multilingual order in Taiwan. First, her party was able to pass the Indigenous Language Development Law in the legislature in 2017. Immediately, her party proposed a National Language Development Law to the legislature, the draft of which intends to treat all languages spoken in Taiwan as “national languages” (guoyu). There is no doubt that if this proposal becomes law it will take away Guoyu’s monopoly of the status of the sole “national language,” which is the basis for the PRC’s linguistic outreach to Taiwan. Watching the new development closely, the PRC considers the ROC’s multilingual ideology and order as a step to desinicize Taiwan and a threat to the unification and rejuvenation of the Chinese nation or more seriously as Taiwan’s cultural independence (Li & Qiu, 2017; Su & Guo, 2018). Ideologically and institutionally, despite the collaborations in the last two decades or so, linguistic unification across the Strait appears to become more and more remote as the two polities have embarked on the opposite tracks of linguistic development, aiming at two entirely different language orders. Their language ideologies and orders become polarized with less and less room for reconciliation particularly under the rule of the DPP.

8.4  Linguistic Outreach to Hong Kong and Macao Hong Kong and Macao’s returns to China in 1997 and 1999, respectively, were marked by the typical rituals seen in many events of decolonization (Hopkins, 2008). It was a showcase of a peaceful negotiation, between China and the UK, to terminate the colonization in 1997, the

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former of which cared about the ending of a century and half of Western humiliation while the latter of which was concerned about an honorable exit of the collapsed British Empire in the 1980s and 1990s (Vogel, 1996). So was the case of Macao, which followed the same path to a peaceful handover from Portugal to China in 1999. What did not receive deserved attention in this process is the role of the subject people, particularly in Hong Kong where the residents were mostly vigilant political and economic refugees from the Mainland and their descendants (Pierson, 1998). I believe that their agency is no less crucial in determining the process of decolonization in Hong Kong than that of the national liberation movements in decolonization in Africa and elsewhere, though Macao is a different story (Babou, 2010; Collins, 2017). In effect, this agency made China and the UK compromise on a fifty-year time frame for a gradual process of decolonization, which was unseen in the history of decolonization before (Baum, 1999; Chan, 1996; Tang & Ching, 1996). The agency of Hongkongers acted through expressions of their confidence that caused collapses or rises of Hong Kong’s stock market and their attitudes that could have crippled Hong Kong’s economy with the fleeing of the elite via immigration, though the PRC refused to engage any Hongkongers directly in the negotiation (Mathews, Ma, & Lui, 2008, pp. 42–43). The PRC had to take the Hongkongers’ attitudes and confidence into serious consideration during the negotiations in the 1980s, because a prosperous Hong Kong was then China’s gateway to the world and future. This agency of Hongkongers has been still in action in the last two decades since the turnover in 1997. This is the context of China’s continuous linguistic outright to Hong Kong, and, by the way, to Macao where the pro-PRC force has already been dominant outside and inside the local government since 1966 (Choi, 2011). Like any decolonization, the PRC’s linguistic outreach to Hong Kong and Macao is an essential dimension of its nation-state (re)building there, but it is a compromised one (Zhou, 2017a). Article 9 of the General Principles of the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) stipulates that “In addition to the Chinese language, English may also be used as an official language by the executive authorities, legislature and judiciary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region” (Hong Kong, 1997). Similarly, Article 9 of the General Principles of the Basic Law of the Macao SAR specifies that “In addition to the Chinese language, Portuguese may also be used as an official language by the executive authorities, legislature and judiciary

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of the Macao Special Administrative Region” (Macao, 1998). On the one hand, the PRC considers the promotion of the state common language and script an essential aspect of the integrity of its national sovereignty and national coherence (Chapter 1, China, 2016). Thus, the State Language Commission has specifically committed to services for Putonghua learning, proficiency testing, teacher training, summer student exchanges, and research in Hong Kong and Macao in its mediumto-long-term plan (2012–2020). On the other hand, the basic laws of the two SARs allow the continued use of the colonial languages as the primary official languages. This situation goes against the common practice of linguistic decolonization where nationalist language planning upgrades the local languages and rejects the colonial languages, though eventually the zeal for the national languages often yields to bilingualism in local attitudes and practices (Appel & Verhoeven, 2008; Zhou & Wang, 2017). The basic laws entertain biliteracy (Chinese and English) and trilingualism (English, Cantonese, and Putonghua) in Hong Kong as well as triliteracy (Chinese, Portuguese, and English) and quadrilingualism (Portuguese, English, Cantonese, and Putonghua) as the results of conflicts and compromises (Bray & Koo, 2004; Zhou, 2017a, 2017b). 8.4.1   Hong Kong The compromises are officially represented by the basic laws, while the conflicts have been often seen in the relationship first between English and Chinese/Cantonese and then between Cantonese and Putonghua in public opinion in Hong Kong. Hong Kong had been officially biliterary (English and Chinese) and bilingual (English and Cantonese) since it enacted the Official Language Ordinance of 1974 under the pressure of local demands. However, as Hong Kong rose economically and its return surfaced in the late 1970s, the number of Englishmedium schools far surpassed that of the Chinese-medium (written Chinese and oral Cantonese) schools. By the 1990s, over 90% schools in Hong Kong claimed to use English as the medium of instruction, though most of them taught in mixed codes of English and Cantonese with students who were not competent in English at all (Bray & Koo, 2004; Postiglione, 1996). The conflict between English and Chinese/ Cantonese exploded in Spring 1997 when the colonial Hong Kong government recognized 100 schools as English medium and a few hundred

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as Chinese medium (spoken Cantonese and written Chinese), probably in consideration of the imminent transition to Chinese sovereignty, the benefit of education in the mother tongue, and/or a political support for the local community, but the categorization created a division in Hong Kong (Tsui, 2003). After strong local protests, as a compromise, the colonial government increased the number of English-medium schools to 114, and since then the new SAR government continues minor adjustments, allowing qualified schools to use English-medium. This conflict between English and Chinese/Cantonese should be viewed as a political protest to decolonization, but often as an economic one. In terms of the material value orientation, English is perceived, by Hongkongers, to give an edge to local students in the competitive labor market, more options for the students to seek post-secondary education, and a status to Hong Kong as the global metropolitan of Asia (Bray & Koo, 2004; Evans, 2009; Kan & Adamson, 2010). Indeed, English-speaking Hongkongers usually earn 17% more than those who do not speak English, and the margin of return is even larger for immigrants there who gain English proficiency for a 46–51% increase in income (Lui, 2007). However, equal or more attention should be paid to another dimension of English as the super global language, which is more or less spoken by about 45–53% Hongkongers (Hong Kong, 2017). Middle-class Hongkongers are more likely to be associated with English both materially and spiritually, while working-class Hongkongers tend to be associated with it materially (Lai, 2010). In terms of its spiritual value orientation, English is perceived, by Hongkongers, to represent their cosmopolitan identity, whether they speak it or not, and an assurance of the capitalist system in the framework of one country and two systems. The conflict between English and Chinese/Cantonese is their first line of defense of their lifestyle and cosmopolitan identity. This conflict suggests that the combined material and spiritual values of English are more significant than those of their mother tongue that represents their local and Chinese identities. In essence, Hongkongers’ ambivalence concerns not the decolonization itself but the motherland’s socialist system that they or their parents escaped in the 1950s to the 1970s. This ambivalence is represented linguistically first as Hongkongers’ choice of English over Chinese/Cantonese. The essence of linguistic decolonization is often found in education, though the initial focus is on the official status of the involved languages. Hong Kong’s preparation for the onslaught of Putonghua

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started right after the Sino-British Joint Declaration sealed its future in 1985. Putonghua became an elective subject for primary schools in 1986 and secondary schools in 1988 (Pierson, 1998). After the CNPC promulgated the Hong Kong SAR Basic Laws in 1990, the Education Department of Hong Kong began to include Putonghua as a component of teacher training in preparation for the handover in 1997. It published the curriculum for Putonghua as a core subject in 1997 for implementation in primary schools and junior high schools in 1998. Starting in 2008, Hong Kong began to encourage the gradual use of Putonghua as the medium of instruction first for the Chinese language subject and later for other subjects in primary and secondary schools (Tian, 2008). Universities in Hong Kong offer more and more courses taught in Putonghua, and some begin to plan for or already have compulsory Putonghua courses. As a result, the local population that speak and understand Putonghua increased from about 40% in 2006 to nearly 49% in 2016 (Hong Kong, 2017). Putonghua’s material and spiritual value orientations are advocated by the PRC in its linguistic outreach to Hong Kong. Materially, as China’s economy grows, Putonghua is expected to provide an alternative route to social mobility for the working class in Hong Kong, but it is not perceived so by the working-class Hongkongers who view Putonghuaspeaking mainland immigrants as competitors in the labor market (Lai, 2010). The working-class’ perception is warranted by the reality to a large extent. The financial return for Putonghua ability shrank from 3.4% higher income before the handover in 1997 to merely 1.6% higher after 1997 (Lui, 2007). Before 1997, Hong Kong companies hired managerial personnel with Putonghua ability to manage businesses in neighboring mainland facilities, but generally hire salespersons to serve mainland tourists since the handover. Thus, middle-class Hongkongers benefit more from Putonghua as they do from English in comparison with the working class. In terms of the spiritual value orientation, those who benefit more from Putonghua also have more concerns about the PRC’s socialist system than those who do less. Cantonese becomes Hongkongers’ second line of defense of their Hong Kong identity and lifestyle. The defense becomes tenser recently as the status of Cantonese is being challenged. For instance, among the Putonghua core course supporting materials sent to schools regularly by the Education Department of Hong Kong since 1997, a recent article claimed that the concept of Cantonese as

