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NPC deputy calls for promoting Chinese
By Xing Zhigang (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-03-10 05:57
China should step up its efforts to promote the use of Chinese language among
foreigners in a bid to spread Chinese culture and develop the country's "soft
power," a national lawmaker has said.
Hu Youqing, a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), said the
overseas expansion of the Chinese language can help foreigners better understand
China as well as its culture.
"In fact, promoting the use of Chinese among overseas people has gone beyond
purely cultural issues," he told China Daily in an exclusive interview.
"It can help build up our national strength and should be taken as a way to
develop our country's soft power."
Hu, a Chinese-language professor with Nanjing University, serves as director
of the National Advisory Committee for the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK), or the
Chinese Proficiency Test.
To help non-native Chinese people learn Chinese, China introduced the HSK,
the equivalent of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), in 1991 as
the official Chinese language examination.
Over the past decade, the test has gained popularity along with the growing
global interest in China.
Up to 120,000 people took up the HSK last year, compared with only 2,072 on
the first year of introducing the test.
By the end of last year, about 500,000 people from 120 countries and regions
had taken the test. More than 150 HSK Testing Centres have been set up in 37
foreign countries.
Despite the increasing popularity of the HSK, Hu acknowledged that the
promotion of the Chinese language still has a long way to go.
"We have to realize that more overseas people choose to learn Chinese just
because of their need for economic exchanges with China rather than out of their
love for Chinese culture," he said.
The professor explained that China's fast economic growth over the past two
decades is a key factor stimulating the demand to learn Chinese among
foreigners.
Now, about 90,000 foreign students come to China every year to study the
language.
It is estimated that about 30 million people overseas are studying Chinese,
inspired by growing trade and closer exchanges between China and other
countries.
More than 2,500 universities and colleges in more than 100 countries have
established Chinese language programmes. In the United States, hundreds of
primary and high schools have elective Chinese language courses.
To better combine the teaching of the Chinese language and the promotion of
Chinese culture, Hu said, the China National Office for Teaching Chinese as a
Foreign Language (NOCFL), founded in 1987, has already begun to establish the
Confucius Institute abroad.
In co-operation with local universities or education bodies, the institute is
aimed at promoting the language and strengthening cultural exchanges between
China and other countries.
Hu said China plans to set up about 100 Confucius Institutes, mainly in its
neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia, the United States, Europe and Africa.
Since the first Confucius Institute was set up in Seoul of the Republic of
Korea on November 21, 2004, the country has so far established about 30 such
institutes in 20 countries.
Another 10 will be set up soon in line with NOCFL's agreements with foreign
partners.
(China Daily 03/10/2006 page3)
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