Chinese soft power and higher education in Africa: the Confucius Institute at the University of Zambia

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1 Responsible Development in a Polycentric World Inequality, Citizenship and the Middle Classes 14th EADI General Conference June 2014, Bonn Chinese soft power and higher education in Africa: the Confucius Institute at the University of Zambia Author: Institution: Peter Kragelund Roskilde University, Dept. of Society and Globalisation Address: Universitetsvej 1, Building 23.2, 4000 Roskilde, DENMARK [email protected]

2 Abstract Like other bilateral actors China is engaged in the development of higher education in Africa. For the past decade, China has set up 25 Confucius Institutes in Africa. These Institutes are supported by the Chinese government and figures highly on the widely publicised meetings between African and Chinese heads of state, but are carried out by individual universities. Based on insights from the newly established Confucius centre at the University of Zambia, this paper seeks to deepen our understanding of these recent and understudied collaborations between African and Chinese actors. It sets out to explore the extent to which this collaboration resembles a new type of South South collaboration in higher education or rather resembles soft power initiatives of the Africa s traditional partners.. It argues that this instrument in China s relations to Africa resembles soft power more than south south collaboration and although the Confucius Institute indeed adds extra resources to UNZA, it to a large extent mirrors other soft power initiatives from Western donors such as Alliance Française, Göete Institute and the British Council. Keywords Confucius Institute, Zambia, China, Soft power, Higher education 2

3 Chinese soft power and higher education in Africa: the Confucius Institute at the University of Zambia By Peter Kragelund, Department of Society and Globalisation, Roskilde University, 1. Introduction Almost without an exception all African higher education institutions grew out of collaboration with European institutions. Only at independence did these institutions become sovereign bodies. Sovereignty, however, did not mean that they were independent. The history of African higher education institutions and in particular African universities is also the history of external support, academic partnerships and adherence to Western standards that either directly or indirectly have shaped the particular outcome of the present day universities in Africa (Samoff and Carrol 2004). European countries were not alone in collaborating with African universities. For two decades beginning in the 1960s, Soviet Union, China, Cuba and a number of Eastern European countries expanded their collaboration with African universities. But since the end of the Cold war, external funding for African universities has come almost exclusively from Western countries either directly from western bilateral donors, from multilateral donor agencies funded by and large by western donors, or from private foundations originating in western countries. These donors have to a large extent shaped African educational policies and the way they are financed. This is especially the case for the World Bank and parts of the UN family (UNDP, UNESCO and UNICEF), which through a number of high profile conferences in the 1990s paved the way for major structural changes in the educational landscape of most African countries. Most importantly, focus shifted from tertiary education to education for all at the primary level in the 1990s. Hence, bi and multilateral donors alike shifted focus from higher education to primary education. Simultaneously, the structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s and 1990s focused on increasing efficiency via cost reductions and abolition of subsidies. This meant that universities increasingly boosted their partnership with foreign universities. This also happened in Zambia where the Ministry of Education s 1996 policy paper entitled Educating our Future called for increased funding from non governmental organisations and private entities to fund secondary and tertiary education (Takala 1998; Samoff and Carrol 2004). The past decade has seen Western hegemony in Africa s higher education fade as a number of non Western donors have rejuvenated their funding to Africa including to higher education. The most important non western donor to Africa is China (King 2013). China s aid to Africa is often

4 portrayed as being different from Western aid: either being fuelled more by foreign policy concerns (see (Eisenman and Kurlantzick 2006)) or offering a more equal relationship (Li 2008). Chinese aid in Africa has received quite a lot of scholarly attention lately. By far the majority of these studies have analysed Chinese aid at a rather aggregate level (see e.g. (Biggeri and Sanfilippo 2009)) and only recently more in depth studies of Chinese aid practices and their effects in Africa have been conducted 1. Among the latter include King (2013), who has studied Chinese aid to education and training in Africa providing an impressive overview of the history of this aid and the various modalities of it, and Wheeler (2014) who has studied the perceptions among students and staff of the Confucius Institute in the University of Nairobi, Kenya. Likewise, Nordtveit (2011) has looked at the differences and similarities between Chinese and Western education models, and analysed how Chinese models have been implemented in Cameroon. The other side of the relationship, namely how China (again) has become an attractive study abroad destination for African university students, and how African students have fared in this milieu, has also been studied (see (Gillespie 2001; Haugen 2013)). None of these, however, has analysed how and to what extent Chinese aid to higher education differs from traditional aid to the sector. Linked hereto, a growing body of literature argues that the rejuvenation of China and other Southern partners interest in Africa will increase African countries room for manoeuvre as more money will be available and they will be able to choose between different models of development (Chin 2012). This paper follows this recent trend in studying Chinese educational aid to Africa. It uses the newly established Confucius Institute at the University of Zambia (UNZA) as a case to shed light on how South South collaboration in higher education differs from the traditional partnerships and to what extent this new type of South South collaboration enables UNZA to carve out policy space vis à vis traditional partners and thereby leverage the funding structure and the developments of the curriculum. It argues that this instrument in China s relations to Africa resembles soft power more than South South collaboration and although the Confucius Institute indeed adds extra resources to UNZA, it to a large extent mirrors other soft power initiatives from Western donors such as Alliance Française, Göete Institute and the British Council. We therefore have to distinguish between different modalities of China s engagement in Africa to understand how they affect policy space for a variety of different actors in Africa. This paper proceeds as follows: section two sets out to provide a framework through which we are to understand partnerships in higher education. It proposes that it is best understood a foreign aid and hence a soft power tool. While section three presents and compares soft power tools 1 It should be noted though that quite some work has been done to disaggregate the figures on aid, investments and other official flows from China to Africa (see in particular (Bräutigam 2011)). This has enabled us to get a far better understanding of Chinese aid modalities and how they work. 4