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the mother tongue caused problems for Putonghua teaching in Hong Kong and Cantonese should be labeled as a dialect instead (Hong Kong Free Press, 2018; Song, 2013). Politically, defending Cantonese against Putonghua reflects a deeper conflict between Hong Kong’s capitalist system and the PRC’s socialist system, as seen at the student protests for academic freedom and against compulsory Putonghua course requirements at the Hong Kong Baptist University in early 2018 (Straits Times, 2018). More generally, after the handover in 1997, this deeper conflict boils down to the question of whether Hong Kong’s electoral system engages true democratization or becomes a PRC engineered one for the show, as seen in the “Umbrella Movement” (Bush, 2014). A democratic electoral system is seen as a protection of Hongkongers’ cosmopolitan identity, but a fake one is considered a threat to it. It appears that Hongkongers see their cosmopolitan identity and PRC citizenship identity not being completely compatible. They love China, but not the Chinese state (Mathews, Ma, & Lui, 2008, pp. 156–158). That is the paradox underlining their aggressive defense of Cantonese against Putonghua and their active learning of Putonghua. Culturally, Hongkongers’ versions of China that they believe they belong to and the standard Chinese that they expect to speak and write are different from the PRC’s versions. Their China is considered more traditional, where people are law-abiding, polite, and civilized, and often closely associated with traditional national icons, such as the Great Wall and Confucius, instead of the Tiananmen Square and Great Hall of the People (Mathews, Ma, & Lui, 2008, pp. 101–107). Their standard Chinese is neither written Cantonese nor Putonghua in its oral and written forms (Pierson, 1998; Snow, 2004). In Hongkongers’ eyes, the standard Chinese is as classical as standard Guoyu of the ROC and as cosmopolitan as Mandarin used in Singapore. The association of traditional China with classical and cosmopolitan Guoyu represents Hongkongers’ Chinese identity that is different from what the PRC intends to create in its linguistic outreach within the framework of one country and two systems (Hobova, 2016). 8.4.2  Macao Macao’s situation is fundamentally different from the case of Hong Kong, though its Basic Law is modeled after Hong Kong’s (Choi, 2011). First, Macao had been a colony for over four centuries, with

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little root in democracy in the colony or back in the colonizer’s home, when China and Portugal reached the agreement of its return in 1987. Second, depending on the gambling industry, Macao is not an economic powerhouse of Asia as Hong Kong is. Third, Portuguese is not a powerful global language as English is. Last but most importantly, the proPRC forces have been predominant in Macao since the 1960s. Thus, it appears that Macaoers only need to balance their local identity and PRC citizenship identity linguistically and culturally, but they seem to have pursued an aspiration for a cosmopolitan identity as Hongkongers did since the handover in 1999. Despite its apparent pro-PRC attitudes, Macao SAR mostly follows its former colonizer’s laissez-faire approach to language policy in Putonghua promotion. It only requires public primary and secondary schools to use either Portuguese or Chinese as the medium of instruction, and private schools to adopt one of the two official languages or other languages as the medium of instruction, but the education authorities never bother to disambiguate the term, Chinese (Macao, 2008a; Zhou, 2017b). It allows the use of Cantonese as the medium for all subjects while encouraging the gradual use of Putonghua for the subject of Chinese. Only in 2014 did Macao begin to regulate that Putonghua must be included in Chinese as the first language courses and may be included in Chinese as the second language courses in primary and secondary schools. By the 2016–2017 school year, 22% of primary schools and 26% secondary schools adopted Putonghua as the medium in Chinese subject courses (Macao Libao, 2017). In the whole population, Macaoers with the ability to speak Putonghua increased from about 45% in 2001 to about 50% in 2016 (Macao, 2002, p. 38; 2017, p. 9). News reports of public opinion are generally favorable toward Putonghua, but the relatively slow progress suggests something else. Studies of language attitudes in Macao have consistently shown that, from primary schools to colleges, Cantonese ranks the first, English the second, Putonghua the third, and Portuguese the last in integrative orientation, while English is rated the first, Cantonese the second, Putonghua the third, and Portuguese the last in instrumental orientation (Mann & Wong, 1999; Yan, 2017; Young, 2009). It is rather strange in an apparently proPRC Macao where Putonghua is both valued lower than English and Cantonese materially and spiritually. Macaoers’ spiritual value orientation for Cantonese is understood as their linguistic representation of the local Macao identity. Their material

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orientation for English is also well understood since English is the super global language for education, science, and commerce, but their strong spiritual value orientation for English, stronger than that for Putonghua, deserves an examination. It appears that Macaoers and Macao SAR government have shared the aspiration for a cosmopolitan identity, though the suppressed few dissidents may disagree in other areas (Choi, 2011). The SAR government explicitly states in its language policy, “The popularization of English and training of high-quality foreign language talents are one of the necessary conditions for Macao to become an international metropolitan city and assurance for its sustainable socioeconomic development” (Macao, 2008a). Thus, English becomes a de facto official language of the Macao SAR which uses it extensively for government business (Woody, 2008). Benefited from this policy, Englishmedium higher education in Macao has flourished in the last two decades (Bray & Kool, 2005; Shan & Ieong, 2008). In turn, primary and secondary schools also intensify their use of English as a medium and as a subject. The effect of this policy is apparent. Only about 17% of Macaoers spoke English in 2006, but over 27% spoke fluent English by 2016 (Macao, 2008b, pp. 31–32; Macao, 2017, p. 167, 2017, p. 9). This 10% increase of fluent English speakers in 10 years is particularly significant in comparison with about 5% growth of the Putonghuaspeaking population in 15 years between 2001 and 2016. Concerning linguistic and cultural identity politics, after the handover in 1999, Macaoers and Macao SAR probably see two options of development for Macao down the road within fifty years. One of the two is like those of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai in Mainland China, where Shenzhen has completely lost its local linguistic and cultural identity while Guangzhou and Zhuhai are struggling in a dichotomy of the local identity and national one (Miao & Li, 2006; Zhou, 2001). On the other hand, they also see the road that Hong Kong has taken, which with the help of English leads to three major identities, the local, the national, and the cosmopolitan as discussed above. Macao SAR’s effort at making English a de facto official language and Macaoers’ endeavor at learning English suggest that not wanting to become one of the Chinese cities, they have chosen to follow Hong Kong’s path to a cosmopolitan identity. A tripartite structure of identities is much more stable than a binary structure of identities in the long run. Undoubtedly, Macao’s path to a cosmopolitan city would slow down the spread of Putonghua in Macao, but will not stop it as China becomes economically stronger.

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8.4.3  Summary In short, there are significant gaps between the PRC’s language order, in which Putonghua enjoys the supremacy, and those in Hong Kong and Macao, where English and Portuguese are primary and Chinese is secondary in official practice. In multilingual Hong Kong and Macao, the PRC’s linguistic outreach to reorder languages confronts several serious ideological challenges. In the case of Hong Kong, the outreach has to reconcile Hongkongers’ PRC citizenship identity, first with their Hong Kong cosmopolitan identity represented by English, second with their Hong Kong local identity represented by Cantonese, and last with their Chinese identity represented by standard Chinese written in traditional characters with less vernacular. The outreach faces similar challenges in Macao, where the cosmopolitan identity marked by English has gathered momentum since the handover in 1999, though with weaker ideological and institutional resistance to Putonghua. In its effort to unify Hongkongers and Macaoers for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, ironically, the PRC is challenged once again for the authenticity of its Chineseness as it is in the case of Taiwan.

8.5  Linguistic Outreach to Ethnic Chinese Overseas It is estimated that the population of ethnic Chinese overseas reached over 45 million, about 73% of which are distributed in Southeast Asian countries, 12% in North America, and nearly 5% in Europe (Zhuang, 2010). Since its open-door policy and new march to the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation in the late 1970s, the PRC’s overall outreach to ethnic Chinese overseas has evolved in four stages. Between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s, the PRC followed Deng Xiaoping’s opportunist approach to the broad overseas Chinese communities, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and ethnic Chinese overseas, treating these communities as China’s opportunity for its economic development (B. Zhang, 2014). The Chinese government welcomed ethnic Chinese overseas to bring investments to China and promote international trade with it. From the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, the PRC adhered to Jiang Zemin’s strategy in considering ethnic Chinese overseas as its economic and technical resources and in utilizing their international advantages (Ren, 2013). It encouraged ethnic Chinese overseas not only to invest in China but also to bring new technology to it for its

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modernization. At the same time, it asked ethnic Chinese overseas to take China’s businesses to the world. From the mid-2000 to 2012, in addition to the opportunities and resources, Hu Jintao expected ethnic Chinese overseas to play a significant role in China’s unification, the spread of Chinese culture, and facilitation of mutual understanding between China and other countries. Hu’s expectations broadened China’s focus on economy and technology to encompass public diplomacy in its outreach to ethnic Chinese overseas (Jin & Zang, 2015). Since 2012, building on the existing approaches, Xi Jinping wants ethnic Chinese overseas to share his Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and to contribute to this dream in China’s grand strategies (Zhao & Liu, 2013; Xinhua, 2017). In this historical and political context, China’s linguistic outreach to ethnic Chinese overseas is significantly different from its global promotion of Chinese. The difference may rest on the deep level rather than the surface level of the promotion of Chinese in China’s transnational language planning (Zhou, 2014, 2017c). On the surface level, China provides textbooks, teachers, teacher training, summer camps, and Putonghua proficiency testing for ethnic Chinese community schools. Most of these offerings are similar to what China provides in its global promotion of Chinese, except the summer camps which are cultural and patriotic immersion programs instead of linguistic immersion. On the deep level, however, the promotion of Chinese in ethnic Chinese communities seeks a more comprehensive identification with the PRC than the global promotion of Chinese does (Zhou, 2014, 2017c). China expects ethnic, cultural, and even political identification in Chinese learning and also considers their learning as a platform for its soft power projection (P. Y. Chen, 2015; Chen & Fan, 2010). Specifically, as first language education, the promotion of Chinese in ethnic Chinese communities aims at (re)sinicization (jiaohua) of ethnic Chinese overseas, regardless of whether individual members learn Chinese as their first language or second language (X. B. Chen, 2011; Guo, 2004). For instance, in the development of a Chinese proficiency test for Chinese overseas sponsored by the PRC State Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, Chinese culture is included as an essential component along with grammar, vocabulary, and characters because it is considered a test of mother tongue (H. Wang, 2016). Regarding the (re)sinicization, Xi Jinping (2010) stressed at the opening ceremony for the 2010 summer camps for ethnic Chinese overseas that a unified Chinese nation is their

