About 300 universities in China have adopted the English textbook ‘New Era’, which contains President Xi Jinping’s speeches on ‘anti-Americanism’ and ‘praise of socialism’, starting from the new semester starting this month, according to the British Financial Times (FT) ) reported on the 24th. As China, which is competing with the United States for hegemony, is reducing English education every day, the plan is to use textbooks full of Sino-Chinese ideology for even the little English classes that are taking place.
According to the FT, the new English textbook includes President Xi’s speech opposing the US invasion and content that many Chinese students who studied in the US were imbued with a Western mindset and had difficulty finding jobs upon returning home. Additionally, instead of introducing Western culture, students must praise China’s cultural achievements and translate into English information about how the opening ceremony of last year’s Beijing Winter Olympics ‘left a deep impression on the world.’ In the preface, the authors of this textbook did not hide their determination to correct the existing textbooks’ focus on Western culture, saying that many problems had arisen.
China has promoted English education since the late 1970s, when Deng Xiaoping, who emphasized reform and openness, came to power. At that time, English textbooks included various contents about Western culture, such as the ‘Statue of Liberty’, the symbol of New York, USA, and Barbie dolls. Also, starting in 1987, students had to obtain a certain score or higher on an English test to be eligible to graduate from college. On the other hand, after President Xi came to power in late 2012, the authorities rejected the use of English, viewing it as a harmful tool for spreading Western “bad ideas.” Accordingly, Shanghai, the second largest city, banned English tests for elementary school students in 2021. Recently, Xi’an Jiaotong University also excluded English test scores as a condition for awarding undergraduate degrees. Beijing authorities are minimizing the use of English in major stations.
