China’s Cultural Approach To Building Up Its Image In Madagascar A Case Study

This study is based on an analysis of China’s increasing efforts to build up its image as a peaceful and responsible power in Madagascar, taking the case study of the Confucius institute and its prospects in this largest island of Africa since the year of 2009. As culture in international relations can be frequently identified as a national image or is directly related to political prestige, it can be used as a necessary means, like cultural diplomacy, with a view to promoting political sympathies beyond its borders, and likewise to maintaining a powerful image of the country. Also, it is to establish cooperative milieu that can facilitate partnerships with other countries of diverse cultural backgrounds of the world. Over the past decades, scholar Joseph Nye has argued for culture acting as a kind of soft power which has played its role in international relations. To that end, cultural diplomacy has always served as a few purposes:to solidify the country’s international relations from a legal and bureaucratic point of view, to establish beneficial partnerships with other governments, and promote the full development of the collective identity.Soft power as the concept frequently used in international relations is used as the theoretical framework in this research.1 This is one of the symbolic resources of a state, as it allows becoming more influential through seduction. Soft power is believed to have the attractive force of a culture of a country, that is, its ability to attract his works, his discoveries, his models, and values.2 The cooperation between China and Madagascar by the implementation of Confucius Institute is the core part of this study, since the main objective of the argument is to intensify Sino-Madagascar relationship by increasing the positive image of Chinese culture, to promote the Chinese cultural value and improve its influence in Madagascar. But what does Confucius Institute means, this is a non-profit organization dedicates to teaching the Chinese language and dissemination of Chinese culture. Its mission is to meet the requirements of learning Chinese, to promote the understanding of Chinese culture, to strengthen educational and cultural exchanges with China in order to develop friendship between China and other countries and strengthen multiculturalism with a view to constructing a more harmonious world. The International Promotion’s Office, called "Hanban" of the Chinese language is behind the creation of the Confucius Institute and aims to promoting learning Chinese culture worldwide.1In addition, this research is based on these following questions:First, how China works to illustrate the perception of the Confucius Institute in Madagascar? Second, to what extent Chinese culture has been since accepted favorably after establishing the Confucius Institute in 2009? To answer these questions, the questionnaire was used in order to make this analysis arguable. It was sent via social network especially Facebook to Malagasy people randomly, with different ages between fifteen to sixty five years old, and with a different occupation, such as students, workers, and ordinary Malagasy. We were assessing also to other sources from books, newspaper, published journal articles and internet.Given this, the dissertation aims to assesses the promotion of Chinese culture through Confucius institute as a means of cultural diplomacy conducted in the island state of Madagascar. How many Malagasy people from the survey presented the positive influences and negative ones as well, For these two questions, the main arguments of this study are firstly to demonstrate the misperception of Chinese culture in general and the Confucius Institute in particular among the local people before having CI established in 2009. Then the argument comes to analyze the Confucius Institute’s strategy of promoting Chinese culture as "soft power" in the light of Nye’s definition. Inclusive is also the management of CI in order to convince the local people to accept Chinese culture more favorably than before. Surely, the Confucius Institutes in Madagascar have met challenges internally and externally, but the primary limit of Chinese culture came from the elements, as argued in the thesis, the relatively inefficient advertising methods and teaching style by the Confucius Institute. Due to this, the dissertation uses Nye’s discourse of "soft power as the theoretical approach of this thesis.The concluding part of this study points out that the relationship between China and Madagascar has been is increasingly positives while the diplomatic relations of the two sides since 1972 have been much more progressing and intensifying till now, this bilateral cooperation have a good image to the public of the two sides. For example, a graph through questionnaire can explain more clearly the analysis of this research. From the first graph in (Question.1) in the Chapter IV, visibility of Confucius Institute by the public in Madagascar is too poor. Most of the people from the survey don’t know what Confucius Institute is. It means that even if it was established in 2009 in Madagascar, CI is still unknown by the majority of the public. By another side, the few people who know the Institutes agree strongly that the Institutes have positive influences upon the public of the local people. From the analysis above, Confucius Institute takes the third places in Madagascar, as most of people are still interested in the American culture (offered by US Embassy in Madagascar) and their second choice is the Western culture, such as Alliance Francaise, due to the reasons of historical legacies. The strategy of Confucius Institute in Madagascar has been used in terms of "pull" approach, this is because as soft power which means attracting public gradually. However, given that CI doesn’t make efforts of advertising through the media, most of the respondent from the survey who know the Institute affirm that they know Confucius Institute by their friends. The issue for the perception of the institute here is a problem of communications. Yet, this thesis recommends that China’s cultural approach to building up its image in Madagascar should be good at making advertise through media for the visibility on the public, and also establishing another Institute in the provinces. It will be a very good image for China locally, and the relationship can make positive influences on improving the passive image of Confucius Institute in Madagascar.