5 in higher education in Zambia of France, Germany the UK, and China, section four brings us to the analysis of the Confucius Institute at UNZA. Hereafter, section five provides a short overview of the role of external actors in the development of universities in Zambia. It points out that these partnerships despite the fancy wording indeed are based on unequal power relations. Section six then discusses how and the extent to which this new soft power tool of China in Zambia s higher education indeed differs from other soft power tools and section seven concludes. 2. Higher education partnerships in Africa: an example of soft power? CIs have mostly been analysed through a soft power angle either directly as soft power or indirectly as public or cultural diplomacy or as a nation branding campaign (see e.g. (Hartig 2012; Yang 2010; King 2013; Barr 2012). The concept of soft power, first developed by Nye in Bound to Lead from 1990 and later elaborated in for instance Nye (2004), enables us to analyse how a nation may obtain what it wants or how it shapes what other nations do through attraction and cooperation rather than through brute force. Therefore, soft power is often described as the second face of power. The concept of soft power makes us think in terms of cooperation via agenda setting and attraction rather than command via inducement and coercion. Attraction, and hence soft power in this sense, derives from the extent to which a country can make its culture, political values and foreign policies attractive to other countries. Soft power, thus, makes us think beyond coercion and material power to describe the ability to achieve desired outcomes (Kearn 2011). It is important, though, to bear in mind that the distinction between hard and soft power is one of degree and that they do not necessarily depend on each other (Nye 2004). Moreover, soft power is not static but changes frequently in line both with the sources of soft power, i.e. culture, political values, and foreign policies including commerce and government policies. Although the concept is more the 30 years old, it was only picked up in China in this millennium. Most forcefully, former President Hu Jintao used it for the first time in 2006 to describe the international influence of China and appealed to enhance culture as part of the soft power in the country (cited in Fallon (2014, : 38)). Thereby, it goes hand in hand with the cultural going out strategy 2 that seeks to promote Chinese culture abroad via cultural exchange and dialogue in order for China to be able to portray itself in third countries rather than rely on Western portrayal of its culture and values (Fallon 2014; Weiming 2014). Concurrently, the concept is used to build 2 The cultural going out strategy was officially adopted during the 17 th Party Congress in Beijing in It builds upon the going out/going global strategy initiated in 1999 aimed at supporting large scale Chinese companies to invest abroad. It is closely related to the concept Chinese Fever that describes the tendency for people around the world to seek more knowledge and information about Chinese language and culture. 5

6 legitimacy of the Communist Party and the Han culture within China especially vis à vis the numerous minority groups. Although Confucius by no means always has been a popular figure among Chinese heads of state even at times seen as a hindrance to social change the Chinese teacher and philosopher s brand and principles are now used to brand and unify China internally as well as externally: internally, the concepts of equality and opportunity for all via education is applied to keep the increasingly unequal Chinese society together and externally Confucius offers global brand recognition and is closely associated with teaching and culture (Starr 2009; Barr 2012). Unfortunately, soft power has become a catch all concept used by politicians, journalists, practitioners and academics alike to describe any political mission that is not using brute force to achieve its aims (Kearn 2011). This is also the case within China (Mingjiang 2008; Hunter 2009). Only rarely the dissimilar origins of soft power of for instance China and the West is alluded to, i.e. that China s soft power originates in the state while the West s soft power originates in the civil society and private companies. Likewise, analysts seldom reflect upon the fact that the doings of firms and institutions may contradict the overall soft power strategy of a country. As stated above soft power has often been used to describe China s relationship with African countries also in the sphere of higher education (see e.g. (Wheeler 2014; Pan 2013)). Central to the soft power concept are academic and scientific exchanges. This is especially the case for student scholarship programmes as soft power theory presumes that students with pleasant first hand experiences of life abroad will admire the host country s political system and, in turn, push politics at home in the direction desired by the country they studied in (Haugen 2013, : 318). Alas, the lion s share of the studies on soft power and higher education does not help us in coming closer at delineating what constitutes soft power policies and how it relates to hard power. In other words, these studies do not distinguish between various tools used to employ soft power. Neither do they assist us in measuring soft power or help us determining whether we should approach the concept from the sender or the recipient, i.e. is a certain tool soft if it is perceived as soft from the sender but not from the recipient? Whether or not an activity can indeed be classified as soft power has as much to do with the recipient as with the provider of a particular tool. Hence, only if the recipient finds e.g. that Chinese culture or language is attractive it may function as soft power thereby making the recipient nation do what China wants it to do. Finally, the concept of soft power does not take actors into consideration: It is not the recipient state that is attracted by a certain tool but certain actors inside or outside the state. When using the concept of soft power it is therefore important to recognise that soft power is not necessarily only a foreign policy tool but can equally be used to shape domestic politics. Furthermore, it is important to bear in mind that as soft power to a large extent rests on values and 6

