Soft Power: Communist China’s Linguistic Expansion Sweeps the Middle East

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi backed up a law last month that adds Chinese to the list of foreign languages ​​that can be taught in Iranian middle and high schools.

This move comes at a time when there is great sensitivity about the teaching of Western languages ​​in Iran. English is especially stigmatized as a conduit for “culture invasion.” After Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei criticized English teaching in 2016, Iran imposed a ban on teaching english in elementary schools. The endorsement of the Chinese language as an alternative is based on that.

However, the spread of Mandarin Chinese and its inclusion in school curricula is not limited to Iran. It is happening throughout the Middle East, not as a purely cultural or economic measure. Rather, it is part of a new Chinese-led civilizational, cultural, and geopolitical genesis.

Sinification is nothing new. It is a process by which non-Chinese societies or groups acculturate or assimilate to the language, culture, and social norms of the Han Chinese, the largest ethnic group in China. However, large-scale sinicization as an expansionist policy is the modern invention of President Xi Jinping.

Under Xi’s rule, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has stepped up efforts to spread Standard Mandarin at home and abroad as an instrument of soft power and political influence. Driven by Chinese nationalism, the Xi regime seeks to assimilate and Sinicize ethnic minorities within China by actively seeking to eradicate the language and culture of the Turkic Uyghurs in East Turkistan, the Mongolian residents of Inner Mongolia, and the Tibetans. This is part of a larger plan to consolidate power that includes the complete subjugation of Hong Kong, the conquest of Taiwan, and the conversion of the South China Sea. in a chinese lake.

But the PRC’s linguistic imperialism is not limited to China’s present borders. Beijing is also sinifying the Middle East and other parts of the world at an unprecedented rate. Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have taken significant steps to incorporate the Chinese language into their education systems.

Besides prohibiting English instruction in elementary schools. and adding Chinese curriculum to school, Tehran has also maintained its longstanding ban on languages ​​of non-Persian ethnic groups in the country. Has forbidden education in azerbaijania language spoken by more than a third of its population, even intensifying its repression. However, the Iranian regime is not concerned about spreading Mandarin or funding Chinese courses.

Investment in the Chinese language in Iran has little to do with language or cultural exchange and everything to do with geopolitics. Some senior Iranian clerics go so far as to say absurdly say that China-Iran relations are based on God’s commandments in the Qur’an.

The Islamic Republic even supports the genocide of the Chinese communists against Muslims in Xinjiang, arguing that China is serving Islam by suppressing Uyghur Muslim radicals. And the Iranian media outlet affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps even denies that a Uyghur genocide is happening at all, is just American propaganda, aimed at weakening China’s territorial integrity, inciting ethnic division, and slowing down Chinese economic growth.

Following President Joe Biden’s promise to make Saudi Arabia a pariah, and three years after Mohammed bin Salman’s 2019 Asian tour, the Saudi government has developed a strategic and economic partnership with China. It has raised the status of the Chinese as the country educational third language after Arabic and English.

King Saud University has signed an agreement with the Confucius Institute to establish a Chinese language department. The University of Jeddah has done it. compulsory for freshmen to study Mandarin regardless of their specialty. In December 2021, the number of secondary schools teaching Chinese has skyrocketed to more than 700 in total. Saudi Arabian state media refer to the Chinese as the “language of the future.”

Undoubtedly, the significant investment of the Saudi government in teaching Chinese is rooted in geopoliticsdriven by the desire to deliver on its comprehensive Saudi Vision 2030 program. This program is a strategic framework for reducing Saudi dependence on oil and diversifying the kingdom’s economic and security partners.

Meanwhile, Türkiye’s growing ties with China have generated increased interest than ever before among Turks in learning the Chinese language and culture. As in other parts of the Middle East, Chinese is growing in popularity in Türkiye as a second language.

The Confucius Institutes are training positive perceptions of China in the Muslim world, operating within Turkey at Yeditepe University, one of the leading private universities in Istanbul.

China has even managed to cultivate a pro-Chinese Communist Party base in Turkey. The leader of the Maoist Patriotic Party Doğu Perinçek has earned the title of Jinping Perincek” for its round support over the PRC’s expansionist policies in the South China Sea and its denial of the CCP’s Turkic Uyghur genocide, which it calls a CIA hoax.

This is a trend that the United States cannot afford to ignore.

Ahmad Hashemi is a researcher at the Hudson Institute. Follow him on Twitter @MrAhmadHashemi.