Backlash against English’s ‘invasion’ builds up in China

A cultural backlash is building up in China against English, with critics claiming that a “national obsession” with learning it is corroding the “purity” of the Chinese language and downgrading non-English speakers to second-class citizen status.

The phenomenon, reminiscent of Mulayam Singh’s campaign in India last year to disincentivise English learning, has been escalated into a petition to top policy advisers  to build linguistic defences against the “English invasion” of China. It enjoys support among sections of Chinese society, although legions of the Chinese see English education as a passport to career advancement.

The anti-English campaign reached a high point at last week’s meeting of China’s top policymakers in Beijing, when a proposal was presented for a ban on the use of common English abbreviations (like GDP and CEO) and even English names — of people, places and companies — in Chinese-language publications. The proposal was put forward by Huang Youyi, a leading publisher and chairman of the International Federation of Translators, who argues that the increasing invocation of English words and phrases in Chinese language publications could endanger the future of Chinese.

Huang criticises popular perception that “using foreign words is a sign of being open-minded and international”. Instead, he says, the Chinese “should have confidence in our own language... You cannot expect others to respect you unless you respect yourself”. If measures were not taken to “stop Chinese mingling with English,” Chinese would “no longer be a pure language in a few years”.

That lingua-nationalist sentiment finds more strident articulation among sections of Chinese society. Last month, four Shanghai universities that tested applicants for ‘independent admission’ in English — but not Chinese — were criticised as “traitorous”. Hu Guang, a representative of the Shanghai People’s Political Consultative Conference, slammed the universities’ action as “irresponsible, short-sighted and illegal.” Others saw the measure as “discriminatory”, and accused the universities of “blindly worshipping foreign languages”.

Likewise, Chinese blogger Fu Zhenguo called for a “war to protect” the Chinese language from the “corrupting influence” of English. Fu, whose arguments have been acknowledged by the Education Ministry and the National Language Committee (NLC), says he would like China’s language laws amended to “control and supervise” the use of foreign languages in China.

Despite this cultural backlash, English language proficiency is still popular in China, largely because it is seen to enhance career opportunities.