Oregon political leaders greet Chinese official sponsoring Mandarin instruction in Oregon
By Richard Read, The Oregonian
April 27, 2010, 6:06PM
Official Portland took pains to welcome a ranking government representative from China Tuesday whose agency is helping Oregon launch Chinese-language classes in several schools statewide.Mayor Sam Adams, Portland State University administrators and Royal Rosarians greeted Xu Lin, China's top official for spreading Chinese language and culture worldwide. China and Portland are moving beyond Adams' recent declaration of a Tibetan awareness day that irked Beijing, which regards Tibet as an integral part of the People's Republic of China.
Xu, a member of China's powerful State Council, runs an agency calledHanban, which has an expanding network of 282 institutes in 90 countries. The Confucius Institutes, including one at PSU and another at the University of Oregon, sponsor classes, lectures, teacher training and other programs. Hanban's mission resembles that of Spain's Instituto Cervantes or Germany's Goethe Institut -- and of the U.S. Information Service, a federal
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