The Role of the Confucius Institutes, Non-Governmental Organizations and Other Stakeholders in the Presentation of China in Central Europe

By Gabriela Pleschová and Martin Slobodník

Department of East Asian Studies, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia

In this contribution, we explore the role of the cultural institutes, non-governmental organizations, and various individuals in developing China’s cooperation with countries of Central Europe (CE). We focus on the activities of those stakeholders that aim to bring China and its culture closer to people in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland. We identify various actors that engage in this respect; assess the scope of these activities and their outreach. This allows us distinguishing two major groups of stakeholders: those aiming to present an exceedingly positive picture of China and those highly critical of China. We see this presentation of China in Central Europe little balanced, which may confuse local public and hinder both groups from attaining their aims. We also suggest that Central Europeans’ experience with Communism casts a shadow over their perception of China that the stakeholders from China could possibly take this more into account.

This study derives from interviews, website information, various public and internal documents such as the Confucius Institutes annual reports, relevant newspaper articles and scholarly literature. The interviewees included the executives from five Confucius Institutes (CIs) located in Central Europe. These institutes were selected as the institutions most active in promulgating Chinese culture in the respective countries when considering the number of cultural initiatives they offer annually as well as the number of people involved. This judgment was based on the information publicly available at the web pages of ten Confucius Institutes and various associations that exist in the region to propagate Chinese culture and facilitate cooperation with China. 

Non-governmental organizations with a mission of advancing cultural relations with China

In the 1950s political partnership between the People’s Republic of China, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary resulted in founding a number of organizations that were to promote the awareness about their distanced cultures. This way, the institutions such as the Hungarian-Chinese Friendship Society, Polish-Chinese Friendship Society and the Czechoslovak-Chinese Friendship Society were established, that time under the state control. Today, only one of them – the Polish-Chinese Friendship Association – has been active in engaging also wider public. All other institutions that today exist in Central Europe to promote knowledge about China and Chinese culture have only been established after 1989. The work of these new institutions has been initiated by China enthusiasts, experts, students, etc., who mostly have little contact with political representation as, for example, Česko-čínská společnost (Czech-Chinese Society, Jie Hua xiehui 捷华协会), Stowarzyszenie Polsko-Chińskie na Rzecz Kultury i Sztuki (Bolan Zhongguo wenhua yishu xiehui 波兰中国文化艺术协会, Polish-Chinese Association for Culture and the Arts), and Kínai Művészeti Központ (Xiong Zhong wenhua yishu zhongxin 匈中文化艺术中心, Centre of Chinese Culture and Arts). Their activities include lectures on Chinese art, history, literature and other topics related to China, music programs, exhibitions and/or social meetings. Some of them also organize specialized performances: for example the Centre of Chinese Culture and Arts prepares demonstrations of martial arts.

Aside from these, other organizations exist that have relatively strong links with political institutions both in China and the local country, such as Smíšená česko-čínská komora vzájemné spolupráce (Jie Zhong youhao hezuo xiehui 捷中友好合作协会, Mixed Czech-Chinese Chamber of Joint Cooperation), Polsko-Chińskie Towarzystwo Gospodarczo-Kulturalne (Zhong Bo jingji wenhua xiehui 中波经济文化协会, Polish-Chinese Economic and Cultural Society) and Nagy Fal Magyar Kínai Barátság Egyesület (Changcheng Xiong Zhong youhao xiehui 长城匈中友好协会, Great Wall of China-Hungarian Friendship Society). For example, the Mixed Chamber’s president Jaroslav Tvrdík is a former Czech minister and now the honorary advisor on China to the Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka. Similarly, Lajos Olah, who is the head of the Great Wall of China-Hungarian Friendship Society, is also a member of the Hungarian parliament. Probably thanks to their chairs’ and members’ connections, the activities of these organizations include impressive, large-scale events as, for example, the exhibition Treasures of Ancient China at the Prague Castle, celebrations of the Chinese New Year in Prague’s city centre, performances in Warsaw on the occasion of the Chinese New Year for the audience of three thousand people or presentation of the Chinese-Hungarian Friendship Awards in the Hungarian parliament.

