While interest in learning Mandarin declines in the West, Middle Eastern children are attending classes in China’s official language as part of a geopolitical shift in a region that has been traditionally regarded as a sphere of US influence.
“I think China is an emerging power that can hardly be overlooked and will play a crucial role in international development and reconstruction of global order,” said Ma, a former Arabic language lecturer in northwestern China’s Ningxia Hui autonomous region.Ma said he believed that mastering the most-spoken language in the world – and mother tongue of about 1.3 billion people – meant “winning the world”.
More than 100 Confucius Institutes – important vehicles for the promotion of Chinese language and culture – have been shut down on campuses in the United States, Europe and Australia in recent years, because of concerns over Beijing’s influence. The decline in interest in Chinese language learning in Western countries “is influenced by the deterioration of relations with China caused by political and economic disputes and this lessened the desirability of learning Chinese”, he said.