Education

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actively engage in the transnationalization, and “[…] maintain close relations with the Chinese embassy, and deploy references to a Chineseness infused with the state symbols of the contemporary PRC” (Nyiri 2012, 104). Deliberate expansion of sense belonging to Greater China might also be dangerous for Cambodia’s sovereignty in terms of inclination of taking decisions in China’s favor and at the expense of Khmer population due to mushrooming spider-web of influence among Cambodian business elites with direct connections to CCP.

3.2.2. Education

We already know that China mainly uses three pillars to create the sense of patriotism among Cambodia’s society, education being one of them. Though, it might not be clear enough that this tool does not serve only for the needs of ethnic Chinese population; contrary, it helps to spread the Chinese culture, especially language, among the whole Khmer population. In overall, China’s aid to education is divided into five domains: 1. scholarships and university partnerships; 2.

vocational training, including teacher training; 3. Chinese-language instruction in developing countries through institutional support and volunteer teachers; 4. school construction and educational materials; 5. collaboration with multilateral organizations on education and training (Reilly 2015, 5-7). The system is constituted along with Chinese cultural promotion as the one tool with the same policies carried out across several Chinese ministries and government bodies and coordination institutions (ibid). That is also why it is a difficult task to track the accurate statistics of scholarship distribution by host countries; and also because most likely they are not available for public, except the total annual volume of government scholarship published by China Scholarship Council. According to CSC report (in Reilly 2015, 14), between 2000 and 2013 China provided almost 198 thousand government scholarships, which estimates approximately 7 folded increase from roughly 5000 to 35000 just in thirteen years. As for Cambodia’s share in this volume, only relevant information was found in Xinhua news, praising the skillful Cambodian students who took advantage of these funds, and only roughly touching upon the factual number of distributed scholarships. Based on this data, the number oscillates between 50 and 70 students per year.³¹ Although China cooperates with Cambodia on the DOC dataset, it mainly contains the construction projects; simply because China does not include scholarships, training programs and other educational assistance, as the part of the foreign aid in the sense like other donors do (2015, 25). Fortunately, Reilly (2015, 20) managed to calculate at least the annual cost of such foreign aid. Table number eight draws the picture of rising tendency of the Chinese expenditures in the Cambodia’s education throughout four years. While expenditures for the training programs increased only slightly, the real jump occurred in scholarships area, where funds rose by 250% from US$ 118 million to almost U$ 416 million in

31 According to Xinhua article since 1998 China provided 557 scholarships to Cambodian students and officials, “China awards university-level scholarships to Cambodian students” available online:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-08/08/c_133542134.htm, [Accessed 4^th-Aug-2016].

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this particular period. All together Beijing distributed over US$ 1.18 billion to Cambodian schooling just in four years. In addition, there were 75 Chinese language schools counting 40 000 mostly ethnic Chinese students. This number has been increasing by every year (Touch 2015, 199). On the other hand, we still do not know how much funding China deployed to construction of facilities, educational materials, how many Chinese teachers and volunteers operate in Cambodia, or how many Cambodian students pursue their degree in China without scholarship.³²

Table 8: China’s Education Aid Expenses 2009-2012 (US$ million)

Year Training Program

Source: Based on the table in Reilly, 2015, 20.

Again, as it was in the case of migration, the factual data are not as important as the context in which the Chinese engagement in Cambodia’s education takes place. In fact, even in China education is one of the most important tools in terms of cultivation the CCP-loyal population.

Nothing is more effective than influence children right from the beginning to shape their minds in favor of the current regime’s doctrine. And why not using the very same mechanism even abroad in countries, which are not capable of doing this work by themselves. Cambodia has indeed a very week record in terms of developing sufficiently educated society. Table number nine manifests a comparison of GMS countries based on the quality of education. Cambodia certainly does not do very well in this competition. Firstly, between 2005 and 2013 it had some of the least educated population, where even Myanmar and Laos stood better in terms of share of population, which passed at least some kind of secondary school. Secondly, Cambodian teachers have to deal with extremely busy classes, taking care of 47 pupils in average, again heavily falling behind other GMS countries. The trend in South Asia is 13 students less per teacher. Less than half of the Cambodian population enrolls in secondary schools, and as for the tertiary enrolment not even every 20% of students have the opportunity to go to college, though in this measure Myanmar recorded worse results. All in all, people in Cambodia encounter enormous problems in securing a better life for the future generations. That gives China a perfect opportunity to step in, and offer a better quality facilities than Cambodian schools, and for cheaper price than English schools or in some cases even for free (Nyiri 2012, 106).

32 According to Cambodia Herald news citing Xinhua in 2015 there were 2000 Cambodian students who either graduated or at that time were pursuing degree in China. “China offers scholarships to 62 Cambodian students” Available online:

http://thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/china-offers-scholarships-to-62-cambodian-students-8789, [Accessed 4^th-Aug-2016].

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Having a Chinese education and knowledge of Mandarin is widely considered as a better choice for children than Khmer-language education, mainly due the whole new range of opportunities in Chinese construction projects waiting for young people (ibid). However, if we use the optic of Chinese foreign strategy, providing cheap knowledge also has its hidden agenda in a shape of cultivation of the pro-Chinese attitude. In such schools school curriculum is drafted by ACC with, as we already know, high-level connections to ruling party and China. Kids in school learn about Chinese-Cambodian friendship and other narratives, which go directly in-line with the teaching discourse in China. Schools are supported by donations of textbooks in simplified characters and volunteer teachers coming from China (2012, 107). Consequently, students are exposed to the reflection of the Chinese modernity and attracted by the successful story of their ancestral home – the success of Chinese nation which is offered on the silver plate to wake up the deeply buried feelings of patriotism and Chinesness (ibid). The same as the education works for kids, Chinese-language media spread the voice of Chinese culture for adults. Through ACC and CCCC China finances several newspapers and magazines such as Commercial News, Phnom Penh Evening News and others, which all have traceable connections leading to China (2012, 108). On the top of that, Nyiri (2012, 109-110) states, that these media are more and more reluctant to provide news which are negative towards the China’s interests. That is possible due to “[…] growing number of mainland Chinese journalists and editors, trainings in China offered to local journalists, and a rising share of content from mainland Chinese sources that are accelerating a shift away from a distinctive local Chinese usage toward that of the People’s Republic.”

