A Study On The Function Of Confucius Institute Toward Cultural Soft Power

Since the reform and opening up in1978, China’s economy witnesses a significant increase in terms of gross national product. In2012, China’s GDP surpassed Japan and became the second largest economy in the world. As its economic strength has increased markedly, China play a pivotal role in regional and international affairs. The rapid development of economic strength manifest "China’s Rise" in hard power field, but there is such a long way to achieve the great rejuvenation of our nation. Nowadays, major countries in the world today pay enough attention to their national culture, spare no effort to disseminate their own culture. Cultural soft power has been increasingly regarded as a factor in the evaluation of comprehensive national strength.As the representative of Chinese culture, Confucius Institute plays an important role in international community. Obviously, Confucius Institute promotes the globalization of tertiary education and enables Chinese culture known by the rest of the world. In2004, China’s first overseas Confucius Institute was established in Seoul. Then, Confucius Institute kept springing up all over the world. By effectively promote Chinese and spread Chinese culture, Confucius Institute is undoubtedly a name card of China’s cultural soft power. However, the spread of Confucius Institutes around the world has also led to a heated discussion. The rapid development over the past decade, making Confucius Institutes a sample to study China’s cultural soft power.Based on the development process of Confucius Institute, it is a tough task for Confucius Institute to implement the national strategy, facilitate the communication between China and other countries and increase the outward influential power. This dissertation tries to put forward some suggestions towards the problem. The methodology used in this essay includes literature review, comparative study, statistical analyses and case study.This essay is divided into six chapters. Chapter one includes the brief introduction of the background and meaning of this paper, briefly describes the content and methodology, then mention the difficulties and so on. Chapter two lays a solid foundation for this paper. The first part is the related theories about cultural soft power, while the second part is the literature review. The third chapter mainly analyses the cultural institutions. The first part discusses the development of Confucius Institute. The second part summaries the institutional characteristics of other main foreign cultural institution. In the third part, through the comparison with the counterpart in other countries, such as British Council, Confucius Institutes exposure its weakness and problems. Chapter four initially establishes a5-dimension system and then analyzes the function of Confucius Institute through the system. Then, Confucius Institutes prove itself the core of cultural soft power via language promotion and cultural diplomacy. From the aspect of cultural attractive power, Chapter five select the number of tourists as the indicator of cultural soft power, settle an econometrical model to quantitatively prove the function of Confucius Institute. Based on discussion above, the last chapter provides some useful suggestion to the sustainable development of the Confucius Institute, so that Confucius Institute can further enhance our cultural soft power.The difficulty during the writing lies in the ambiguous definition of cultural soft power. Due to the lack of mature research system in this field, the author has to establish one. Besides, language barrier frequently occurs when searching the data of other language promotion institute. Last but not least, the measurement of Cultural Soft Power is still in its first phase, it is challenging to calculate the exact figure like the measurement used in hard power domain.The innovation of this paper lies in following three elements. Firstly, this paper focuses on the function of Confucius Institute toward Cultural Soft Power, where few author pay attention. Secondly, based on previous research, this paper narrow the concept from Soft Power to Cultural Soft Power, and properly set the definition. Thirdly, this paper initially introduces related data of Confucius Institute into econometrical model, quantitatively test the impact of Confucius Institutes on cultural soft power.The difficulties mentioned above seem to have been solved, but there are still some pitfalls. The five-dimension system is too simple and short of explanation. The suggestions in chapter six are not comprehensive, theoretical analysis remain in shallow level.