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common root, Chinese culture is their collective soul, and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is their shared dream. It appears that ethnic Chinese communities overseas have positively responded to China’s linguistic outreach since its open-door policy in the late 1970s. There has been a gradual shift from Chinese dialects to Putonghua or Mandarin since the 1980s, a shift that constitutes the third feature of the globalization of Chinese, in addition to the global standardization of Chinese teaching in public and private schools and the global establishment of Confucius Institutes discussed in Chapter 7. In ethnic Chinese communities overseas, Chinese dialects, such as Cantonese, used to be predominantly spoken, but changes have taken place in the last three decades. It first started in Singapore, where Chinese dialect speakers began to shift to Mandarin and English in the 1980s, and affected ethnic Chinese communities in other East Asian countries later (Goh, 2013; X. M. Wang, 2011). The shift gradually took place in ethnic Chinese communities on other continents. In North America, for example, New York Times reported that in Manhattan’s Chinatown older Chinese immigrants who speak only Cantonese face increasing difficulties in everyday life if they do not speak English or Putonghua, which are now commonly spoken on the streets and in the restaurants and shops there (Semple, 2009). This language use situation is a reliable indicator of the shift in ethnic Chinese communities in North America. As in Asia and North America, ethnic Chinese communities in Europe have been undergoing the same shift as well. For instance, comparing the findings from her surveys done in 2001 and 2010 in Paris, Saillard (2011) discovered that ethnic Chinese youths in France now spoke Putonghua more often than any Chinese dialects and ethnic Chinese parents spoke more Putonghua with their children than they had done so 10 years ago, when Chinese dialects had been then still dominant. Similar developments were seen in other European countries. The shift reflects changing attitudes toward Putonghua, which has affected Chinese teaching in heritage language schools in ethnic Chinese communities overseas. For example, in surveys of language attitudes of pupils, parents, and teachers in ethnic Chinese community schools in the UK, Li and Zhu (2011) found that their informants predominantly supported Putonghua as the national standard language and the teaching of it in ethnic Chinese community schools, though they also appreciated the diversity of Chinese dialects. Similar attitudes are found in ethnic Chinese communities in North America. In their surveys and interviews

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of Chinese immigrants and Chinese international students in the USA, Wiley et al. (2008) found that, regardless of this group’s diverse linguistic background and respect for linguistic diversity, the informants tended to use Putonghua, particularly in public, and regarded it highly, and expected their children to do so as well. These attitudes have become predominant in ethnic Chinese communities everywhere, particular since when their adopted motherlands changed their language policies to cope with a rising China. In the UK, Chinese teaching has expanded from ethnic Chinese community schools to primary, secondary, and tertiary schools since the turn of the twenty-first century (Zhang & Li, 2010). In the USA, Chinese has evolved from a less-commonly-taught language to a critical language for national interest and security since the turn of this century (Zhou, 2011a) These attitudes along with local policy changes have affected Chinese teaching in ethnic Chinese communities in two significant ways. First, these attitudes have tightly squeezed the space for Chinese dialect teaching, if not eliminated it, in the last decade or so. For example, Cantonese used to be commonly taught in ethnic Chinese community language schools in North America but is now taught only in a few metropolitans, such as Vancouver, Canada, where there is a sizable Cantonese-speaking population (Youth Collaborative for Chinatown, 2018). Second, these attitudes have motivated a shift to the Putonghua standard (Putonghua, Pinyin, and simplified characters) from the Guoyu standard (Guoyu, Zhuyin (kana-like phonetic symbols), and traditional characters) in the curricula of ethnic Chinese community schools. In the USA, for instance, two different community school systems were established to serve immigrants from different backgrounds in the early 1990s. With schools in 47 states, the National Council of Association of Chinese Language Schools (NCACLS, 2018) used to teach over 100,000 students only in Zhuyin and traditional characters, but it began to offer textbooks with Pinyin and both simplified and traditional characters in the last few years. At the same time, the Chinese School Association in the United States (CSAUS, 2018) has over 400 schools in almost every state and teaches over 100,000 students in Putonghua, Pinyin, and simplified characters. The existence of the two school systems essentially involves the politics of the authenticity of Chineseness as seen in the PRC’s linguistic outreach to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao. However, (re)sinicization in authentic Chineseness in ethnic Chinese communities overseas is problematic since these communities are

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different from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao where the PRC has or claims sovereignty. Historically, whether encouraged by the GMD for the ROC or the CCP for the PRC, this kind of (re)sinicization victimized ethnic Chinese overseas twice for the sake of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation in the twentieth century. The first time was during Dr. Sun Yat-Sen’s effort to overthrow the Qing Empire and rejuvenate the Chinese nation in the early twentieth century. Responding to Dr. Sun’s call, Chinese overseas in Southeast Asian countries developed strong ethnic, cultural, and political identification with China. In Indonesia, for example, new Chinese immigrants extensively engaged in domestic politics in China, while nativized ethnic Chinese were enthusiastically encouraged to undergo resinicization, enlarging the gap that had earlier decreased between ethnic Chinese and indigenous Indonesians (Q. G. Yang, 1992). Southeast Asian ethnic Chinese communities’ political engagement in China and strong allegiance to China had immediate repercussions. In Thailand, for instance, after Dr. Sun Yat-Sen’s four visits for his Revolutionary Alliance (Tongmenghui) in the 1910s, ethnic Chinese’s strike against the tax increase for them in 1908, and particularly the founding of the ROC in 1912, King Wachirawut started the first wave of nationalization against ethnic Chinese’s allegiance to China (Chantavanich, 1997; Wongsurawat, 2011). The king’s policy intended to force ethnic Chinese to be assimilated into the local Thai community, though it was not strictly enforced. Thus, Chinese nationalism rose again in Thailand when Japan invaded China in the 1930s. This rise led to King Prajadhipok’s nationalization against ethnic Chinese’s allegiance to the ROC, including measures to naturalize adult ethnic Chinese and close Chinese schools and newspapers. Under these measures, ethnic Chinese began to adopt Thai names and speak Thai as their first language. However, before the GMD-induced victimization of ethnic Chinese was over, the CCP began to engage Southeast Asian ethnic Chinese communities in the communist revolution in China and internationally. It organized CCP branches and directed their activities in ethnic Chinese communities in Southeast Asian countries officially until 1951 (H. Chen, 2018; L. Li, 2016), but it did not stop its political and technical support for the communist parties and their guerrilla wars in Southeast Asian countries until after Singapore Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, demanded, face to face with Deng Xiaoping, that China stopped

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its support for communist activities in his region in 1978 (Y. N. Chen, 2015; Heaton, 1982). Meanwhile, the PRC asked ethnic Chinese overseas for continued support while giving up the recognition of dual citizenship in order to break its isolation in the Cold War in 1955. Ethnic Chinese communities overseas essentially became instruments of the PRC’s foreign policy for Southeast Asian countries. This kind of utilization by the PRC for its national interest and security led to the second wave of the victimization of ethnic Chinese communities in this region. This wave includes major ethnic genocides and cleansings, such as Indonesia’s violence against ethnic Chinese in the 1960s that resulted the killing of 200,000 to half million and exodus of over 200,000 ethnic Chinese, the Khmer Rouge’s genocide of over 200,000 ethnic Chinese in the mid-1970s, and Vietnam’s persecution of ethnic Chinese that caused an exodus of over half million ethnic Chinese in the late 1970s (Khanh, 1997; Kiernan, 2002, p. 295). However, before the pain of the second victimization of ethnic Chinese overseas was entirely over in Southeast Asia, the PRC has reached out to ethnic Chinese communities globally as it rises in this century. Responding to China’s rise and outreach, ethnic Chinese communities appear to have been undergoing resinicization in Indonesia and Thailand since the turn of the twenty-first century (Worrachaiyut, 2012; X. Q. Zhang, 2016). In Indonesia, resinicization took place at two levels, the community and the individual. At the community level, resinicization occurred as the reopening of Chinese schools, republication of Chinese newspapers, (re)building of radio and television channels, and reenergizing of Chinese community organizations. At the individual level, resinicization includes learning Chinese, celebrating Chinese cultural activities, and (re)adopting Chinese names. Similar processes are found in Thailand as well. However, ethnic Chinese overseas need to be aware that the PRC’s outreach to them is for its national interest and security that may be at the cost of local ethnic Chinese communities. If needed, the PRC is ready to use or sacrifice local ethnic communities (Liu, 2013). Thus, ethnic Chinese communities overseas may have to balance the relationship between the Chinese language and culture and the languages and cultures of their adopted motherlands within the framework of multiculturalism and multilingualism, which may be protected by domestic and international laws. They have to be clear and demonstrate their allegiance to their adopted motherlands, not the PRC, when building identities in learning and using Chinese.