If we consider the nature of the activities of these non-governmental organizations, they predominantly evolve around conveying a positive image of China. It is very difficult to find among their initiatives any sort of discussion on some more critical aspects related to China – perhaps the only exception being the Czech Chinese Society. They thus contribute to drawing a distorted picture of China by praising its ancient culture but rarely introducing, debating or contesting China’s present developments.

Even if these non-governmental organizations offer a wide variety of activities for different groups of people, most of them only come up with a handful of initiatives a year (see Table 1). Hence, when the first Confucius Institutes got established in the region, they soon outperformed these NGOs in the number of initiatives that attempt to bring Chinese culture closer to local public.

Table 1: A quantitative overview of the activities of major non-governmental organizations that promote Chinese culture in Central Europe. Source: websites of individual organizations.

Confucius Institutes

Confucius Institutes (CIs) are established outside the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to strengthen educational cooperation, facilitate Chinese language education and increase mutual understanding (Starr 2009: 71). Individual CIs work quite independently, with their directors developing a range of different initiatives, but maintaining at the same time that these initiatives conform to the standards given by Hanban, the Office of the Chinese Language Council International (Barr 2012: 89). CIs work to engage public that has little specialist knowledge about China. On one hand, they encourage interest for China but on the other hand they are also responding to the rising global demand for Chinese language and culture (Hartig 2015). They do so by offering classes of Chinese language, training Chinese language teachers, administering the international language exam in Chinese, organizing courses on Chinese culture, screening films, offering consultancies for business people and keeping a library (Starr 2009: 71).

In 2006, two years after establishing the first Confucius Institute in Seoul, the Republic of Korea, (Starr 2009) Confucius Institutes were also open in Budapest and in Krakow. Today, ten Confucius Institutes operate in Central Europe: five in Poland, three in Hungary, one in the Czech Republic and one in Slovakia. In October 2015, another Confucius Institute is to be open in Bratislava, Slovakia. Most of these CIs have been set up at universities with existing Chinese studies department, as it is the practice elsewhere (Starr 2009: 71). They receive funding from Hanban and local university, which contribute with a similar share to the institute’s budget. Part of the institutes’ revenue comes from the language and other courses.

Similarities and differences in how CIs work across Central Europe

The largest of all CIs in the region is the one at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest that employs 36 native teachers. Its annual contribution from Hanban is 200,000 US dollars, which is twice as much as what the Chinese contribute to smaller institutes, for example those in Szeged or Olomouc (For similar figures from the institutes elsewhere see, for example, Hartig 2015). Aside from the language related activities, the institute in Budapest sponsors a range of cultural events and programs. These include Lunar New Year festival, Chinese lantern festival, kids’ day, the Go world cup, a talent show, together with various concerts, photo exhibitions, Chinese arts and crafts workshops, courses of Chinese knotting, cooking and taiji workshops, monthly lectures on China and outdoor family activities, among the others.

Even if most CIs in Central Europe offer similar activities selected from the list recommended by Hanban, each of them typically has its own specific project. Thus, the Institute in Olomouc offers the classes of Chinese pipe (erhu) and it prepares a Week of Chinese Culture, which had already been introduced in 2000; the institute overtook it and developed further. The institute in Szeged runs a table tennis course, in Miskolc they organize cooking of dumplings and in Krakow they make picnics, fashion shows and they fly Chinese kites. In Bratislava the institute has dispatched a Confucius’ boat at the Danube River with a presentation of Chinese culture and history. The Confucius Institute in Poznan cooperates with the cultural centre Zamek and the institute in Wroclaw contributes annually with its China-related program to the Lower Silesian Science Festival. For a quantitative overview of the CIs’ activities see Table 2.

Table 2: A quantitative overview of cultural activities of the Confucius Institutes in Central Europe. Source: Information from their websites and annual reports.

*Aside from participating in the Lower Silesian Science Festival.

**Zpráva z činnosti Konfuciovy akademie 2014 (Report on activities of Confucius Academy 2014). Some activities include multiple events such as The Week of Chinese Culture.

** Přehled činnosti Konfuciovy akademie v roce 2013 (Overview of activities of Confucius Academy in 2013).

The outcomes of work of the Confucius Institutes

Two major outcomes of the work of the CIs include a profound increase in the number of students of Chinese in the region, together with an enhanced interest in Chinese culture from local people, as also admitted by the interviewed institute directors. One of the key achievements is for the institute in Budapest also a foundation of a training centre for the teachers of Chinese from Central European states.

