“In The Name of Confucius” held its world premiere on Friday at the CORE Center as part of Belleville Downtown DocFest. The movie, made by Doris Liu, a Chinese-Canadian moviemaker, gave more details about the Confucius Institute program of the Chinese government.
The program targets Canadian schoolchildren by teaching them the Chinese language and promoting Chinese culture in countries outside the mainland. Since China directly funds and controls the institute, Beijing has influence over the curriculum in about one dozen schools in China, The Intelligence reported.
Falun Gong Practitioner
The docu features Sonia Zhao, a Chinese teacher assigned at the Institute in Canada who practices Falun Gong but was banned from practicing it even in Canada. In the docu, Zhao recalled that she has been hiding her belief for many years with Falun Gong, which has been banned in China since the late 1990s, because practitioners are jailed and their organs are forcibly harvested.
Zhao confessed that as a Chinese she is shocked at the many secrets behind the Confucius Institute which masks as a benign Chinese language and culture learning school. She disclosed that the school uses propaganda such as promoting the teachings of Chairman Mao to Toronto school children.
Toronto District School Board Severs Ties
The Toronto District School Board fought the institute over the use of the propaganda materials, but Chris Bolton, its chairman, eventually resigned. The board voted to sever ties with the institute which they view as a Trojan horse.
Zhao disclosed that the basic propaganda tool of the institute is education since every course, from kindergarten to university, has the communist propaganda. The school uses language, a very powerful tool to channel thoughts, she explained.
Michel Juneau-Katsuya, former Asia-Pacific chief at the Canadian Security Intelligence Services, said the institute is not only attempting to infiltrate the minds of Canadians from the Chinese community, it is actively doing economic and political espionage and trying to gain a long-term strategy for agents of influence.
The movie, noted Epoch Times, is beginning to pick up awards as it makes the rounds of the film festival circuit. In February, “In the Name of Confuciu" got the Humanitarian Award of Distinction from the Accolade Global Film Competition and also awards of excellence from Impact DOCS Award.