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Ethnic Chinese communities in Europe and North America, where the majority are new immigrants, don’t face the dilemma of resinicization, but a problem regarding their allegiance. Their Chinese language and culture maintenance is legally accommodated within the framework of multiculturalism and multilingualism. Moreover, their maintenance of Chinese linguistic and cultural competence is often fully encouraged in terms of the development of their adopted motherlands’ global competitiveness (Zhou, 2011a). However, as China rises, the PRC’s outreach to ethnic Chinese communities in Europe and North America is more than linguistic. It is a package of the PRC’s political, economic, and technical needs. The PRC wants technology, science, and talent as its talentrecruiting programs indicate (H. X. Wang, 2011; Zwerg & Wang, 2013). Its talent recruitment engages either double agents and the switch of allegiance in ethnic Chinese communities. Well-known cases include the switch of allegiance by Nobel laureate, Dr. Yang Chen-Ning, and former Princeton Professor, Dr. Yigong Shi. Material and career attraction may be one of the reasons, but what is more damaging to ethnic Chinese communities is the question of their allegiance in the context of a rising China. For instance, in order to return to China, Dr. Shi rejected a prestigious ten million US dollar grant awarded to him by Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 2008 (LaFraniere, 2010). His case shows that he was not or had never been loyal to the USA while he was a US citizen. Cases like these may cause wider suspicion of ethnic Chinese’s allegiance, even though it is generally not warranted. It is no doubt that the PRC’s outreach politically endangers ethnic Chinese communities in Europe and North America. They must remain alert to this kind of recruitment. In short, China’s outreach to ethnic Chinese communities overseas has never been purely linguistic and cultural. It has been intended as (re)sinicization in developing ethnic, cultural, and political identification with China. Thus, the outreach has been either associated with China’s rejuvenation or China’s rise. China has taken an instrumental approach, treating ethnic Chinese overseas as resources, platforms, channels, etc. for its national interest and its regional and global projection of (soft) power, and is ready to sacrifice the interest of ethnic Chinese communities overseas when necessary, as it did before. As a result, China’s outreach victimized ethnic Chinese communities in Southeast Asia twice in the twentieth century. It might victimize ethnic Chinese communities globally for a third time if these communities are ambivalent about where their allegiance lies in the twenty-first century.

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8.6  Conclusion China’s linguistic outreach to overseas Chinese communities, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and ethnic Chinese overseas, has been an important component of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation as a unified China since the turn of the twentieth century and is now also a key component of the development of “One World” or “a community of shared future for humankind” as the PRC envisions in the twenty-first century. The critical question for overseas Chinese communities is how much they wish to associate their Chinese learning and using with the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and “One World.” It concerns their lifestyle, freedom, and who they are. Language learning and using are always associated with identities (Norton, 2000; Zhou, 2012d). From the perspective of the spiritual value orientation, learning and using Chinese is seen to underline the Chineseness of members of overseas Chinese communities. Chineseness may be divided as cultural Chineseness and political Chineseness as our above discussions indicate. Regarding cultural Chineseness, overseas Chinese communities face the challenge of the authenticity of Chineseness that treats traditional Chineseness as authentic and the non-traditional as unauthentic. If they attempt to identify with political Chineseness, overseas Chinese communities have to cope with the challenge of choices of regimes to support, the democratic or the totalitarian, a choice that proves to have been historically risky. However, from the perspective of material value orientation, learning and using Chinese is now considered opportunities for jobs, career advancement, social networks, and business as China’s economy rises as the second largest. In this sense, learning and using Chinese is linked to job or career identities. Thus, members of overseas Chinese communities have many choices to make in identification. Their choices are often represented by different versions of standard Chinese, such as Putonghua, local Putonghuas, Guoyu, local Guoyus, and cosmopolitan Mandarin, not to mention Chinese dialects (Li & Zhu, 2010, 2011; Zhou, 2006b, 2012b). Against the odds of the linguistic unification in the language order envisioned by the PRC, varieties of standard Chinese will be used as long as there are different, and sometimes conflicting, identities associated with Chineseness spiritually and materially.

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280  M. ZHOU Xi, J. P. (2010). The opening of Chinese root tracing journey summer camp and Xi Jinping’s speech at the opening [Zhongguo xungen zhi lü xialingying kaiying Xi Jinping chuxi bing jianghua]. Retrieved from http://www.gov.cn/ ldhd/2010-07/25/content_1663626.htm. Xinhua. (2017). Xi Jinping’s and Li Keqiang’s instructions on the work on the Chinese overseas [Xi Jinping dui qiaowu gongzuo zuochu zhongyao zhishi, Li Keqiang zuochu pishi]. Retrieved from http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2017-02/17/c_1120486778.htm. Xu, Q. (2009). Why did Ma Yingjiu propose to read in the traditional characters and write in the simplified ones [Ma Yingjiu weihe tichu “shizheng shujian”]. World Affairs [Shijie zhishi], 16, 46–47. Yan, X. (2017). A study of Macao tertiary students’ language attitudes after the handover. Language Awareness, 26(1), 25–40. Yang, L. X. (2016). Reflections on cross-strait collaboration on the renaissance of the Chinese culture [Liangan xieshou hezuo fuxing zhonghua wenhua de sikao]. Modern Taiwan Studies [Xiandai Taiwan yanjiu], 1, 37–42. Yang, Q. G. (1992). Indigenous Indonesians’ perceptions of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia before the Second World War [Erzhan qian yinni yuanzhumin zhi yinni huaren guang]. Southeast Asian Studies [Dongnan Ya Yanjiu], 1, 50–54. Young, M. Y. C. (2009). Multilingual education in Macao. International Journal of Multilingualism, 6(4), 412–425. Youth Collaborative for Chinatown. (2018). Saturday School. Retrieved from http://ycc-yvr.com/saturday-school/. Zhang, B. (2014). The continuity and development of Deng Xiaoping’s “unique opportunity” strategy for China’s overseas Chinese work in the new era [Deng Xiaoping “dute jiyu lun” zai xin shiqi zhongguo qiaowu fazhan zhanlue zhong de jicheng yu fayang]. Retrieved from http://qwgzyj.gqb.gov.cn/ yjytt/177/2449.shtml. Zhang, G. X., & Li, L. M. (2010). Chinese language teaching in the UK: Present and future. The Language Learning Journal, 38(1), 87–87. Zhang, S. P., & Li, X. J. (2014). Language planning for peaceful reunification. Applied Linguistics [Yuyan Wenzi Yingyong], 1, 2–9. Zhang, X. Q. (2016). A study of the resinicization of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia since the turn of the 21st century [Ershiyi shiji yilai yinne huaren zai huahua xianxiang yanjiu]. World Ethnic Studies [Shijie minzu], 1, 82–91. Zhao, K. J., & Liu, S. R. (2013). Rise of China’s diaspora public diplomacy. Northeast Asia Forum [Dongbei Ya Luntan], 5, 13–23. Zhou, M. (2001). The spread of Putonghua and language attitude changes in Shanghai and Guangzhou, China. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 11(2), 231–253. Zhou, M. (Ed.). (2006a). Special issue on language planning and varieties of Modern Standard Chinese. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 16(2).

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Zhou, M. (2006b). Theorizing language contact, spread, and variation in status planning: A case study of Modern Standard Chinese. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 16(2), 159–174. Zhou, M. (2010). China: The Mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. In J. A. Fishman & O. García (Eds.), Handbook of language and ethnic identity: Disciplinary and regional perspectives (pp. 470–485). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zhou, M. (2011a). Globalization and language order: Teaching Chinese as a foreign language in the United States. In L. Tsung & K. Cruickshank (Eds.), Teaching and learning Chinese in global contexts (pp. 131–150). London: Continuum. Zhou, M. (2011b, August 23–28). A global Putonghua? Globalization of Chinese and the PRC’s global promotion of Chinese. Paper presented at the 16th World Congress on Applied Linguistics, Beijing. Zhou, M. (2012a). Historical review of the PRC’s minority/indigenous language police and practice: Nation-state building and identity construction. In G. H. Beckett & G. A. Postiglione (Eds.), China’s assimilationist language policy: The impact on indigenous/minority literacy and social harmony (pp. 18–30). London: Routledge. Zhou, M. (2012b). Introduction: The contact between Putonghua (Modern Standard Chinese) and minority languages in China. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 215, 1–17. Zhou, M. (Ed.). (2012c). Special issue on the contact between Putonghua and minority languages in China. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 215. Zhou, M. (2012d). Language identity as a process and second language learning. In W. M. Chan, K. N. Chin, S. K. Bhatt, & I. Walker (Eds.), Perspectives on individual characteristics and foreign language education (pp. 255–272). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Zhou, M. (2014). Language identity and teaching Chinese as a heritage language. Teaching and Research on Chinese as a Heritage Language [Huawen Jiaoxue yu Yanjiu], 1, 15–20. Zhou, M. (2017a). Language ideology and language order: Conflicts and compromises in colonial and postcolonial Asia. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 243, 97–118. Zhou, M. (2017b). Language policy and education in Greater China. In T. McCarty & S. May (Eds.), Language policy and political issues in education: Encyclopedia of Language Education (3rd ed., pp. 1–14). New York: Springer. Zhou, M. (2017c). A standard Global Chinese? Chinese Journal of Language Policy and Planning, 2(1), 18–24. Zhou, H. M., & Shi, Z. F. (2011). Review and prospects of education for indigenous communities in Taiwan [Wo guo yuanzhu minzu jiaoyu zhi huigu yu

282  M. ZHOU zhanwan]. In Taiwan (Ed.), Review and prospects of 100 years of education in the ROC [Wo guo bainian jiaoyu zhi huigu yu zhanwan] (pp. 237–252). Taipei, National Academy of Educational Research. Zhou, M., & Wang, X. M. (2017). Introduction: Understanding language management and multilingualism in Malaysia. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 244, 1–16. Zhuang, G. T. (2010). The distribution and development of the population of Chinese overseas [Huaqiao huaren fenbu zhuangkuang he fazhan qushi]. Retrieved from http://qwgzyj.gqb.gov.cn/yjytt/155/1830.shtml. Zweig, D., & Wang, H. X. (2013). Can China bring back the best? The Communist Party organizes China’s search for talent. The China Quarterly, 215, 590–613.