7 how these values are expressed (and relates to other values), acts of individual institutions may be counterproductive vis à vis a nation s overall soft power strategies. Also, we have to distinguish between the attractiveness of a country s development path at the aggregate level and the attractiveness of individual institutions/policies. In the case of China s engagement with other countries in the Global South 3 the distinction between South South collaboration and soft power is not always clear (King 2013). In this paper, however, South South collaboration is taken to mean the two way interaction between countries from the Global South projected as win win engagement, mutual benefit, reciprocity, and common development, whereas soft power denotes the one way policies aimed at altering the attitudes or policies of another country (cf. (Mawdsley 2012)). China, however, is by no means the only actor that uses soft power to achieve it foreign policy aims. Neither is it the only power applying this tool in an African context. Using language and cultural encounters as a soft power tool in Africa is widespread on the continent. Promotion of French, German and English language and culture has been an important task for institutions like Alliance Française, Göete Institute, and the British Council 4 since the independence of African countries. Similarly, a number of East Asian countries currently use partnerships in higher education to both open and cross borders (Chapman, Cummings, and Postiglione 2010). 3. Soft power in Higher Education in Zambia Alliance Française is the main instrument through which French language policy in Africa is promoted. It is an institution under the French Embassy and operates throughout Africa. In Zambia, it has branches in five major cities. Through these branches Alliance Française offers French language to the general public in Zambia. More importantly, however, it targets French teachers in Zambia, offering them communicative skills to further the knowledge of the French language throughout the country. In a similar vein, Alliance Française sponsors post graduate students studying French at UNZA in the School of Education. This setup is endorsed by the Ministry of Education in Zambia that lacks resources to finance all the education needs in Zambia. 3 The Global South here refers to people and places affected by poverty and marginalisation regardless of geographical location. 4 Japan, Spain and Portugal make use of similar schemes to promote soft power. The Japanese version is called Japan Foundation and focuses on language education and art and cultural exchange. Japan Foundation only has one office in Africa, namely in Egypt. Spain s version of soft power is called Instituto Cervantes. In Africa, it mostly operates in North Africa. Finally, Potugal s soft power instrument is called Camões Instituto. It operates in Lusophone Africa. In addition, the United States of America through the United States Information Agency (USIA) also sought to promote soft power from through its 34 offices in various African countries aiming to further the understanding of the United States. This was done via educational activities such as the Fulbright scholarship programme and the media. Since the closure of USIA the public diplomacy activities have been taken over by amongst others the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the U.S. department of State. 7

8 Likewise, the Göete Institute, the German pendant to Alliance Française, has just announced that it has initiated a collaboration with University of Zambia Language Centre to facilitate the spread of German as a foreign language in Zambia. Teaching commenced in October 2013 and at first courses will be offered in the evenings. German soft power does not stop here. Deutche Welle, Germany s international broadcaster, financed from tax revenues in Germany, is broadcasted throughout Africa. Its visions and values include communication of German points of view and communication of the values of a liberal democracy and respect for human rights. Likewise, its website states that Deutche Welle has a cultural mission that presents the culture from Germany and Europe and it seeks to promote the German language throughout the world (German Embassy 2013; Deutche Welle 2013). Finally, the British Council facilitates Zambian university students study in the United Kingdom and offers a range of school linking programmes all intended to further inter cultural understanding and networking. Of particular importance is the Development Partnerships in Higher Education programme that since 2006 has offered funding for institutions of higher education. In Zambia eight programmes have been funded. Five of these were with UNZA where the School of Medicine partnered in three cases, and the School of Natural Sciences and the School of Education in one each. This programme not only focuses on teaching activities and exchange of staff/students but also on capacity building and research collaboration (British Council 2013). The Chinese version of this soft power tool is called the Confucius Institute (CI). Basically, the CI is an academic unit located in a host country s university. It is governed and financed by the Office of Chinese Language Council International (often shortened to Hanban) in Beijing and functions like a non profit organisation. In official parlance, it seeks to intensify educational cooperation, support the development of Chinese language education and increase mutual understanding (Starr 2009) 5. According to Gill and Huang (2006, : 18), the CIs are set up to spread the Chinese culture and the teaching of Mandarin throughout the world and thereby to present a kinder and gentler image of China to the outside world. This is done via short and long term teaching programmes in Chinese, HSK international Chinese language examinations, Chinese culture courses and the like. Thereby, it resembles the institutions described above. Moreover the CI sponsors a variety of extracurricular activities such as film screenings, art exhibitions and sports, and it may act as a consultancy firm for individuals and organisations interested in China. All this is meant to make Chinese a global language for teacher training and foster an increase in trade and investments between the home and the host 5 To be precise, Hanban administers two types of Confucius collaborations, namely the CI and the Confucius classroom. They share the same aims but differ in their setup. While the former are set up in host universities the latter are aimed at secondary education institutions. At the end of 2010 a bit more than half of all the Confucius collaborations set up worldwide were Confucius classrooms (Hartig 2012, : 58). 8

