Illustration: Sun Ying

The visa issues involving the Confucius Institutes in the US have already turned out to be neither as serious nor as ominous as partisans on both sides have claimed. However, we should use this current issue to consider the tremendous benefits that accrue to both nations by continuing to back and support this program.

For the US side, it is important to continue to support the Confucius Institutes in order to increase the access to Chinese language courses for US students. The increase in trade and tourism between the US and China has already led to a dramatic rise in the number of Americans seeking an education in Putonghua.

In many cases, the students are taking the classes specifically to prepare for an economic future where the US and China will be ever more closely linked. The primary difficulty has been in finding qualified educators to teach these classes as opposed to finding students to take those classes.

However, beyond the economic reasons to learn Putonghua, there is the need to create a population that can directly communicate with China, and analyze the positions of its people and government alike. Someone who only speaks English is at the mercy of many gatekeepers, such as editors who decide which articles to translate or publish, when trying to determine the mood of the Chinese people or the government.

In many cases, this selective choice of what articles to translate can create a warped impression of the true state of affairs. After all, when one considers the number of Chinese newspapers and periodicals, it becomes plain that only a tiny selection are ever made available in English, and the English-only reader has no ability to determine if they are truly representative of Chinese public opinion.

In other cases, the process of translation itself can be used to control the impression the article gives to the English reading audience, especially when the translator must make a personal judgment of how best to translate ambiguous terms or phrasing.

Additionally, there is a vast amount of Chinese written material that has never been translated, and likely never will be.

The difference between bilingual and monolingual individuals is the same as someone trapped on a tourist route through a city, only allowed to see what their guide wishes to show, and someone who can simply take their own walking tour, seeing what they desire. People fluent in Putonghua can come to their own conclusions about China.

For those who worry about undue political influence by the Confucius Institutes, there is no better solution than to create the largest possible number of bilingual citizens. This is especially important as these students graduate and enter business and government careers where their decisions may have a major and long-term impact on Sino-US relations.

In addition, bilingual citizens will be able to see China as a nation and people, rather than a collection of stereotypes. While this will not eliminate occasions where the US and China will find themselves in competition, it will help avoid the unfortunate tendency in some quarters to see China as an alien "other" rather than a legitimate participant on the world stage.

The lack of a large body of citizens who are bilingual and culturally informed has stood behind some of the US' most costly missteps in Asia. Rather than worrying about the Confucius Institutes, Americans should be thanking them, and working as hard as possible to continue to expand the number of bilingual citizens.

The author is a freelance writer based in Corona, California. charlesgray109@gmail.com