CHAPTER 9

Conclusion

Write in the same language, speak with the same pronunciation, and share the same identity [Shu tongwen, yu tongyin, ren tongxin]. —A slogan from the annual national Putonghua Promotion Week (the third week in September since 1998)

9.1  Introduction In this book, I set out to explore the cultural and linguistic leg of rising China, which has surged economically and militarily as a modern nationstate and global power player. Historically, nations, whether they are modern ones, city-states, empires, and federations of tribes, all appear to have developed through critical social and symbolic processes of self-definition, symbolic cultivation, spread of public culture, and standardization of law, customs, and languages in order to approach the ideal nations that they wish to become (Smith, 2008). However, I believe that their successes and failures are variably underpinned by their cultures, though invariably associated with their economies and militaries, particularly in the cases of empires and global powers. When we look into China’s rise, we cannot gain insights without digging its historical, cultural roots that underlies its rise and comparing it with those that have nurtured the rise of the West as represented by the USA. This comparison leads us to the first empires of the East and the West. Historically, the Han and the Roman Empires arose approximately about the same time around the third century BCE but the latter © The Author(s) 2019 M. Zhou, Language Ideology and Order in Rising China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3483-2_9

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lasted about two hundred more years, with the Han ending in 220 CE and the Roman in 396 CE. However, the Han model was repeated in China until the Qing Empire collapsed in 1911, but the Roman model was not repeated because of the divide between its Western and Eastern empires, though its culture of the rule of law becomes the foundation of modern democracy (Burbank & Cooper, 2010, pp. 23–60; Ropp, 2010, pp. 20–36). As far as an empire or global power goes, it naturally wishes that its model has a long-lasting effect whether it is beneficial or not to the members of the political community that it rules. In the comparison with the Han and the Roman, we may find many significant differences, the most interesting of which, I believe, is the linguistic culture that serves as the basis for language policy in uniting or dividing its peoples (Schiffman, 1996). The Han Empire had only one official language which came to be known as the Han Chinese language, while the Roman Empire had two official languages, Latin and Greek. The different language orders of this two empires were underlined by different language ideologies (Zhou, 2018). The Han model espoused a big-language ideology that supported a language order in its political community through written Chinese across different languages. With this view, the Han model was satisfied as long as every linguistic community under its rule embraced its written Chinese, and treated those communities as members of the big family of the Chinese language under Heaven without consideration of the linguistic differences. On the other hand, the Roman model was ideologically split between a big-language ideology and a small-language ideology (Myhill, 2006, pp. 37–40). The big-language ideology supported the rule of the Roman Empire through Latin as the official language, mostly in its written form rather than its oral form, in order to accommodate the vast linguistic differences within the empire (Penny, 2002, pp. 8–10). This ideology has evolved to underpin some form of federalism that accommodates multilingualism. The small-language ideology championed a strict linguistic integration, both oral and written, into one single standard language, Greek spoken by the Athens, within its jurisdiction, and was ready to accept a linguistic community as speakers of a different language if the integration or Koineization failed to work in its outreach. History is considered a mirror of the present as a Chinese saying goes (yi shi wei jing). With consideration of its recent resort to historical resources, I have examined the critical social and symbolic processes of rising China’s self-definition, symbolic cultivation, the spread of public

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culture, and standardization of language within the conceptual framework of language ideology and order. By studying these processes, I hope to uncover what ideal nation or global power rising China wishes to approximate in the twenty-first century. This book uncovers rising China’s ambitions along with the challenges in the construction of its cultural foundation. The cultural foundation eventually decides what kind of nation or global power China wishes to be, how successful it will be and how far it will go as this type of foundation has done so since the Han and the Roman Empires in world history.

9.2  Significance of the Conceptual Framework of Language Ideology and Order In this book, I have tried to define language ideology and language order for my study of the Chinese case. The concept of language ideology involves extensive previous studies. Thus, I have to sort them out first before I refine my concept of it. The concept of language order is relatively a new field of inquiry so that I start to build my concept on the basis laid down by Fishman (1998/1999). I take the endeavor to examine the relationship between language ideology and order in a dialectical framework. The relation between language and ideology has been broadly studied from four subfields of linguistics mostly since the second half of the twentieth century, though each has its focuses and set of terms for the concept or concepts. First, the study of the history of linguistics as a science investigates linguistic ideology with a focus on (1) the conflicts of different ideas of linguistics, such as structural linguistics vs. generative linguistics, and (2) the impact of linguists’ personal ideologies on their linguistic work, such as the impact of linguists’ racism on language categorization (Joseph & Taylor, 1990; Mühlhäusler, 1990; Newmeyer, 1986). Second, anthropological linguistics explores (1) the relationship between ideology and linguistic structures, (2) the connection between linguistic structures and reality, and (3) how linguistic structures mediate between ideology and reality (Collins, 1999; Duranti, 1997; Kroskrity, 2000; Rumsey, 1990; Schieffelin, Woolard, & Kroskrity, 1998; Silverstein, 1979). Third, cognitive linguistics examines how ideology is organized via cognitive modes, such as prototypes, metaphors, iconographic frames of reference and so on, in grammaticalization (Dirven,

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Hawkins, & Sandikcioglu, 2001). The grammaticalizing process is often unconscious, such as the grammaticalization of gender in some languages, but the reanalysis of grammaticalized forms, such as the reanalysis of grammaticalized gender as sexism in English, become conscious. Thus, cognitive linguistics views language as ideology. The last and most importantly to my project is the sociolinguistic approach to the relationship between language and ideology. This approach concentrates on the relationship between language and nationalism, among an extensive web of relations, given the central role of language in nation-state building and contemporary domestic and international politics (Fishman, 1968, 1971/1972, 1972; Hutchinson & Smith, 1994; Smith, 2010). It is difficult to name a nation that does not have a language “problem,” whether it concerns multilingualism, the standard language or the authenticity or purity of the language. On the basis of previous studies, I have elaborated on a conceptual definition of language ideology and the multiplicity of it. I have made a distinction between the macro-level and the micro-level in the study of language and ideology and termed the former as language ideology and the latter as linguistic ideology. The concept of language ideology covers the conscious relationship between language and ideology, while the concept of linguistic ideology deals with the unconscious or subconscious relationship between language and ideology. Thus, the relationship between ideology and linguistic structures, such as the grammaticalization of gender, is within the scope of linguistic ideology, but the relationship between language and ideology, such as the reanalysis of the grammaticalized gender as sexism, lies in the scope of language ideology. Apparently, I follow the Fishman tradition of language ideology, focusing on the politics of language, particularly in the context of nation-state building. I have elaborated on the contrast of monolingualism and multilingualism as an orientation of the conflicts of language ideologies, in addition to the common orientation of language as problem, resource, or right (Hornberger, 2006; Ruiz, 1984). In this orientation, monolingualism and multilingualism are ideologies instead of language practices. This orientation adds an analytical dimension to our approach to language ideology where language is not always merely an issue of problem, resource or right, but also an issue of the accommodation of linguistic diversity and the degree of such accommodation, whether it is ideological or pragmatic.

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I have explicitly spelled out how a system of attitudes and values constitutes a dimension of language ideology though individual attitudes and values are usually not considered ideology (Feldman, 1988, 2013). I define a system of language attitudes or values as a value orientation. This value orientation may be materially motivated as the material value or spiritually motivated as the spiritual value. The polarizing value orientation is another analytical dimension of language ideology where language is not just a question of nationalism, monolingualism or multilingualism nor one of problem, resource or right, but a question about what an individual or a community wishes to become. In contrast to the extensive studies of language and linguistic ideologies, studies of language order may be readily divided into two main approaches, though some of them deal with these issues with ambiguity. The first approach is the study of the reality of language order where the research focuses on how an order is built on the basis of language practice, such as the number of speakers and the number of domains of use (Fishman, 1998/1999). The second approach is the study of the perception of language order where studies contemplate speakers’ subjective ranking of languages or varieties of a language (Li & Zhu, 2010, 2011). Following Fishman’s approach to reality, I define language order as an institutionalized relationship among languages and varieties of a language in a community that may be political, economic, cultural, linguistic, or ethnic (Zhou, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2017). An order ranks languages and varieties of a language by differential allocations of resources, such as legal status, domains of us, institutional support, and monetary investment to languages or varieties of a language in the community. The more resource a language or a variety of a language has access to, the higher the rank it enjoys in a language order. A language order may have as many strata of languages, conceptually, as the ways it dispenses resources, but practically we find super, regional, national, and local languages in the global language order. This operational definition of language order facilitates our insights into the functions and resource allocations that languages and their varieties perform and benefit from in an order as well as the relationship between language ideology and order in a community which may be the local, national, or global. I consider the relationship between language ideology and language order as dialectical. Following the Marxist tradition (Marx & Engels, 1846/1947), I treat language ideology as the superstructure and language order as the base structure, the two of which enter a dialectical

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relationship. On the one hand, a language ideology is generated from the basis of a language order where language practice is engaged, but surpasses that order and reshapes it in return. Language ideology may be materialized as language order when it is institutionalized, for instance, as law and policy. On the other hand, a language order always seeks an ideological representation and, as it evolves, shapes, and reshapes language ideology. My elaborations on the conceptual definition of language ideology with multiplicity, the operational definition of language order, and the consideration of the dialectical relationship between the two have enriched the conceptual framework of language ideology and order for my study of the politics of language in rising China.

