Mandarin Mania
Chinese classes are coming to a town near you as part of Beijing’s strategy to make Mandarin a global language that will one day rival English. China’s Ministry of Education has launched an ambitious campaign to teach 100 million foreigners to speak the country’s national language by 2010.

Call it a clever strategy on China’s part. It took more than a century of British empire-building, followed by America’s economic rise, to give English its present dominance. Now Beijing plans to achieve the same goal in a fraction of the time, just by using language schools.

That’s a formidable goal when you consider how difficult its four tones make Mandarin to master. Nonetheless officials seem confident they can meet their goal. With more than 60,000 foreigners already studying Mandarin in China and another 30 million studying the language world-wide, they’re off to a running start.

China’s booming economy and its increasing weight in global affairs have made people from Atlanta to Bangkok anxious to learn the language. According to China’s Ministry of Education, some 2,500 college and universities in 100 countries now offer Chinese language or culture-related classes. The Chinese government has sent language teachers to nearly 300 schools in 70 countries.

It’s only been two years since China’s National Office for Teaching Chinese and Foreign Language (NOCFL), under the Ministry of Education, opened its first Confucius Institute in Seoul. These are non-profit public institutions dedicated to promoting Chinese language and culture. Now NOCFL has 80 institutes in 36 countries and an interactive Web site where users enter a virtual residential community set in Beijing and interact with its ‘residents,’ even in some unlikely corners of the world.

This week, the Chinese government dedicated a new Confucius Institute at the University of Oklahoma. It is one of 11 institutes in the United States. The school was selected because it has consistently expanded its Chinese-language program for the past 12 years. Unsurprisingly, it’s not just the university students who are getting in on the game. Some of Oklahoma’s secondary and elementary schools also offer Chinese-language classes.

In Africa, where China has taken a particular interest, it has sent 200 teachers to teach language and history It is estimated that some 8,000 African students are learning Chinese, and the numbers are rising.

The smart thing about Beijing’s strategy is that China has learned from past great powers that promoting education and language as tools for understanding is the most effective way to spread your influence far and wide. Gunboats may frighten people into temporary submission, but a shared language can make them your friends.

Whatever the world’s other grievances with China, Beijing has devised a plan to demystify its culture and history — one student at a time. And we say bravo.