China's Confucius Institute is the biggest public diplomacy programme in the world. There are now more than 1,000 Confucius institutes and classrooms in 120 countries (and counting). Confucius institutes are major university-based teaching centres, while Confucius classrooms are smaller language learning support units for high schools.
Confucius also increasingly represents Brand China inside China itself. With 4,000 years of history to draw on, the Communist Party seems to have chosen Confucius to replace Mao as the country's icon. Mao's image may still appear on the currency, but these days Confucius dominates the school curriculum. [...]
For a brief time in 2011 there was even a statue of Confucius just off Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing; it was mysteriously removed and relocated to a less conspicuous location after just four months. There is tension between Maoist true believers and Confucius' new acolytes. Confucius's yellow star is rising, but Mao's red star hasn't fully set yet. [...]
Communist China's first leader, Mao Zedong, identified Confucius with the subjugation of women. He blamed Confucianism for promoting a conservative ideology of the family that prevented women from receiving an education and promoted the barbaric practice of foot binding, in which girls' feet are tightly wrapped to stunt their growth.
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