9 economy (Starr 2009; Pan 2013). Furthermore, the CIs are expected to increase the inflow of foreign students and researchers into China. Finally, CIs are perceived to balance the dominant American influence in the world (Hartig 2012). In this sense, the establishment of CIs throughout the world is arguably China s most systematically planned soft power policy (Yang 2010, : 235). Taken together, the establishment of CIs signifies the first time in the modern period that the Chinese government has sought to establish a significant cultural presence around the world (Hayhoe and Liu 2010, : 82) 6. Only a year after the first CI was established in Seoul in , a CI was set up in at the University of Nairobi and as of late 2013, the Henban website listed a total of 22 CIs in Africa divided between 16 African countries. The website is most likely not fully updated and the figure therefore is probably higher. King (2013, : 55), for instance, sets the figure at 33 CIs in 26 African countries and it is growing at a high speed as the newly established CI in University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in not in his list. Although the CIs are similar to for instance Alliance Française and the British Council in terms of soft power and cultural diplomacy in their focus on education and cultural exchange, and in the form of solid, brick and mortar establishments physically located in desired overseas location[s] involved in a range of market based transactions with local customers (Ngamsang and Walsh 2013, : 307) 8, the CIs differ from these institutions in some critical respects. First and foremost, the CIs are built on twinning arrangement between two universities one Chinese and one in the host economy 9. This contrasts with the European stand alone institutions that are not affiliated with universities 10. Whether this leads to a situation where the CIs have to adapt to local 6 In the past decade, several Chinese international cultural initiatives have seen the light of the day. Although all of these have the potential to work towards strengthening China s soft power, not all of them are officially orchestrated (Paradise 2009). 7 In fact, a trial institute was set up a couple of month earlier in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, but officially the one in Seoul is regarded as the first one. 8 The idea of linking education to media in for instance Germany in the pursuit of soft power has not gone unnoticed in China in relation to her engagement in African countries either. In 2006, China Radio International established an Africa centre in Nairobi broadcasting English language radio to East Africa. This was followed in 2010 with the launch of CNC world, a twenty four hours news channel, which aims to present international affairs in a Chinese perspective to the world. The year after Xinhua launched a mobile newspaper in East Africa distributing Chinese news via mobile phones to East African subscribers. The very same year, Chinese Central Television (CCTV) inaugurated CCTV Africa in Kenya. It offers a Chinese interpretation of local and world affairs via programmes like Africa live, Talk Africa, and Faces of Africa. On top of this, news and pictures from Xinhua News Agency is increasingly used by African media houses as Xinhua offers pictures either for free or much cheaper than news agencies from the West (Gagliardone 2013; Wekesa 2013). Finally, Chinese media houses seek to cater for the growing Chinese population living in African countries. This is also the case in Zambia where Oriental Post aims specifically at the Chinese population. 9 In very seldom cases like the China Institute in New York, the host partner is not a university. Likewise a few examples exist where more than two universities collaborate to form one CI. 10 Hanban operates with three funding arrangements, namely wholly Hanban operated and funded units; joint ventures with local partners; and units run and funded fully by local universities but licenced by Hanban (Starr 2009). The Zambian CI falls into the second category, namely that of joint ventures between a Chinese 9

