CAN YOU SPEAK MANDARIN?

One of the consequences of the Chinese being so numerous is that there are twice as many people in the world who speak Mandarin as their first or second language as English, with the great majority of them living in China. With the rise of China, however, growing numbers of people around the world are beginning to acquire Chinese as a second language. Since 2006 this process has been actively promoted by the Chinese government with the establishment of Confucius Institutes in many different countries, often linked to local universities. In 2007 there were 156 such institutes in 55 countries, with the aim of 200 by the end of that year. [1297] Coming under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, the object of the Confucius Institutes (which are broadly modelled along the lines of the British Council, Alliance Française and the Goethe Institut) is primarily the teaching of the Chinese language, including the training of Chinese teachers, together with the promotion of Chinese culture. It is estimated that 30 million people worldwide are now learning Chinese and that 2,500 universities in 100 countries run Chinese courses. The spread of Mandarin is most striking in East Asia. It is making rapid strides in Hong Kong, where Cantonese is the first language, and amongst overseas Chinese communities in South-East Asia. In South Korea there are 160,000 students studying Mandarin, an increase of 66 per cent within the past five years. In South Korea and Thailand all elementary and middle schools now offer Mandarin, and the Thai government hopes that one-third of high school students will be proficient in Mandarin by 2011. [1298] One of the biggest obstacles is the paucity of Mandarin teachers, so the Chinese Ministry of Education has begun dispatching groups of language teachers, partially funded by the ministry, for one- and two-year stints in Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Kenya, Argentina and many other countries. [1299] The attraction of Mandarin in East Asia, of course, is obvious: as China becomes the centre of the East Asian economy, the most important market for exports of countries within the region and also their major source of inward investment, the ability to speak Mandarin will be of growing importance for trade, diplomacy and cultural exchange.

In contrast Mandarin is little taught in the West, but even here there has been an outbreak of Mandarin-fever, albeit in a much milder form. In a survey of US high schools in 2006, 2,400 said they would consider teaching Mandarin if the resources were available. Chicago, which has set itself the aim of becoming a hub of Chinese learning, had about twenty public schools teaching Mandarin to 3,500 pupils in 2006. [1300] A survey in 2004, however, revealed that only 203 US high schools and about 160 elementary schools were teaching Mandarin. In total, there are thought to be about 50,000 American school children studying Mandarin at public schools and a similar number in private and specialist schools, with the major constraint being the lack of trained teachers. The UK reveals a similar picture, with just 2,233 entries for GCSE in 2000, and 3,726 in 2004. More private schools are beginning to offer Mandarin as an option, and there are plans under way to do the same in the state system. The number of students at UK colleges and universities taking Mandarin as their main subject doubled between 2002 and 2005, while similar increases have been recorded in other European countries. [1301] The relative slowness of the Western response speaks, especially in the US and the UK, to their abiding linguistic insularity and their failure to comprehend the wide-ranging implications of China ’s rise.

In the era of globalization, and an increasingly globalized media, language is an important component of soft power. The emergence of English as the global lingua franca — the interlocutor language of choice — carries considerable benefits for the United States in a myriad of different ways. It is far too early yet to say what the reach of Mandarin might one day be, but it will in time probably join English as a global lingua franca and perhaps eventually surpass it. The example of the internet is interesting in this context. Bret Fausett, who runs the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) blog, has argued: ‘We’re at the peak of the English language on the internet. As internationalized domain names are introduced over the next few years, allowing users to conduct their entire online experience in their native language, English will decline as the central language of the internet.’ [1302]

Predicting the future of a language is fraught with difficulty. As the linguistic authority David Crystal writes: ‘If, in the Middle Ages, you had dared to predict the death of Latin as the language of education, people would have laughed in your face — as they would, in the eighteenth century, if you had suggested that any language other than French could be a future norm of polite society.’ [1303] The rise of English has coincided with, and been a product of, the global dominance of the United States. By the same token, the decline of the United States will adversely affect the position of English: the global use of a language does not exist in some kind of vacuum but is closely aligned with the power of a nation-state. [1304] The nascent competition between English and Mandarin for the status of global lingua franca, a contest which is likely to endure for this century and perhaps the next as well, is fascinating not least because, as languages and cultural forms, they could hardly be more different: one alphabetic, the other pictographic; one the vehicle for a single spoken language, the other (in its written form) embracing many different ones; English having grown by overseas expansion and conquest, Mandarin by a gradual process of territorial enlargement.

THE RISE OF CHINESE UNIVERSITIES

An important way in which the United States has left its mark on the world has been through its universities. It possesses what are generally regarded as the world’s best universities, which attract some of the finest academics and students from around the globe. At the top US universities, researchers can enjoy facilities and resources second to none, while a degree from a university like Harvard, Berkeley or MIT carries more kudos than a degree from anywhere else, with the possible exception of Oxbridge. Great universities, of course, require huge national wealth and resources, be they public or private institutions. It is not surprising, therefore, that hitherto the West has dominated the league tables for the top universities. In the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2007, US universities accounted for six of the top ten and the UK four. In the top twenty there were two Asian universities, with Tokyo University 17th and Hong Kong University 18th. There were six Chinese universities in the top 200, with Beijing University 36th, Tsinghua University 40th, Fudan University 85th, Nanjing University 125th, University of Science and Technology of China 155th, and Shanghai Jiaotong University 163rd. [1305] There were five Chinese universities in the top 200 in 2004. The Shanghai Jiaotong University ’s Academic Ranking of World Universities [1306] and a similar one published by the China Scientific Review Research Centre confirm that the top Chinese universities are making progress up the global rankings. China is also emerging as a main centre of top-flight business education, according to a Financial Times ranking of Executive MBAs, which shows four of the top twenty programmes are based there (including Hong Kong). [1307]