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MANILA, Philippines – The Confucius Institutes, Chinese government-funded schools, should be closed in the Philippines unless China acknowledges the 2016 arbitration ruling that declared its claim in the South China Sea invalid, according to the retired Supreme Court judge. , Antonio Carpio.
“I think we should start backing down,” Carpio said in an online forum hosted by the Philippine Association of Foreign Correspondents earlier this week.
Until China acknowledges the ruling, he said, the Confucius Institutes “should not be able to operate in the Philippines.”
China has established Confucius Institutes worldwide to promote the Chinese language and culture in a display of its so-called soft power.
In the United States, dozens of universities have closed Confucius Institutes on their campuses after the United States Congress passed legislation that allows the Pentagon to reject funding for Chinese-language programs at the universities that host the institutes.
The presence of the institutes had raised concerns about their use in espionage and their role in curbing academic freedom. Sweden has also closed all Confucius Institutes for security reasons.
Carpio said China has Confucius Institutes at the University of the Philippines and the Ateneo de Manila University. Institutes, Carpio said, “can propagate their historical falsehood on the nine-hyphen line.”
“They can tell students false stories about the nine-hyphen line, but we can’t counter that because we don’t have our own institutes in China,” said Carpio.
Beijing claims to own the entire South China Sea based on its mythical nine-stroke line, but this was rejected in 2016 by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in a case filed by the Philippines. China refuses to acknowledge the ruling.
Carpio’s comments about the closure of Confucius Institutes in the country came after the Chinese embassy in Manila released “Iisang Dagat”, a music video that was supposed to highlight COVID-19 cooperation between the Philippines and China, but instead it sparked outrage from Filipino netizens because of their subtle claim of their claims from the South China Sea
The withdrawn justice said China has taken advantage of other nations’ freedoms as it denies the same at home.
“We have our freedom of expression in this country,” said Carpio. “We can’t stop the Chinese from coming out with their own music video on COVID-19. That’s where we have to compete with them in the ideas market,” he said.
“It is unfortunate that the Chinese embassy here is able to launch that kind of music video to give its propaganda, while our embassy in Beijing cannot do it because they have censorship in China,” he added.
The Chinese, he said, can freely access the Philippine media and blogs, and advertise in the newspapers. But it is not the same for the Philippines in China.
Carpio said his e-book on the South China Sea dispute cannot be sold in China due to strong censorship there.
“They can spread falsehoods here, but we can’t counter it,” Carpio said.
“This is why its people believe that they have truly owned the South China Sea for 2,000 years when everyone knows that this is totally false,” he said.
Edited by TSB
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