In the academic year 2014/2015, about 3,000 students enrolled into the courses of Chinese language offered by the Confucius Institute in Budapest; in Krakow they had some 1,000 students and in Szeged 600 students. This is a sharp increase as previously Chinese could have been studied at some ten universities in the region, which typically opened one class every academic year or less often than that. Aside from the universities, also some private language schools have run Chinese language classes, but these have been limited to the large cities, usually the capitals. Different from that, the Confucius Institute in Budapest now offers Chinese language classes in ten cities, while the institutes in Szeged and Miskolc provide classes of Chinese in further Hungarian cities. Similarly, the institute in Olomouc runs Chinese language courses in five Czech cities and the institute in Bratislava in two more cities outside the capital.

What is also important, classes of Chinese used to admit predominantly adult learners in the past. Nowadays, students of primary and secondary schools have an opportunity to learn Chinese in the Confucius Institutes’ courses, too. Typically, students can attend such a course at their own school, which is convenient and seems to attract a lot of them. For example, in 2015 the institute in Budapest provided Chinese language classes for students from 35 primary and secondary schools, the institute in Szeged for 12 schools, the institutes in Olomouc and in Bratislava for six and three schools, respectively. Another strategy is organizing the language courses at the institutes’ premises, for example, the institute in Krakow offers five such courses for kids and teenagers annually.

An increased interest in Chinese culture has evidently been a result of the large variety of programs introduced by the Confucius Institutes to engage local public with the Chinese culture. As reported by the institutes’ directors, among the most popular programs have been the courses of Chinese cuisine, tea ceremonies, calligraphy and taiji workshops, guest speaker lectures that share their experience with China, and also the programs that introduce Chinese culture to kids. For one such a program entitled Good morning, Panda, the institute in Krakow was awarded a prize for the best language teaching activity for children in the city.

Difficulties in the work of the Confucius Institutes

Major challenges are for the directors of the CIs in the region the lack of ability of native Chinese teachers to speak local language, and the shortage on local teachers with good knowledge of Chinese that could work particularly with children and youth; which is a challenge reported also from elsewhere (Hartig 2015; Grossman 2014). One director referred to tight financial rules at his university that hinder the work of the institute and another one mentioned that the Chinese colleagues had difficulty in understanding these rules. One interviewee saw as a problem different working styles between him and his Chinese colleagues, as he had originally come from the business sphere. For another institute, the main challenge has been cooperation with the Bureau of Border and Alien Police while arranging the permits for their Chinese teachers. Three institutes got considerably stuck in their work after both their directors – the Chinese and the local – had left their office at about the same time.

All interviewed directors declined that their Chinese partners or colleagues would politically interfere in their work, though one director said that initially they had been afraid of this. “There is no problem unless you invite the Dalai Lama,” one director said. The heads of the institutes also reported little difficulty when trying to find consensus in their daily work with their Chinese colleagues. Only one example of interference from China has been raised: when the PRC embassy invited some professors to speak about Tibet and asked the institute to arrange their lecture. One director, however, mentioned avoiding political topics among the activities of their institute and the interviews with two other directors suggested this, too. Thus, even if the overt political interference from China, as reported from other countries, as for example from the United States (Grossman 2014; Sahlins 2013; Golden and Kaufman 2011; Paradise 2009: 653) or Sweden (Starr 2009: 78) does not seem to be an issue in Central Europe, the institutes may have a tendency towards self-censorship, as previously found, for example, by Hartig (2015) or McCord (2014).

As can be seen from the list of their activities, the nature of the initiatives of the Confucius Institutes in Central Europe is similar to those prepared by non-governmental organizations: they attempt to propagate positive features of China’s culture avoiding any potentially conflicting issues. The examples of initiating a discussion of contentious topics are very rare and only relate to the institute in Krakow, which has organized conferences on Chinese media and on the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. The Confucius Institutes in Central Europe thus work to construct an idealized image of China and Chinese culture. Various scholars have raised similar concerns also when speaking about China’s public diplomacy in general (d’ Hooghe 2007: 36–38, see also Hartig 2015).