9.3  China’s Language Ideology and Challenges As in the cases of empires and global powers in history, rising China faces the choice of the big-language ideology or small-language ideology as its cultural foundation, a critical foundation that underlines the approximation of the kind of nation or power that rising China wishes to become. It is a hard choice because the choice that it makes is expected to have serious consequences, at least as history suggests in empire or global power building. Language has many functions, the two most important of which are the communicative and the symbolic as far as this study is concerned (Bourdieu, 1991; Canale, 2013; Halliday, 1973). The essential difference between the big-language ideology and the small-language ideology is the weight on the communicative function or the symbolic function (Zhou, 2018). The big-language ideology stresses the communicative function of language over the symbolic function. For example, in imperial China, dynasties required the unification of the written language in their governance of the empire so that their political and social orders would be maintained, but they required only the elite to learn and speak the standard language, whether it was Yayan or Guanhua. The communicative function was generally carried out through the written language in the standardized Chinese script, instead of the standard speech, across languages and Chinese dialects in the empire and, beyond, in the Sinosphere (DeFrancis, 1984). The successive empires sought the construction of political and cultural identification mainly via the standardized script, not the standard speech. As a result, the big-language ideology

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provided much room for multilingualism and the flexibility in identity construction in imperial China. On the other hand, the small-language ideology weighted much more on the symbolic function of language than just the communicative function. For instance, in ancient Greece and the Eastern Roman Empire where the small-language ideology originated and developed, the early city-states, as represented by Athens, sought linguistic identification in Hellenization. The ancient Greeks treated speakers of different languages as “barbarians,” while following the Hellenic practice the empire attempted political, cultural, ethnic, and religious identification through the enforcement of standard Greek in its jurisdiction and expansion (Calvet, 1998, p. 41; Horrocks, 2010; Ostler, 2005, pp. 227–271). The small-language view did not give much room for linguistic diversity and identity construction so that a linguistic and cultural community either integrated into the Greek mainstream through Koineization or fought for its linguistic and political independence. In this sense, the small-language ideology has evolved to serve as the linguistic foundation of modern nation-states that believe in one nation, one people, and one language. Given the Chinese leadership’s calls for the utilization of traditional Chinese cultural resources in China’s great rejuvenation (Xinhua News, 2016), it is expected that the PRC would adopt the big-language ideology, for its rising, that was successfully followed in imperial China. However, the PRC has promoted a small-language ideology in order to pursue political, cultural and ethnic/national identification throughout China and globally. The small-language ideology differs from the big-language ideology in the orientation of the polarization of monolingualism and multilingualism as well as that of spiritual values and materials values. First, the PRC’s small-language ideology is represented as the monopoly of Putonghua and the marginalization of minority languages and Chinese dialects. Second and more specifically, this ideology espouses a value orientation, both the spiritual and material of which are demanded for Putonghua in Chinese dialect, minority language, and overseas communities, and even promoted in the global community. On the other hand, only the material value orientation for Chinese dialects, minority languages, and foreign languages is encouraged in the same communities. Language learning and use are always associated with identities on the deep level, depending on the value orientations (Norton, 2000; Zhou, 2012b, 2014, 2017). The combination of

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the spiritual and material value orientations for Putonghua is intended to facilitate Putonghua learners’ political, cultural, and ethnic/national identification with the PRC, whereas the single material value orientation is meant to limit the connection of Chinese dialects, minority languages, and foreign languages to an instrumental identity or role-specific identities. In the context of the inclusive Chinese-state building, the PRC’s small-language ideology may be theoretically viable domestically in China but is politically and practically challenging. The issues include how much linguistic diversity is accommodated in this ideology and, if any, how linguistic diversity can be reconciled within this ideology. If these two issues are not satisfactorily resolved, this ideology may be politically and humanistically harmful to China. However, in its linguistic outreach to overseas Chinese communities and the global community, the PRC’s small-language ideology that espouses the construction of identities through Putonghua beyond the instrumental one is politically aggressive and thus risky because it lacks political and cultural appeal, backed by the PRC’s soft power, to those communities. The smalllanguage ideology was historically accompanied with imperial expansion and is contemporarily linked with bloody nation state-building (Barbour & Carmichael, 2000; Myhill, 2006, pp. 214–216; Zhou, 2018). It is not a language ideology that has been associated with the peaceful rising of a global power, except for the rise of the USA, which China is not like now and does not seem to wish to approximate to in the future.

9.4  China’s Language Order and Challenges Empires and empire building are histories. However, today there are still states with multiethnic and multilingual communities, states that are either legacy of past empires, such as China, or products of historical and contemporary immigration, such as the USA. Unlike a regular nationstate, a state with multiethnic and multilingual communities is not united as a single political community through ethnicity, but through linguistic, cultural, and political cohesion. There have been two basic language orders for such states since the twentieth century, one of which operates within the principles of the big-language ideology, and the other of which follows those of the small-language ideology. Rising China does not have a choice between the two existing language orders since it has already decided on the adoption of the small-language ideology.

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The big-language ideology is materialized as a multilingual order in multinational state building that legally and institutionally accommodates a lingua franca along with multiple languages. This type of language order is exemplified in the Soviet model of multilingualism that China adopted from 1949 to the 1990s (Zhou, 2003, 2010a, 2010b, 2012a). China’s Soviet model standardized Mandarin Chinese as Putonghua as the common language to unify various Chinese dialects for the Han majority and also standardized officially recognized minority languages to unify linguistic diversity in minority communities, though it expected the two tracks to be eventually merged as one. However, China had to abandon this model of language order after it had struggled with it for over three decades and after this model had failed in the former Soviet Union in 1991. The exemplary institutionalization of the small-language view is the American model of a monolingual order in the construction of one (American) nation with diversity. This order recognizes English as the official language for every citizen while accommodating heritage languages as family and community languages (Fishman, 1966; Wiley, 1996, 2000). This model has successfully built an inclusive American nation-state on the basis of a multiethnic community, not through ethnicity or race, but through political, cultural and linguistic cohesion, in a monolingual order. It is known, correctly or incorrectly, as “the melting pot,” which produces Chinese-Americans, Italian-Americans, AfricanAmericans, and many other ethnic Americans (Jacoby, 2004). The PRC began to emulate the American model of one nation with diversity in the 1990s, following Fei Xiaotong’s (1999) proposal of an inclusive Chinese with diversity (Zhonghua minzu duoyuan yiti). This Chinese model has downgraded minority nationalities to ethnic groups and replaced the multilingual order with a Putonghua dominated monolingual order. However, neither China nor Fei Xiatong gave any credit to the American model. I pointed out in 2010 that it was a copy of the American model without a dream, but China soon patched that hole in 2012 when Xi Jinping proposed the Chinese dream and even went as far as to explain to President Obama that the Chinese dream and American dream are comparable (Zhou, 2010a, 2016). However, in its adoption of the monolingual order, the PRC has to confront three serious challenges in achieving political, cultural, linguistic, and ethnic cohesion via Putonghua as I have explored in details from six perspectives in Chapters 3–8 in this book. The first question

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is whether the Chinese dream and the American dream are genuinely comparable (Zhou, 2016). No matter how it is defined, the American dream is a dream of individual citizens and is measured by individual success through strenuous efforts in the American society where almost every citizen has faith in it (Hoschschild, 1995, pp. 15–38). In contrast, the Chinese dream is one of the Chinese state, the Chinese nation, and Chinese citizens (Leng, 2013). The state’s dream is to reach the goals of its grand strategies, and the nation’s dream is its great rejuvenation, but it seems that the individual citizens’ dream is to be built on the former two dreams. Based on Beijing municipal government’s clearing out of migrant workers, who spoke Chinese dialects, minority languages or poor Putonghua, in early 2018, it appears that the state and nation sometimes dream different dreams from those of the individual citizens (tongchuang yimeng). It is a challenge to ensure that the three share the same dream in the same language. The second problem is whether China could become a melting pot for its ethnic minorities as the USA has (Leibold, 2012). Speaking over 130 languages, the minority communities occupy a larger portion of the PRC’s territory though the minority population is under 10% of the total Chinese population. Some of these communities were involved in independence movements, rebellions, riots, and strikes against the PRC’s rule and language policy in the last seven decades or so. It is a challenge to convince them that they will live a happy life in their lifestyle while speaking Putonghua in an inclusive Chinese society. Whether China becomes a melting pot largely depends whether every minority citizen has faith in the Chinese dream. Unlike the USA which is mainly an immigrant society, China’s nearly 100 million minorities are mainly indigenous except the Korean Chinese. The last challenge is that there is no precedence in the successful construction of a monolingual order in multilingual indigenous communities in a political community while maintaining healthy linguistic diversity. Even the American model has failed to accommodate indigenous languages from the mainland to Hawaii (McCarty & Watahomigie, 2010). The challenge for China is whether it is able to create a platform that maintains a healthy relationship between the mainstream Putonghua and over 130 indigenous languages in a monolingual order. Currently, it does not appear that China has any platform that has the potential to resolve this issue satisfactorily.

