Every week, around five thousand Dutch children receive lessons in one of 28 Chinese weekend schools. These are children aged between 5 and 18, usually of Chinese origin, who mainly attend language and culture lessons in schools. In some schools, teenagers are also taught Chinese geography and history.
The 28 weekend schools are affiliated with an umbrella foundation that maintains close ties with the Chinese embassy and China’s “United Front Work Department.” That ministry wants to exercise control over all those they consider Chinese abroad. To this end, it seeks to influence world public opinion regarding the Communist Party and counter opposition voices.
United Front: President Xi’s “magic weapon”.
The United Front Work Department is a Chinese ministry that aims to control all Chinese abroad. And this goes beyond just people with Chinese passports, because Dutch children with Chinese parents or ancestors are also a target.
The United Front is active in all kinds of Chinese associations, which gives them a good overview of the Chinese diaspora. Criticism of members of the Chinese Communist Party community is immediately repressed with threats and intimidation, writes the AIVD intelligence service.
Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, United Front activities have increased significantly, and he calls the department one of his “magic weapons.”
“Chinese Cultural Paradise”
The crackdown on Dutch Chinese weekend schools is in line with ministry policy, says Christopher Houtkamp of the Clingendael Institute. “The Chinese government actually considers anyone with Chinese ancestry to be Chinese. Even if you were born in the Netherlands.”
In practice, Communist Party involvement means that teachers from the United Front Work Department regularly travel from China to the Netherlands to give lessons to children and for teacher training courses. For example, children at an autumn camp in Soest received geography lessons from Chinese teachers and lessons on the “Chinese Cultural Paradise”. The Chinese embassy in the Netherlands is closely involved in this. For example, at a teacher training meeting, the embassy was thanked for its “great support” of the training.
The CCP sponsors summer camps in China
The Chinese ministry also organizes summer camps in China for Dutch teenagers. The costs of that trip are largely borne by the Communist Party.
Teaching materials in schools are also under the control of the Chinese government. Since 2001, textbooks have been imported and distributed through the Foundation for Chinese Education in the Netherlands to the 28 Dutch weekend schools affiliated with the foundation. In recent years, according to the foundation, this has been a volume of between five and eight thousand books per year. These are donated by the Chinese government. Schools only pay a contribution of 1 euro per book for distribution and customs costs.
“Communist Party increasingly active”
The textbooks, which can be ordered through the Chinese Education Foundation in the Netherlands, contain teaching material approved by the Communist Party. Taiwan is seen as a province of China. The history book does not even mention the millions of deaths that occurred in the 20th century due to famine and internal violence under Chinese leader Mao Zedong, nor the bloody student revolt of 1989. According to the foundation, the history books and of geography are mainly ordered for parents who want to use them at home. They would not be used in lessons.
According to Houtkamp van Clingendael, the Chinese government has been increasingly active in dealing with Chinese abroad in recent years. “You actually see a lull since Xi Jinping came to power. Then China started investing more in weekend schools.” According to Houtkamp, the Communist Party is trying to exploit the Chinese diaspora to spread Chinese history to the world.
“Don’t be naive”
The Chinese Education Foundation in the Netherlands and the Chinese government consult regularly. For example, last October the president traveled to China to report to a unit of the United Front ministry on the state of Chinese education in the Netherlands. For his efforts, the president was awarded a high personal distinction by the Chinese government in 2014.
The Chinese Education Foundation in the Netherlands confirms to RTL News that it is supported by the Chinese government. President Chen Huazhong: “It is financially difficult for weekend schools. Fewer and fewer companies want to sponsor Chinese education. Last October I asked China whether the Chinese government would like to continue the support.” Huazhong does not answer questions about how much influence the Communist Party has on lessons and whether teachers are free to teach whatever they want.
These Chinese schools are not supervised by the Dutch Education Inspectorate because they do not receive money from the government. “The Netherlands should be a little less naive about these kinds of weekend schools,” says Houtkamp van Clingendael. “We should at least want to know what its effects are.”
The Ministry of Education was not aware of the links between the Chinese government and weekend schools. Minister Paul says he will discuss this with his colleagues from Foreign Affairs and Justice and Security. The ministry is also working on a bill that will give the Education Inspectorate the opportunity to look behind the doors of weekend schools. “I think it’s very important to know what exactly is going on there.”
In any case, the bill can count on the support of the VVD and D66 parties in the House of Representatives. The VVD calls it “harmful that a foreign regime teaches children things at the weekend that are contrary to Dutch democratic values.” D66 states that the Chinese government is in favor of a new world order without freedom and democracy and that we must make sure that weekend schools are not abused for this purpose.
China helps schools after subsidies end
Until 2004, the Dutch government helped pay for weekend education for children with a migrant background. Since then, the costs have been borne by parents and schools. This makes it attractive to accept help from the Chinese embassy, says Christopher Houtkamp. “It created space for other countries to support private education. And that’s obviously not without reason. It’s about spreading the narrative of those countries into those schools.”
The president of the Dutch Foundation for Chinese Education confirms that financial problems have led them in the direction of the Chinese government. “Until 1997, books were published in Chinese-Dutch in the Netherlands, with money from the Dutch government. But then this stopped and then we had to look for something else. Schools have a lot of costs, for example the rent of school buildings “, explains Chen Huazhong.
2023-12-30 05:29:28
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