Initiatives Critical to China: A Case Study of Slovakia

The activities of these institutions that are striving to disseminate a positive image of China in Central Europe are, however, challenged by other stakeholders that also shape public discourse on China. In this part we bring as an example the situation in Slovakia, which should serve as a case study on these developments. With regard to information about China, Slovakia is to a certain degree different from other post-Communist Central European countries. Chinese Studies have much shorter history in Slovakia than for example in Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary: the first academic institution (Institute of Oriental Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences) was established in Slovakia in 1960 and only with the launching of the Chinese Studies program at the Department of East Asian Studies at the Comenius University in Bratislava in 1988 the number of experts in Chinese have started to slightly rise.

Still, few of these experts focus on contemporary Chinese politics and economy; the information about China in Slovak media is marginal – both public media (Slovak Radio, Slovak TV, TASR news agency) and private media are missing a permanent correspondent in China who would regularly follow the developments and supply the audience and readership with sound information. Moreover there is not a single journalist who would systematically specialize on China (or more broadly on East Asia), which is why the media coverage of Chinese developments is only random and it is therefore relatively easy to influence the presentation of China with limited personal and financial resources.

We will illustrate the situation in Slovakia on the example of two NGOs: the Conservative Institute of M. R. Štefánik (further abbreviated as the Conservative Institute) and the Slovak Falun Gong Association (SFLGA). The Conservative Institute is a think-tank, which, as its mission statement says, aims to “contribute the creation of a conservative community and the cultivation of conservative opinions.” Its activities “are not orientated only towards one sphere of public life or society. The common denominator of the activities performed by the institute is their value definition i.e. conservative view on society and a liberal approach to economy.”  The SFLGA, on the other hand, is a branch of the transnational network of NGOs closely linked to the Falun Gong practitioners outside China, which has since 1999 organized various activities worldwide critical of current Chinese regime. These include, for example, sit-ins in front of the PRC embassies, demonstrations during the visits of the Chinese leaders, media outlets in various languages and tours of the Shen Yun performing arts group. The political engagement of the SFLGA in Slovakia is in accord with the global activities of this network, i.e. propagating Falun Gong in Slovakia and criticizing the regime in the People’s Republic of China. These two NGOs in cooperation have in the last fifteen years played a key role in raising for the Slovak public such the issues as the human rights situation, religious freedoms or freedom of speech in China.

Despite their role in the Slovak civic society being marginal (which is the case especially with the SFLGA), these organizations have been relatively successful in shaping negative public image of China in Slovakia. The founding members of the Conservative Institute are influential Slovak politicians (with connections to the Christian Democratic Party and the Civic Conservative Party) while a few of them were in the pre-1989 period active in the opposition movement against the Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. Since its founding in 1999, the Conservative Institute has been regularly referring to the ethos of opposition against the pre-1989 Czechoslovakia political regime as a fundamental value guiding their activities. Moreover, the key role in the opposition movement before 1989 was in Slovakia played by the underground Catholic Church. One of its leading personalities, František Mikloško, who is former Speaker of the National Council, a Member of the Parliament for several legislature periods and an influential member of the Christian Democratic Party, has been another close collaborator of the Conservative Institute.

The agenda of religious freedoms and the persecution of Christians worldwide have been thus a priority in the activities of the Conservative Institute. Coordinating its activities with the SFLGA, the Conservative Institute has started to focus also on the situation of Falun Gong in China. Negative experiences with the Communist authorities of such individuals as František Mikloško have shaped the image of China not only among the members and collaborators of the Conservative Institute but among conservative and liberal Slovak politicians and public intellectuals in general. These groups perceive China through the prism of their personal experience with the 1970s–1980s Communist regime in Czechoslovakia and marginalize substantial differences between the Czechoslovak political regime of that period and the People’s Republic of China in the post-Mao period, such as flourishing private sector, access to information through internet, possibilities to study and travel abroad, while laying stress on such issues as protection of human rights, religious freedoms, freedom of speech, etc. According to their understanding it is a kind of “moral duty” of Slovak politicians and opinion-makers to critically assess the situation in China due to the shared experience with Communism.

One example when the Conservative Institute and SFLGA cooperated to raise critique over the developments in China and its political regime has been a joint organization of the public gathering during the visit of the then President of the PRC, Hu Jintao, in June 2009. This demonstration was attended by some dozen of Falun Gong practitioners, including some overseas Chinese living in Europe. The preparation of the gathering as well as the later incident when the demonstrators clashed against the supporters of the Chinese president was widely covered by both the Slovak and foreign media (Pleschová and Fürst, 2015).  

