Internationalization of Chinese higher education in Latin American campuses

Confucius Institutes are government-sponsored cultural centers devoted to Chinese language education and cultural extension programs around the world. Established in partnership between a Chinese university and one in the host country, Confucius Institutes worldwide outstand as the most visible and significant internationalization of the Chinese higher education. This chapter brings to the fore a historiography of the power relations that end with the inception of the Chinese higher education as a state soft power in Latin American campuses, namely the Confucius Institutes in Peru. As early as the 1840s, there was an established transpacific passage between Qing China and Peru that involved the movement of economic, cultural, and linguistic capital. Transnationalism between China and Peru during the second half of the twentieth century was marred by the import and export of ideology. The power relations between Peru and China have evolved with distinctive forms and techniques, reaching the twenty-first century with language education and cultural exchange as their dominant currencies, and mediated by higher education as a state apparatus. Copyright © 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland.