The Chinese Embassy in India has responded in the actions of the Indian government’s new education policy, NEP2020 which dropped Mandarin from the list of foreign language that can be taught in schools. China had set-up Confucius Institutes in 2004 with the aim to teaches Mandarin globally. However they have also been named as the ‘espionage hubs’.
A statement released from the Chinese Embassy states as, “We hope Indian relevant parties can treat Confucius Institutes and China-India higher education cooperation in an objective and fair manner, avoid politicizing normal cooperation, and maintain healthy and stable development of China-India people-to-people and cultural exchanges”.
The Chinese Embassy’s spokesperson Ji Rong mentions that, “With increasingly close economic, trade and cultural exchanges between China and India, the demand for Chinese language teaching in India is growing”. “All Confucius Institutes were established by the Chinese and Indian universities after signing legally binding cooperation agreement in accordance with the principles of mutual respect, friendly consultation, equality and mutual benefit, and on the premise that the Indian side applied voluntarily and met the conditions for running the Institute,” Ji said.
“The school-running mode of Confucius Institutes has always been ‘foreign side mainly managing, Chinese side assisting and both sides raising funds jointly. Over the years, Confucius Institutes have played an important role in promoting Chinese language teaching in India and China-India people-to-people, and cultural exchanges. This has been generally recognized by the Indian education community,” added Ji Rong.