Table 9: Education indicators in GMS region (units in table) Population with at

Notes (% ages 25 and older) (% of secondary school–age

population)

(% of tertiary school–age population)

2005-2013 2008-2014 2008-2014 2008-2014

Cambodia 16% 47 45% 16%

Besides Chinese educational foreign aid, there is one more institution, which should definitely not be omitted in the discussion of promotion of Chinese culture and transnationalization as the part of the Beijing’s foreign policy. Confucius Institute (CI) is at the first glance non-governmental organization providing the opportunity mainly to get in touch with Chinese language and other aspects of the culture sphere. However, the non-governmental nature as it is

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often presented is more than doubtful. Officially, CI is responsible for “[…] promoting cultural exchange through Chinese language instruction and cultural activities”, through establishing connections between Chinese and host countries universities, and primary or secondary schools (Reilly 2015, 16).³³ There are 446 CI and 646 Confucius Classrooms in the world, which have managed to organize mobility programs for 18 000 volunteer Chinese teachers to 101 countries (ibid). According to CI Development Report, in last 7 years (Figure number eleven) the budget of CI rose by 159% from US$ 119 million to US$ 311 million. The similar positive trend goes for CI scholarship students, since from 2009 the number almost doubled from around 4000 students to 7836 in 2014. As for CI operation in Cambodia, the first institute was open in 2009, and first three classrooms established in 2013. To date Cambodia has one CI and three Confucius classrooms providing courses for 14 180 students. In comparison with other GMS countries, only Thailand has more Confucius branches, though difference is significant (15 CI and 18 CC). Laos and Vietnam have only one CI, and Myanmar does not have even one, which is subsidized with three classrooms. The least opportunities of enrolment in CI are in Laos, where barely 4000 students took courses in 2015. Recently, CI also adopts the new design of its branches in form of the ‘Chinese teaching rooms’, thus it is difficult to estimate the real amount of institutions connected to CI project. Overall, Touch (2015, 202) concludes that nearly half of the Cambodian students in 2011 had the chance to study Mandarin without any fees, and that “[The]

popularization of the Chinese language in Cambodia far exceeds that in any other Southeast Asian country.”

Figure 11: CI budget over time (US$ thousands)

On the other hand, Yang and Hsiao in their study offer a different perspective on the CI apart from the official discourse, as the deliberate part of the China’s ‘Peaceful Rise’. It is the link between China’s Ministry of Education and the Hanban office – the head body supervising the budget of CI – that raises the doubt of the unconstrained nature of CI (2014, 18). Yang and Hsiao further observe that Hanban brings together wide variety of Chinese communist officials from

33 Confucius Institutes make partnership with tertiary institutions, while Confucius Classrooms partner with primary and secondary ones, though range of their services and procedures is very similar.

50,000.00 100,000.00 150,000.00 200,000.00 250,000.00 300,000.00 350,000.00

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Source: CI Development Report

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the government, including Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Commerce, and the Overseas Chinese Affairs Council, etc. (2014, 19). In Cambodia these people have managed to infiltrate the local political elite. Yang and Hsiao (2014, 32) observe that CI enjoys vast support from Cambodia’s political elite, which proves the political dependency on Beijing. In addition, support also comes from local Khmer-Chinese leaders, who are essential in terms of promoting the Chinese culture and values. Therefore, one of the main goals of CI is, yet again, to cultivate the national sense of belonging to Chinese culture and unconscious inclination towards political decisions made by Beijing. To achieve this goal, CI tries to establish firm connections with educational institutions in the host country via generous promises of funding, scholarships, teaching materials, cheap courses of Mandarin language and other cultural support (2014, 20). In return, host schools have to prove the right attitude towards cooperation on many matters, including some request that might raise controversy regarding the academic freedom as it is known in the western world. In Europe and USA there have been cases, where universities decided not to prolong the contracts with CI on the campuses due to suspicions of self-censorship and other forms of intervention projected by CI in favor of China’s image.³⁴ Yang and Hsao (2014, 25) point out, that CI operates under CCP as the tool, which is supposed to generate the condition of dependency on China in host countries’ schools. Summarizing the situation in Cambodia, it was found out that CI involvement is not only highly supported by Cambodian leadership, but it also “[…] reflects Cambodia’s dependence on the Chinese government and Chinese investment”, since to local people “[…]China represents commercial opportunities and interests that could enhance their lives and increase their incomes” (Yang and Hsiao 2014, 32). All in all, it is obvious that China successfully pulls the strings of knowledge within the Cambodian society in order to create the favorable and supportive pro-Chinese environment in this strategically important country.

Creating such environment is beneficial for China’s influence in sense of cultivating the China-friendly Khmer population right from the bottom. Even though such engagement comes with side-agenda, Cambodia cordially welcomes any demonstration of help, since the leadership is incapable of any significant progress in education; and after all, promise of brighter prospects for future embraced in the perspective of Chinese modernization is appealing both among the common population and authorities.