10 contexts and strategies and visions governing the host universities or rather controls and dictates what is taught and how is an issue of high controversy (see e.g (Sahlins 2013)). Secondly, CIs are said to be demand driven responding to the increasing demand in for instance African countries for Chinese language and cultural skills (King 2013) in contrast to the supply driven versions from France, Germany and the UK. Thirdly, although teaching of Chinese abroad dates back to the late 1980s CIs are a relatively new phenomenon. The first CI was established in This is less than a tenth of the age of Alliance Française, which was inaugurated in 1883 and one sixth the age of the Göethe Institut which was founded in Fourthly, they differ in scale and in growth rate. As of the end of 2013 a total of 833 Confucius collaborations existed worldwide (of which almost 70 per cent were located in Europe and the United States and only less than 4% in Africa) according to the official Hanban website 11 (Hanban 2013b). This figure should be compared to Alliance Française s approx centres worldwide and the British Council s 233 premises. Finally, they differ in the degree on state ledness. While Alliance Francaise and the British Council are semi independent institutions (the former under direct control and subsidised by the French government and the latter an autonomous non governmental entity funded by the state 12 ), Hanban and thus the CIs are clearly state sponsored. Pan (2013, : 26) even goes as far as stating that they are agents of the state, and Sahlins (2013) provocatively puts it this way: Hanban is an instrument of the party state operating as an international pedagogical organization. It should be noted though that the CIs are not the only way that China supports higher education in Africa. Of importance is also the Chinese Government Scholarship Program which aims to familiarise scholarship recipients with Chinese culture and build goodwill towards China while assisting recipients in getting higher education (Dong and Chapman 2008, : 156). The justification for this program is thereby also to be found in China s aim to strengthen its soft power. The scholarship programme is much older than the CIs. In fact, it originates in the Science Education Team under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs formed in 1970 to manage the growing exchange of students from abroad. The first students from Zambia to use this programme began their studies in China in Since then the programme has both grown and changed incrementally and in 1997 it university, Hanban, and University of Zambia. In this version Hanban provides start up funding, books and teaching material and pay for salaries of one two language instructors. 11 Unfortunately, the official Hanban website does not distinguish between Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms. Moreover, the numbers do not necessarily provide a full picture of the scale of the operations as some centres are not in operation (yet) and others are merely one room offices (Hartig 2012). 12 It should be noted though that the independence of the British Council from the British government has been questioned now and again (Ngamsang and Walsh 2013). 10

11 was taken over by the newly established Chinese Scholarship Council under the Ministry of Education The Confucius Institute at UNZA The CI at UNZA was established on July and two months later, on September , it began operating. Teaching of the first class of 20 students began approximately a month later. Since then more than 2000 students have been attending classes at the Institute (Hebei University 2013). As most of these students only come for short term courses this figure is highly misleading as an indicator of the actual number of students attending classes at any one time. This figure is probably closer to 70 (Hanban 2013a). The CI is currently located close to the main parking lot, just next to the library at UNZA. It consists of two newly renovated classrooms, an office, and a storage room. Moreover, a small part of the main library is devoted to CI related texts. Although the place by no means is ostentatious, it is one of only three units that is signposted at the main gate of UNZA, and unlike any of the schools at the university it has a large signboard over the main entrance. Likewise, it is the only part of the university that has its own advertising board at the Lusaka International Airport. The CI is soon to be much flashier though. In late December 2012 UNZA signed a contract with a Chinese construction company to build a new five story building that will also accommodate not only the CI, but also office space for staff from the School of Education as well as from the Central Administration of UNZA. The company will cut the first sod of the building in the spring of 2014.This entire project is to be financed by Hanban. Thereby, the funding arrangements at the UNZA CI changes from being built on a joint venture model to a wholly Hanban operated and funded unit. Concurrently, the CI will start offering long term degree programmes on top of the is short courses offered currently. In university terms, the process of setting up the CI has been exceptionally fast. According to the former dean of the School of Humanities at UNZA, Professor Chanda, the idea of establishing a CI at UNZA came from him. He knew the scholarship programmes offered by the Chinese government to foreign students but as a linguist and professor at the school of education he was also aware of the difficulties Zambian students faced language wise when they went to study in China. He, therefore, contacted the Chinese embassy in Lusaka to inquire about the possibilities of setting up a Confucius Institute at the university. The embassy directed him to Hanban that helped him establish connections with Hebei University of Economics and Business (henceforth Hebei University) in Shi Jia 13 See King (2013) for an overview of the different types of educational collaborations between China and African countries. 11

