Taking over the Confucius Institute? Luban workshops enter the "Belt and Road" countries

 Direct translation

Taking over the Confucius Institute? Luban workshops enter the "Belt and Road" countries

Editor : Li Ming / https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2022/11/06/a103568748.html / Image : Logo on the official website of Luban Workshop. (webpage Screenshot)

In recent years, European and American countries have realized that the Confucius Institutes of the Communist Party of China are exporting CCP ideology in the name of promoting Chinese, so they have successively closed their branch campuses. But at the same time, with the strong support of the Chinese Communist Party, the "Luban Workshop" has entered the "Belt and Road" countries in the form of vocational and technical training.

According to the Voice of America report, Luban Workshop is a vocational technical school sponsored by the Tianjin Municipal Government. Since 2016, it has gradually penetrated into countries along the Belt and Road in the name of Luban, a well-known craftsman in Chinese history, to compare these economies and technologies. Lagging countries offer various types of vocational training.

From traditional Chinese medicine techniques to Chinese cuisine, from mechatronics to applied electronic technology, from automation to robotics, Luban workshops in various places will adjust the professor's projects according to the current actual needs of the host country.

So far, Luban Workshop has established 25 branch campuses in 19 countries around the world. There are branches of Luban Workshop in Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Portugal and many countries in Central Asia.

The output mode of the Luban Workshop is basically the same as that of the Confucius Institute: find local schools or training institutions in various countries as "partners", use the teaching facilities and resources of local schools to start courses, and carry out teaching and training activities. Most of them serve the local projects of the CCP's "Belt and Road" initiative.

According to reports, although the Chinese coordinator of the Luban workshop is the Tianjin government, senior CPC leaders, including Xi Jinping, frequently mentioned this vocational high system when meeting with foreign heads of state, indicating that the project has the support of the CPC Central Government.

Dirk van der Kley, a researcher at the Australian National University's School of Global Management, analyzed in an interview with VOA, said, "The Luban Workshop can shape the narrative of China's behavior in the host country, aiming to give China more political event space."

Generally, these specific projects are related to China's Belt and Road projects in these countries. For example: the first Luban workshop was established in Thailand in 2016, mainly to cooperate with China's US$7 billion "One Belt, One Road" high-speed rail project in Thailand, and to conduct training in high-speed EMU maintenance technology and high-speed railway signal automatic control technology in Thailand.

In this regard, Van der Klei analyzed that the Luban workshops opened in various countries focus on the technical shortage of the host country, that is, any skills the host country wants, but its role is not limited to the teaching of technology. According to the Ministry of Education of the Communist Party of China, the Luban Workshop has brought "teaching models, professional standards and teaching resources with Chinese characteristics" to the local area.

According to Van der Kree's analysis, the Chinese government vigorously promotes the Luban Workshop for the following reasons: First, it is a good publicity for Chinese officials, and it requires relatively little funding compared to other projects; Second, the role played by these schools has shaped the positive image of the CCP government in the host country; third, the Luban Workshop makes Chinese projects more cost-effective by training local labor.

"This is a geo-economic consideration that makes Chinese projects more attractive. Over time, China will naturally become the partner of choice for these host countries, and local students will become more familiar with Chinese technology," Van der Kree said.

Jonathan Sullivan, an associate professor at the School of Contemporary China Studies at the University of Nottingham, UK, believes that the existence of the Luban Workshop has made the developing countries (Global South) more closely connected with China, thus giving the Chinese government a geo-economic advantage.

Sullivan suggested that both the G7 and the Quad could consider offering similar programs to address the acute shortage of skills in the world, in a more transparent way, directly linking to the job markets of those countries that need them.