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Controversy over Confucius Institute: “Big Brother is watching you”

Confucius Institutes around the globe are suspected of involvement in propaganda and espionage. In Japan, the Ministry of Education has even launched an official investigation. A fight with critics often take on bizarre forms, as the latest example in Slovakia shows, where the director of one of the institutes surprised with crude remarks.

By
Marcel Grzanna
Image of Marcel Grzanna

Matej Šimalčík, director of the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) in Bratislava, could not believe his eyes when he opened an e-mail from Confucius Institute. “Who came up with this nonsense? Please, spare us with this garbage,” all casually written. The author of these dubious lines: Luboslav Štora, head of the Confucius Institute at the Slovak University of Technology (STU), one of three Confucius Institutes in the country.

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