12 Zhuang City in the province of Hebei, and less than one year later the MoU between the two universities was signed (Personal communication, Professor Chanda, Lusaka, ). Exactly who initiated the contact and how the partnership was formed is nevertheless still shrouded in mystery. According to the biggest private newspaper in Zambia, the deal of establishing a CI in Zambia was struck alongside other deals like avoidance of double taxation when a Chinese delegation led by Chinese State Councillor Dai Binggou met with then President Rupiah Banda in June 2010 (Bupe 2010). The CI is open to the public 14 and hence is not limited to UNZA students or staff but until recently most of the students came from UNZA and in order to cater for the students needs beginners classes were until the beginning of the October 2013 term offered in the students lunch break. According to Hoogenbosch (2012), this created several problems for the students and hence, the classes have now been integrated into the school of education s new language programme and are offered in normal teaching hours. Although the costs of attending language courses is markedly cheaper for UNZA students and staff than for others 15 the relative share of UNZA students is currently going down. This is because the CI cooperates with a number of Zambian private and public institutions as well as Chinese companies located in Zambia in providing basic language teaching for their staff. Most recently, the CI has signed an agreement with the Zambian police force to teach Zambian policemen Mandarin as the increasing number of Chinese people living and working in Zambia has meant that an increasing number of them also engage with the police. The CI also offers Chinese tests for primary and secondary school students and Chinese proficiency test, the so called HSK international Chinese language examinations, required to get enrolled in a Chinese university. Not surprisingly, therefore many of the UNZA students see the language classes offered at CI as a stepping stone to a scholarship programme in China (Hoogenbosch 2012). The governing body of the CI differs from that of the Alliance Francaise and British Council. While the latter two are governed solely by a French and a British director, respectively, the CI has 14 The UNZA CI is not the only CI in Zambia. Since its inauguration in 2010, subsidiaries have been set up at the Mulungushi University in Kabwe, the Copperbelt University in Kitwe, and most recently at the Livingstone Institute of Business and Engineering Studies. Moreover, the privately owned Chinese International School in Lusaka opened for students in It offers lessons in Mandarin to students of all ages (from kindergarten to adults) and like the CI it also offers lessons in martial arts. Although the Chinese International School is a private entity the teachers are paid by the Chinese government and thus could be perceived as part of the same soft power strategy as the CI. 15 As of October 2013 prices were as follows: ZMW 350 (USD 66) for students at UNZA, ZMW 600 (USD 113) for UNZA staff, and ZMW 1300 (USD 244) for all others (Personal communication, Professor Chanda, Lusaka, ). It should be noted though that as of late 2011 most students at CI did not pay for the courses offered. In the words of Hoogenbosch (2012, : 27): not all students at CI actually pay the tuition fees. They did not know they had to, and were never asked to pay anyway. 12

13 two directors one Chinese and one local. Moreover, the board of the CI is chaired by the Vice Chancellor of UNZA. This in theory, provides a more equal relationship between the partners than the traditional partnerships with Western universities. However, like any other Confucius Institute in the world, the CI at UNZA is regulated by Hanban in Beijing. Hanban offers several different curricula that a recipient university can choose from 16. They are made up of centrally approved study programmes and text books and do not necessarily correspond to the pedagogy or curriculum at other programmes at the school of education. Moreover, UNZA has no say over which Chinese teachers are appointed to conduct the teaching. They do not take part in the staff development programme and are not conducting research. As will be shown below, these state sponsored initiatives aiming to influence higher education have not worked in a vacuum in Zambia. In contrast internationalisation, partnerships and external support have been an integral part of the University of Zambia since its inauguration in the mid 1960s. 5. External actors and higher education in Zambia The University of Zambia Act was passed in Parliament in 1965 and one year later teaching began. The academic standards were inspired directly by the British Higher education system and due to shortages of Zambian staff almost half of the academic staff were British and only two were Zambian (the rest were mainly from South Africa, the US, India and New Zealand) and initial funding for construction of UNZA came from amongst others the British and the Japanese governments (Phiri 2001). Not surprisingly, therefore, the first linkages UNZA formed were with British universities 17. The linkages sought to enhance research and teaching capacities through exchange of lecturers. With the rapid growth of the university in terms of both students and staff and faculties, the UNZA leadership sought to broaden the partnerships with foreign universities in the beginning of the 1970s, especially from continental Europe and the US. Most of these partnerships were directly linked to development aid (Siwela 1995). The economic downturn of the late 1970s and the 1980s changed the situation for UNZA. Structural adjustment and stabilisation programmes set in motion by the World Bank and IMF meant that subsidies for education including higher education were slashed. Research projects could no 16 It is important to bear in mind though that CIs only teaches Hanyu, the language of the Han people the majority ethnic group in China, i.e. neither Putonghua, the common speech language in China, nor the many dialects and languages spoken throughout China is taught in the CIs. 17 UNZA is an autonomous entity funded by and large by the Treasury through the Parliament. Hence, the university can form any partnerships and receive any funding it can get as long as it fulfils its overall aims. 13