The main activities of the Conservative Institute and SFLGA related to China include the organization of public meetings, public discussions and the preparation of open letters with focus on human rights situation in China and the persecution of the Falun Gong practitioners. In recent years they have co-organized, for instance, a public gathering to commemorate the 20^th anniversary of the Tian’anmen demonstrations in front of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Slovakia, a public gathering on the occasion of the 60^th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China highlighting the human rights situation in China, a demonstration during the visit of the then Minister of National Defence Liang Guanglie in Slovakia in September 2009, a series of demonstrations against the persecution of the Falun Gong practitioners in China in several Slovak cities in July 2012, a presentation of the Czech translation of the book Za Čínu spravedlivější (A China More Just) written by the human rights activist Gao Zhisheng, a public discussion with the Canadian lawyer David Matas about the alleged organ harvesting of the Falun Gong practitioners in China, a public debate about the book The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting and China’s Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem written by Ethan Gutmann, etc. 

Aside from this, the Conservative Institute, usually in cooperation with the SFLGA and sometimes also with other Slovak NGOs, co-initiated the drafting of various open letters addressed to Slovak politicians and opinion makers. These included an open letter addressed to the participants of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing pointing at human rights record of the Chinese government, an open letter accompanying the nomination of Liu Xiaobo for the Nobel Peace Prize, an open letter addressed to the Slovak government representatives to raise the issue of human rights (with specific mention of the Falun Gong persecution and alleged organ harvesting) during the visit of the Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu in Slovakia in February 2013, etc.

Even though the attendance at the public gatherings and the involvement of the Slovak public into these discussions is quite limited, these events typically receive broad media coverage. There is no Slovak version of the Falun Gong internet media site Epoch Times, but information in Slovak language (and about the activities of SFLGA) regularly appears on the Czech web-page Velká Epocha (www.epochtimes.cz), though this information source has a limited impact on Slovak public. However, various opinion making newspapers, especially the daily SME and the weekly Týždeň, regularly cover these initiatives. One of the reasons are the close links between the Conservative Institute and these media outlets – Ondrej Dostál, the founding member of the Conservative Institute and its director (until 2011) worked for five years as an editor in the daily SME. Another close collaborator of the Conservative Institute, František Šebej (currently Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council) has worked for several years as the editor in the weekly Týždeň. Generally speaking China is underreported in the Slovak media, but the coverage of these local and minor initiatives aimed at castigating China for its political regime and human rights situation has been quite detailed. Also, the commentaries, editorials and further articles related to China published in the above mentioned media have typically been highly critical while the authors often refer to Slovakia’s negative experience with Communism. 

The impact of these activities is even strengthened by the fact that some of the members and collaborators of the Conservative Institute (e.g., František Mikloško, František Šebej, Ondrej Dostál, Peter Osuský or Peter Zajac) have been in all the successive legislature periods elected to the National Council. Thus, the China related activities of the Conservative Institute and SFLGA have an outreach also to the Members of Parliament (MPs): a relative of a Falun Gong practitioner allegedly imprisoned in China, Zhang Fengying, was received at the National Council by two MPs; the Canadian lawyer David Matas was during his visit Bratislava received in the National Council by four MPs; five MPs (including František Šebej, the Chairman of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee) from the opposition parties welcomed at the National Council the delegation of the Tibetan parliament in exile to show solidarity with Tibetan people. These contacts have also resulted in a proposal by five opposition MPs for a resolution to express solidarity with persecuted practitioners of Falun Gong in China and to appeal to the Slovak government and the President to raise this issue during the official meetings with China’s representatives in January 2013, though this proposal was left disapproved by the ruling party SMER.

All this demonstrates how two small non-governmental organizations with scarce financial and personal resources can disseminate an image of China, which is in a sharp contrast with that constructed by the Confucius Institutes and some other associations propagating China’s culture.  Through embedding themselves into the closely-knitted web of the Slovak media landscape, local and national politics and non-governmental sector their interpretation of China has been deeply present in local public discourse.

