Learning Chinese in Vietnam: The Role of the Confucius Institute

Southeast Asian countries have always been one of the priority regions of the Chinese foreign policy due both to the geographic proximity and to the long historical and cultural connections and new forms of economic and trade cooperation which have been formed on that basis. Vietnam supports close interaction with its northern neighbour not only in the Party matters, but also in the trade and economic, agricultural, tourism, educational, medical, and other spheres. Naturally, this suggests intense learning of the Chinese language on a large scale. China, in its turn, is interested in maintenance and increase of its positive image among the countries of Southeast Asia. That is why China applies various methods and tools of nonforce pressure, which are known as “cultural soft power”. One of these tools is the Confucius Institute (Classes). China considered it the site of promotion of the Chinese language and Chinese culture abroad. From the outside, Vietnam and China appear to move toward each other in the matter of teaching and learning Chinese, but the reality shows that the Vietnamese side is not hastening to join the Chinese initiative, striving to control the situation, and does not let the Chinese side expand the Confucius Institutes network in Vietnam. Also, the analysis of the situation has shown the insignificant role of the Confucius Institutes in teaching the Chinese language.