14 longer be serviced, many staff members left the university. Most partnerships therefore focused on seconding short and long term staff from donor countries and the few research programmes that did continue were all funded by external sponsors (Phiri 2001; Siwela 1995). In this period, UNZA also developed partnerships with Southern universities. Most prominently, UNZA and University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, initiated the student exchange programme and in the mid 1990s it also established research and capacity building linkages with South African universities. Partnerships with Northern universities, however, still dominated and in the beginning of the 1990s UNZA had such partnership arrangements (Rawoo, nd#). Although the formation of partnerships became a central part of the strategic plan for UNZA, the number of partnerships declined a bit and in 1995 UNZA had active partnerships with 10 foreign universities (in Europe, Japan and South Africa). These partnerships were funded directly by bilateral donors (Siwela 1995). According to UNZA s former Vice Chancellor, Professor Andrew A. Siwela (1995), the aim of partnerships with foreign universities is to enrich and broaden the academic environment and thereby increase the academic level at the university. This is done via sending UNZA staff abroad for career development; research collaborations; gaining access to research facilities in foreign universities; and providing development oriented research. Although the aim of all partnerships is the same, the specific design and financing differ. With Southern universities costs are shared equally between the two partners; in some partnerships with Northern universities each university pays for its staff to visit the other university; and in the remaining partnerships donors pay/supplement the salaries of the involved staff, pay for infrastructure development, provide ICT equipment, and/or provide funds directly to research. In the words of Professor Siwela (1995, :203), these partnerships to a large extent, determine the research priorities of the university. This contrast to the ideal situation where UNZA has enough of its own resources to pursue collaborative links as demanded by its own academic policy, but that, of course, is impossible (Siwela 1995, : 204). At the turn of the millennium the situation changed for UNZA. Internally, UNZA was almost completely broke and according to Phiri (2001) the UNZA administration worsened the problem radically by increasing salaries with 50 per cent from one day to the other essentially meaning that the university faced insolvency. Matters became worse when traditional donors got fed up with the situation and withheld support. This situation coincided with the Government of Zambia s change of focus from higher education to primary education. This change was undoubtly related to the external change at the turn of the millennium where focus changed from tertiary education to 14

15 primary education. From one day to the other internal and external funds dried up for teaching and research at UNZA 18. Since then, the situation has been normalised : donors are once again willing to fund partnerships and the university is eager to further these collaborations. In fact, within the context of the current Strategic Plan (2013 to 2017), under strategic direction 10, UNZA is encouraged to establish partnerships for university functions such as teaching, research, consultancy and public service. According to this Plan, the overall objective is to promote beneficial partnerships (UNZA 2012). Since January this year UNZA has signed a total of 100 MoU (for partnerships). Most of these are local ones but approx. 10 have been with foreign universities including a Norwegian, a Malaysian, a South African, and a Zimbabwean university. According to the current Deputy Vice Chancellor, the main purpose of the MoUs with Western universities is exchange of students, but teaching, research partnerships, and infrastructure development are also highly prioritised (Personal communication, Professor Mwase, Lusaka, ). 6. The Confucius Institute at UNZA: South South development cooperation of soft power? As described above the CI fulfils many of these purposes of university partnerships laid out by the governing body of UNZA: it adds teaching capacity and develops key infrastructure while simultaneously facilitates future exchange of students to Chinese universities. This leads UNZA s Deputy Vice Chancellor to argue that the partnership with Heibei university benefits UNZA via the expansion of teaching programmes, the internationalization, and the improved infrastructure (Personal communication, Professor Mwase, Lusaka, ). Following this line of argument King (2013: 57) claims that there is a degree of symmetry [between the Chinese and the host university] in the support to the CIs. Henceforth, it is easily perceived as a genuine example of South South development cooperation focusing on reciprocity and common development. At closer inspection, however, it is not obvious that the CI is an example of South South development cooperation. Rather, the CI seems to resemble the numerous university partnerships that UNZA has partaken in since its inauguration in the mid 1960s, i.e. partnerships dictated by the external partner exhibiting highly uneven power relations, and not necessarily in line with the vision and strategy of UNZA. First, the financing of the new CI building points towards an unequal relationship. Although UNZA provided office space for the temporary premises of the CI, Hanban fully finances the new five story building. In the words of the Deputy Vice Chancellor of UNZA: The Chinese partner even 18 Despite the change of focus and the drying up of funds, donors still paid approximately half of the 115 staff development fellows at UNZA in 2003 (Carmody 2004). 15

16 finances the infrastructure. UNZA does not have the funds to fund these kinds of initiatives. The new CI building will even accommodate several offices for UNZA administrative staff. This is a part of the deal with Hebei University (Personal communication, Professor Mwase, Lusaka, ). Moreover, the new CI building has been on the drawing board for a couple of years now and the reason the construction of the building has only commenced now is that the Ministry of Education had to make a number of critical decisions first. Most graduates from the department of education get jobs as teachers in secondary school. So far no secondary school has offered Chinese, i.e. there was no reason to offer a BA programme in Chinese at UNZA and no reason to build new structures. This changed in 2013, when the Ministry decided to offer Chinese in 10 pilot schools one in each province in Zambia. Until the first Zambian students have graduated from the BA programme, teaching will be conducted by Chinese teachers sent from China and paid for by Hanban (Personal communication, Professor Chanda, Lusaka, ). Thus, in the future Mandarin and French will share uniform status in the Zambian educational system. Secondly, the CI has created discussion of quality assurance both inside and outside Africa (cf. (Kotzé 2010; Starr 2009). In short, host universities including UNZA face tremendous challenges monitoring and evaluating the teaching. The CI undergraduate and post graduate programmes are all developed at Hanban and hence do not follow the procedures set up by the host university. Related hereto the CI system does not take into account that good language teaching not only relies on fluency in language but also pedagogical skills and cultural knowledge. Linked hereto suggestions have been brought forward to create contextualised relevant local teaching material. However, this has not been set in motion yet and currently all teaching material is centrally produced and approved in Beijing. Thirdly, CI s influence is not limited to the teaching, exhibitions and martial arts lessons. Staff at the CI also produces news reports that feed into the growing presence of Chinese media in Zambia and journalists from these media houses regularly interview CI staff to disseminate information about its progress (Hebei University 2013). Moreover, the CI has its own broadcasting show at UNZA Radio. A couple of times a week a CI teacher or student broadcasts a feature on Chinese culture or Chinese business on the university radio station that covers Lusaka and the surrounding suburbs and thus potentially reaches approximately 1.5 million people. Recently, the CI at UNZA also formalised an agreement with Zambia National Broadcast Corporation (ZNBC) to broadcast a television show entitled Get to Know China. The idea is to bring in people with a good understanding of China and China Zambian relations to portray another version of China to the Zambian people than the Western media. 16