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9.5  Summary The objective of this book as is stated in Sect. 1.4 is to answer the series of questions that I have raised in the introduction of the book. If readers reach this section of the book, I hope that they are satisfied with my attempted answers throughout the book. As the conclusion, I will review the four topics of my inquiry. The first topic of my inquiry is the foundation of rising China. In addition to its growing economy and military, what else serves as the foundation of rising China so that it has an increasingly broad impact on the international community? My exploration suggests that China relies on the tripartite foundation of its economy, military, and culture for its rising. The cultural foundation is as crucial as any that underpinned empires in history and are underlining global powers in the twenty-first century. This foundation makes what China is and will become domestically and is expected to function as the base for the projection of its soft power globally. However, the cultural foundation is not yet as solid as the PRC wishes. The second topic of my inquiry is whether Chinese culture is rich enough to provide sufficient resources for rising China in the twenty-first century and how rising China can take advantage of it. My study shows that traditional Chinese culture is resourceful with philosophy such as that of Confucius and Zhuangzi, language ideologies, and models of language orders, but there is a rupture between traditional Chinese culture and modern Chinese culture. This rupture makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the PRC to take full advantage of traditional Chinese culture, as witnessed in its linguistic outreach to overseas Chinese communities and its global promotion of Chinese. The third topic of my inquiry is whether the Chinese language, along with Chinese culture, is sufficient to support China’s rise and why it is expected to play such a crucial role. My research demonstrates that the Chinese language and culture serve domestically to create linguistic, cultural, and political cohesion for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and globally to function as channels of public diplomacy and soft power. Thus, Putonghua is assumed to unify Chinese dialect communities as well as minority language communities within China. At the same time, China’s claim on peaceful rising limits its means of outreach to the Chinese language and culture as crucial instruments. They are supposed

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to re-sinicize ethnic Chinese overseas and sinicize the global community if they could. This approach is problematic. The fourth topic of my inquiry is how the language orders that the PRC envisions and the underlying ideology that the PRC endorses would affect China and the global community. The critical challenge is China’s adoption of the small-language ideology from Europe, instead of the big-language ideology from imperial China. The small-language ideology often encourages forced cultural and linguistic integration in empire building in history and bloody conflicts in modern nation-state building. When this ideology is materialized as a monolingual order with the goal for an inclusive nation-state construction, few multilingual states are able to make it work well except the USA. It is questionable whether the PRC could emulate the US success in this regard even if it wishes to. We will wait and review the outcome down the road.

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Index

A Academic freedom, 208, 237, 262 Africa, 2, 18, 30, 38, 177, 214, 215, 224–226, 228–231, 237, 258 Approach anthropological, 29, 31, 35 Chinese-script-based, 66 cognitive linguistic, 27, 31, 32, 35 constructive, 13 deconstructive, 13 disciplinary, 19 practical, 74 pragmatic, 86, 221, 239, 250, 254, 256 sociolinguistic, 33, 35, 36, 286 two-track, 96 Asian financial crisis, 4, 5 Attitudes, 6, 7, 33, 34, 36, 38, 45, 77, 111, 149–152, 154–156, 160, 161, 167, 185, 193, 194, 217, 226, 227, 256, 258, 259, 263, 267, 268, 287 Authenticity, 256, 265, 268, 272, 286

B Belt and Road Initiative, 2, 11, 50, 76, 214, 215, 223 Bilingualism, 36, 37, 158, 162, 182, 259 Biliteracy, 102, 119, 259 Border, 19, 41, 42, 95, 175, 176, 178–182, 184–199, 216, 217 Borderization, 19, 176, 178–182, 184–193, 198, 199 Buddhism, 6, 84, 195, 215 C Cantonese, 77, 150, 250, 259–263, 265, 267, 268 Centrifugality, 19, 176, 177, 180, 187, 199 Centripetality, 19, 107, 176–178, 180, 187, 199 Characters simplified, 60, 62, 66, 209, 253, 254, 268

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 M. Zhou, Language Ideology and Order in Rising China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3483-2

299

300  Index traditional, 60, 62, 66, 69, 86, 209, 253, 254, 265, 268 China official, 208, 219, 222, 223, 227, 228, 234, 238, 239 perceived, 9, 75, 81, 82, 208, 219, 223, 226–228, 234, 239 real, 208, 219, 222, 223, 228, 234, 239 Chinese characters, 6, 16, 60–69, 82–84, 122, 209, 252, 256 dialect, 19, 40, 49, 71–77, 80, 86, 133, 152, 156, 160, 161, 181, 183, 209, 250, 267, 268, 272, 288–293 idiom, 83, 85 script, 14, 33, 60–62, 64, 65, 68–71, 101, 209, 288 variety, 138, 153 Chinese nation inclusive, 4, 48–50, 95, 96, 99–101, 104, 105, 107, 110, 112, 114–116, 118, 120, 122–124, 134, 178, 184, 194, 256 rejuvenate, 4, 9, 75, 223, 269 rejuvenation, 4, 6, 9, 10, 16, 17, 19, 25, 66, 68, 69, 71, 105, 220, 250, 252, 255, 257, 265–267, 269, 272, 293 Chineseness, 250, 265, 268, 272 Christianity, 177, 195, 196, 255 Citizenship, 16, 43, 49, 73, 99, 101, 105, 115, 178, 185, 189, 191, 192, 262, 263, 265, 270 Cohesion, 30, 48, 68, 95, 107, 251, 290, 291, 293 Colonialization, 75 Confucianism, 6, 215, 216, 220–222, 255 Confucius Classroom/CC, 19, 207, 216, 217, 227, 236

Institute/CI, 3, 8, 17–19, 207, 214, 216–218, 224, 225, 229–233, 235–238, 267 statue, 3 Consensus, 5, 44, 61, 69 Beijing, 5 Washington, 5 Crisis of Chinese, 78–81, 85, 86 Culture authentic, 66 Chinese, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10–13, 17, 49, 63, 65–68, 81, 85, 112, 122, 140, 207, 213, 215, 218–221, 231, 232, 250, 254, 255, 266, 270, 271, 293 traditional, 60, 81, 255 Curriculum/curricula Chinese, 65, 78, 235, 268 English, 78, 141–146 foreign language, 78, 142 D Dai, 102, 119, 120, 157–159, 181–183, 185–187, 189, 193, 195, 196 Decolonization, 257–260 Definition, 3, 27, 37, 39, 287 Democracy, 2, 43, 78, 85, 87, 219, 221, 255, 263, 284 Desinicize/desinicization, 257 Dialectical relationship, 29, 36, 37, 40, 47, 139, 287 Diglossia, 37, 38 Diplomacy public, 9, 10, 208, 213, 218, 222, 223, 226, 228, 234, 266, 293 three-world, 214, 215, 218, 228 Discourse Chinese, 5, 8, 12, 17, 81, 86, 222 English, 32, 81 international, 86, 87 Western, 81, 222

Index

Divergence, 253 Domain, 14, 16, 38–40, 45, 49, 73, 77, 86, 100, 135–139, 153, 167, 177, 199, 251, 287 Dream American, 10, 291, 292 Chinese, 9–11, 48, 49, 104, 105, 223, 266, 291, 292 E Education bilingual, 46, 47, 101, 102, 105–107, 110, 112, 114, 115, 117–123, 162, 185, 257 compulsory, 16, 77, 78, 86, 105, 107, 114, 121, 142–145, 179, 185, 187, 191, 195 preschool, 121–123, 147, 148 primary, 141, 255 secondary, 124, 141, 146, 147 trilingual, 117 Ethnic Chinese, 249–251, 265–272, 294 Ethnolinguistic vitality, 157, 158, 160, 162, 166, 188 Europe, 2, 6, 33, 39, 43, 177, 214, 250, 265, 267, 271, 294 F Foreign policy, 3, 236, 270 G Geopolitical barrier, 216, 217 factor, 215 Globalization, 1, 6–8, 19, 27, 34, 39, 40, 42–44, 59, 60, 64, 68, 78, 81, 86, 140, 142, 157, 176, 177, 209, 231, 267

  301

Global promotion of Chinese, 8, 17, 50, 65, 68, 86, 208, 210–215, 227, 239, 251, 266, 293 Guoyu, 209, 252–254, 256, 257, 262, 268, 272 H Hanban, 207, 210, 214, 216, 218, 222, 229, 230, 233, 236 Hegemony, 7, 13, 26, 86, 140, 207, 222 Hierarchy language, 37–41, 177 linguistic, 37, 38, 40, 41 sociolinguistic, 37, 38, 40 Hong Kong, 9, 19, 42, 68, 181, 249–251, 254, 257–262, 264, 265, 268, 272 I Identification, 49, 73, 110, 112, 114, 115, 121, 123, 150, 185, 189, 191, 194, 208, 211, 252, 266, 269, 271, 272, 288–290 Identity Chinese, 100, 185, 187, 191, 262, 265 cosmopolitan, 260, 262–265 ethnic, 99, 100, 185 ethnonational, 99, 100 language, 211, 212 national, 43, 99, 100, 178, 190 Ideology big-language, 73, 284, 288–291, 294 concept of, 18, 19, 25, 35, 37, 47, 285, 286 conflict of, 27, 62, 286 definition of, 27, 286, 288

302  Index language, 12, 17–20, 25–27, 29, 31, 33–37, 39–49, 59, 60, 62, 69, 73, 74, 76, 77, 96, 100, 101, 133–135, 137, 139, 140, 152, 157, 164, 167, 187, 208, 210, 257, 284–288, 290, 293 linguistic, 25, 27–32, 35, 37, 285–287 native, 29 small-language, 284, 288–290, 294 socialist, 26 Information Technology (IT), 64, 68, 76, 81, 82, 142, 194, 198 Institutionalization/institutionalize, 14, 15, 41, 45, 59, 62, 71, 96, 97, 101, 104, 124, 140, 149, 177, 287, 288, 291 Integration cultural, 97, 175, 252, 294 ethnic, 100, 110 linguistic, 97, 101, 104, 116, 118–120, 123, 124, 175, 252, 284, 294 natural, 116 religious, 97, 175 Interest, 3, 5, 30, 31, 49, 60, 97, 107, 143, 154, 166, 175, 178, 180, 218, 225, 236, 237 conflict of, 19, 208, 228, 235, 236, 238, 239 national, 268, 270, 271 Internationalization, 181, 199 Islam, 177, 195, 215, 228 K Kazak, 102, 105, 109, 122, 157 Korean, 84, 102, 117, 118, 123, 157, 159, 292