17 Rather than an example of reciprocity and common development, the establishment of CI at UNZA should therefore be analysed alongside Alliance Francaise s push to spread the French language and culture in Zambia. Currently, French is the only foreign language (but for English) that is taught in Zambian public schools (it is also offered in many private primary schools throughout the country). It is one of the optional subjects taught at secondary level in Zambian schools and in order to serve the needs of the Zambian education system, UNZA offers French as a minor (three months) and as a major (two courses of six months). To further this process the French embassy in Lusaka has a deliberate policy of sending teachers to France and French speaking African countries to master the French language. 7. Conclusions. A new way forward in university partnerships? This paper has set out to further our understanding of South South development cooperation in higher education. It has argued that the establishment of a CI at UNZA in theory has increased the room for manoeuvre for the governing board of the university as it is now able to choose between different educational models and not only rely on inputs and inspiration from its Northern partners. In reality, however, it seems that UNZA just has to follow a new set of standards; this time set by Hanban that leverages the development of the curriculum and the research priorities at UNZA via funding, teaching material and influence over decisions taken in the Ministry of Education. This clearly shows that UNZA still hasn t got the financial resources to implement its own vision and strategy but has to rely on external partnerships to fund these. The paper has also argued that the CI resembles soft power more than it resembles South South (development) collaboration. The CI is the hotbed for training of future Zambian political and economic leaders. Thereby it serves as a breeding ground for the development of opinion formers that may be able to communicate Chinese values to the Zambian public. This also supported by recent developments in the CI where focus increasingly is on teaching Zambian employees of largescale public and private enterprises rather than only UNZA students and staff members. Likewise the local media initiatives point in this direction: by way of access to UNZA Radio and ZNBC the Chinese state may sway public opinion in Zambia and portray a picture of China that differs radically from the one portrayed in Western media. It should be noted though that the CI is not the only vehicle to shape the decisions of Zambian politicians without the use of brute force. In the case of China s relations to Zambia, there is no doubt that the economic growth path of China in the past three decades is attractive to the members of the political elite in Zambia. This is especially the case since the global financial crisis in 17

18 2008/9. Thus, the very fact that China has grown while Zambia s traditional partners have stagnated makes the Chinese model attractive in Zambia. In conclusion, therefore it is important to state that despite the equal partners rhetoric of Chinese aid, the CI is as donor driven as the other partnerships UNZA has engaged in historically. Hence, it is unlikely that the CI will point towards a new era in the history of UNZA an era where UNZA sets the premises for partnerships with foreign universities. References Barr, Michael "Nation Branding as Nation Building: China's Image Campaign." East Asia : An International Quarterly no. 29 (1): doi: Biggeri, Mario, and Marco Sanfilippo "Understanding China's move into Africa: an empirical analysis." Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies no. 7 (1): British Council Delphe projects. British Coluncil 2013 [cited October ]. Available from projects 1.htm. Bräutigam, Deborah "Aid 'with Chinese characteristics': Chinese foreign aid and development finance meet the OECD DAC aid regime." Journal of International Development no. 23: Bupe, Florence China lends Zambia US$53m for mobile hospitals. The Post Online, July [cited May ]. Available from Carmody, Brendan The evolution of education in Zambia. Lusaka: Bookworld Publishers. Chapman, David W., William K. Cummings, and Gerad A. Postiglione "Transformations in Higher Education: Crossing Borders and Bridging Minds." In Crossing Borders in East Asian Higher Education, edited by David W. Chapman, William K. Cummings and Gerad A. Postiglione, Hong Kong: Springer. Chin, Gregory T "China as a net donor : tracking dollars and sense." Cambridge Review of International Affairs no. 25 (4): doi: / Deutche Welle Mission statement: Vision and Values. Deutche Welle 2013 [cited October ]. Available from dw/mission statement/s Dong, Lili, and David W. Chapman "The Chinese Government Scholarship Program: An effective form of foreign assistance." International Review of Education no. 54: Eisenman, Joshua, and Joshua Kurlantzick "China's Africa Strategy." Current History (May 2006):

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