L Lahu, 102, 118, 120, 157, 159, 165, 196 Language change, 84 colonial, 259 contact, 28, 84 foreign, 78, 84, 139, 142, 149, 226, 264, 289, 290 global, 19, 41, 42, 50, 63, 65, 76, 78, 134, 136–138, 140, 143, 149, 167, 178, 209, 210, 213, 260, 263, 264, 287 law, 14, 16, 46, 60, 62, 65, 68, 73, 76, 77, 80, 96, 99–101, 104, 114, 116, 251 legislation, 15, 176 local, 19, 28, 35, 36, 39, 41–43, 120, 134, 136–138, 140, 162, 163, 175, 176, 178–180, 187–190, 192, 194, 196, 198, 199, 209, 259 loyalty, 178 maintenance, 37, 157, 161, 178, 179, 188, 190, 192, 193, 195, 197–199 management, 39, 45, 178, 179, 188, 212 minority, 19, 34, 39, 46, 48, 49, 73, 95–104, 115, 122, 124, 133, 134, 156–162, 164–166, 178, 185, 186, 188, 193, 194, 253, 256, 289–293 national, 19, 33, 34, 36, 39, 41–45, 48, 59, 61, 71, 72, 77, 85, 86, 167, 176–178, 180, 184, 185, 187, 189, 192, 199, 257, 259, 287 official, 36, 39, 45, 74, 76, 85, 150, 154, 164, 178, 258, 259, 263, 264, 284, 291

Index

planning, 45–47, 74, 207, 208, 210–214, 219, 227, 228, 238, 239, 250–253, 256, 259, 266. See also Trans-jurisdictional language planning; Transnational language planning policy, 18, 39, 45–47, 114, 263, 264, 284, 292 practice, 45, 134, 135, 212, 286–288 shift, 37 spread, 177, 178, 193, 208 standard, 14, 15, 33, 35, 38, 45, 73, 98, 156, 267, 286, 288 Legislation, 16, 46, 47, 176, 257 Legislature, 257, 258 Level deep, 208, 213, 219, 228, 239, 252, 255, 266, 289 surface, 208, 213, 219, 228, 238, 239, 252, 255, 266 Linguistic border, 175, 176, 185, 187, 190 Linguistic capital, 134, 135, 137–140, 148–150, 152, 154, 164, 166, 227 Linguistic code, 134, 136–139, 149, 150, 153, 154 Linguistic diversity, 19, 34, 96, 99, 100, 124, 256, 268, 286, 289–292 Linguistic exchange, 133–135, 139, 149, 153, 154, 253 Linguistic habitus, 133–136, 139, 166 Linguistic market, 76, 133–140, 149, 153, 155, 163, 164, 166, 167 Linguistic repertoire, 135, 137–139, 153–155, 167, 179, 180, 188 Lisu, 102, 118, 157, 159, 165, 196 Localized Putonghua, 154

  303

M Made in China 2025, 2, 10 Mandarin, 33, 40, 70–72, 75, 182, 216, 250, 252–254, 262, 267, 272, 291 offensive, 8 Materialization/materialize, 42, 44–47, 49, 59, 61, 62, 69, 71, 74, 85, 86, 99, 101, 104, 208, 210, 288, 291, 294 Media, 9, 26, 38, 44, 67, 75, 82, 83, 86, 103, 105, 114, 179, 185, 188, 189, 192, 194, 195, 198, 199, 208, 216, 219, 222, 223, 227, 232 Medium of instruction, 71, 103, 105–107, 113–115, 117, 119, 120, 149, 184, 185, 256, 259, 261, 263 Miao/Hmong, 102, 118, 157–159, 161, 188, 190, 194, 197 Migration, 2, 118, 138, 150, 152– 154, 156, 190 Model American, 99, 110, 224, 291, 292 Chinese, 5, 99–101, 116, 124, 215, 224, 291 economic, 5, 11, 99, 218 Han, 284 political, 5, 99 Roman, 284 Soviet, 4, 97–99, 101, 103, 104, 113, 124, 291 Mongolian, 95, 102, 105, 116, 117, 123 Monolingualism, 34–36, 44, 48, 96, 97, 120, 134, 256, 286, 287, 289 Morality, 255 Mother tongue, 16, 19, 79, 82, 85, 115, 150, 162, 180, 185, 189, 192, 256, 260, 262, 266

304  Index Multilingualism, 33–38, 40, 42, 44, 47–49, 96–98, 100, 101, 104, 120, 124, 133, 134, 156, 164, 166, 194, 250, 256, 270, 271, 284, 286, 287, 289, 291 Multinational state building, 47, 96–99, 101, 103, 104, 113, 124, 291 N Nationalism, 5, 8, 9, 33–35, 37, 59–61, 63, 65, 66, 68, 78, 85, 86, 97, 101, 134, 140, 178, 210, 255, 269, 286, 287 Nationalization, 43, 181, 199, 269 National language, 178, 180 Nation-building, 97, 118, 175, 210 Nation-state building, 34, 40, 43, 96, 97, 99–101, 110, 113, 115, 116, 120, 124, 176, 184, 252, 255, 286, 294 Nativize/nativization, 230–232, 269 O One World, 10, 11, 15, 17, 18, 25, 81, 87, 207, 208, 223, 272 Order concept of, 18, 37, 39, 209, 285 definition of, 40, 288 language, 15, 17–20, 25–27, 37, 39, 41–45, 47–50, 59, 60, 62, 65, 67–72, 78, 80, 85, 96, 97, 101, 104, 124, 134, 136–138, 140, 149, 167, 175–180, 187, 188, 190, 192, 199, 208, 209, 213, 256, 257, 265, 272, 284, 285, 287, 288, 290, 291, 293, 294 linguistic, 37–41 political, 15, 38, 39 social, 11, 13, 288

sociolinguistic, 37, 38, 40 world, 2, 8, 40, 78, 223, 228, 236 Overseas, 9, 19, 40, 76, 79, 179, 209, 249–252, 265–272, 289, 290, 293, 294 P Poverty, 49, 61, 164–166, 220 Power global, 17, 27, 47, 218, 223, 224, 283–285, 288, 290, 293 hard, 50 smart, 208, 239 soft, 3, 6, 8, 17, 26, 50, 60, 65, 69, 85, 207, 208, 213, 214, 216, 218, 219, 239, 251, 266, 290, 293 super, 10, 17, 208, 214 Proficiency test, 78, 151, 212, 266 Pronunciation, 63–65, 69, 71, 72, 75, 98, 253, 283 Prosperity, 164, 166, 198, 221 Public opinion, 193, 194, 214, 218, 219, 228, 229, 259, 263 R Reality, 11–13, 26, 29, 30, 32, 36–41, 44, 47, 62, 77, 145, 156, 163, 219, 220, 236, 261, 285, 287 Representation, 26, 29, 43, 61, 63, 66, 79, 82, 83, 100, 141, 178, 236, 263 ideological, 42, 44, 47, 49, 50, 149, 288 Resinicization, 255, 266, 268–271 Resource cultural, 9, 11, 69, 74, 86, 289 economic, 74, 76, 265 linguistic, 74 Romanization, 33, 60, 62, 63

Index

S School Chinese, 19, 96, 106, 107, 113, 116–120, 158, 160, 191, 269, 270 inland, 113, 120, 164 minority, 19, 96, 101, 103, 105– 107, 113, 114, 116–120 Sinicization, 294 Social Darwinism, 165 status, 152, 154, 155 Solidarity, 137, 138, 152, 154, 155 Southeast Asia, 76, 181, 250, 270, 271 Sovereignty, 43, 79, 175, 210, 249, 251, 259, 260, 269 Soviet-style, 6, 96, 221, 256 Soviet Union, 4–6, 28, 43, 47, 48, 96, 97, 99, 103, 139, 214, 291 Speech community, 136 Standard English, 33 script, 15, 288 Standardization, 15, 38, 44, 71, 99, 177, 253, 254, 267, 283, 285 State-building, 48, 175, 290 Strategy global, 7, 8 grand, 2, 50, 214, 266, 292 publicity, 9 Summer Olympic Games, 4, 8, 9 Superiority, 256 System capitalist, 260, 262 Chinese, 7, 119 hybrid, 252 liberal, 2, 3, 209, 219 socialist, 260–262 supplementary, 63–65

  305

value, 13, 156, 164, 236 Western, 7 writing, 61, 63–66, 97–99, 101– 103, 118, 120 T Taiwan Strait, 1, 9, 66, 67, 253 Tibetan, 102, 103, 112–115, 120, 123, 160, 162–164, 193–195 Trans-jurisdictional language planning, 250–252 Transnational language planning, 208, 211, 213, 214, 219, 227, 228, 238, 239, 250–252 Trigraphia, 60, 69, 86 Triliteracy, 259 Trinity, 33, 34, 42–44, 61, 70 U Unification, 7, 15, 59, 66–68, 72, 86, 107, 175, 249–253, 256, 257, 266, 272, 288 United Kingdom (UK), 18, 218, 257, 258, 267, 268 United States of America (USA), 1, 5–8, 18, 33, 34, 36, 44–46, 97, 136, 178, 208–210, 214, 218, 219, 224–227, 231–233, 235, 236, 238, 268, 271, 283, 290, 292, 294 Uyghur, 102, 105, 109, 111, 112, 122, 157, 160, 162, 163 V Value judgment, 12, 134, 157, 162, 164, 166, 167

306  Index orientation, 19, 36, 133, 134, 136–143, 146, 149–152, 154, 156–158, 162, 164–167, 182, 187, 193, 212–214, 218, 226, 260, 261, 263, 264, 272, 287, 289, 290 W World Trade Organization (WTO), 2, 6, 7, 10, 16, 78

Y Yayan, 13, 14, 288 Yi, 81, 102, 103, 119, 120, 157, 159, 161, 162, 190, 220