Despite this, one has to differentiate between the initiatives critical of China and the actual foreign policy making towards the PRC. In spite of slight differences between the executives led by the social-democratic party SMER (2006-2010, 2012-present) and the coalition of the conservative and liberal parties (1998-2006, 2010-2012), the essence of the Slovak foreign policy towards the PRC has remained the same: focused predominantly on the economic cooperation (China as an potential export market for the Slovak companies, Slovakia as a potential recipient of the direct Chinese investment, though these goals have been so far achieved only to a very limited degree and China plays a marginal role in the Slovak economy). The issue of human rights and religious freedoms has been marginalized by all the successive Slovak governments, as reflected also in the analysis of the EU countries policies towards China where Slovakia figures in the group of the so-called “Accommodating Mercantilists” (Fox and Godement, 2009, p. 26, 90; see also Fürst and Pleschová, 2010).

Relatively successful – from the perspective of such stakeholders as the Conservative Institute and SFLGA – presentation of a critical image of China in Slovakia can be also explained by the fact that the Chinese community in Slovakia does not play any substantial role in the soft power undertakings of the Beijing government. Overseas Chinese residing in Slovakia do not contribute to the enhancement of the image of China, propagation of its culture or national heritage, which would be in our understanding a role they should be expected to play. What is also important, the activities of the PRC embassy in Bratislava oftentimes do not reach the Slovak audience in an effective way – a recent example is the visit of a high-level delegation of Chinese Tibet-scholars (including, for instance, Wang Yanzhong, the director general of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) who came to propagate the recent progress in social and economic developments in the areas inhabited by Tibetans in China. The visit was ill-timed (mid-July 2015), the venue of the seminar (residence of the Chinese Ambassador in Slovakia) was ill-chosen and even though Chinese news agency as well as Slovak news agency published short reports, Slovak media did not cover this event at all and its impact is therefore negligible.  

Conclusion

To sum-up, we can observe in Central Europe two conflicting types of initiatives related to China. One of them aims at bringing China and its culture closer to Central European public by engaging various groups of people in numerous activities where they can first-hand experience China’s culture. The bulk of these activities is prepared by the Confucius Institutes where China-dispatched managers and teachers who closely work with local people to draw a favourable picture of China. Different local experts on China and China enthusiasts from civil society organizations and also former politicians or individuals with good connections to the government representatives contribute with their work to promulgating China and its culture. A profoundly different type of activities, initiated by former dissidents, human rights activists and Falun Gong practitioners from Central Europe, attempts to regularly bring for public attention that China – due to the nature of its regime and the issue of human rights – can hardly be trusted as a responsible partner. This conflicting presentation of China can only raise doubts in the eyes of local public and prevent both groups from drawing a convincing picture of China.

China’s representatives often raise long history of cooperation between China and the countries of Central Europe as an argument supporting smooth development of bilateral relations. Contrary to this, we see the shared legacy of the Communist past, which has included a highly positive and idealized presentation of China in countries of Central Europe and in China in the 1950s, as a burden. This is because a significant part the opinion makers in Central Europe have a critical assessment of the pre-1989 regimes in the region and their ideas about current developments in China are conditioned by their personal experience of the Soviet-style communism in their home countries in the 1970s and 1980s. This period of close cooperation between China on one hand and Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia on the other hand, anchored in the shared socialist ideology, can hardly be something on which their contemporary and future cooperation can be built. We would therefore suggest that the Chinese partners consider to a greater extent a heightened sensitivity and critical attitudes of some opinion makers and Central European media for certain features of China’s regime. 

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Centre of Chinese Culture and Arts: www.kinainfo.hu/

China – Poland Friendship Association: http://en.cpaffc.org.cn 

Confucius Institute online: www.chinesecio.com/m/cio_wci 

Conservative Institute of M. R. Štefánik: www.konzervativizmus.sk (in English www.institute.sk)

Czech-Chinese Society: http://ccspol.net/ 

Great Wall of China-Hungarian Friendship Society: https://hu-hu.facebook.com/pages/Nagy-Fal-Magyar-K%C3%ADnai-Bar%C3%A1ts%C3%A1g-Egyes%C3%BClet/393849994028506

Polish-Chinese Friendship Association: www.tppch.pl 

Polish-Chinese Association for Culture and the Arts: http://chinapolandart.org 

Polish-Chinese Economic and Cultural Society: www.pol-chin.pl 

Slovak Falun Gong Association: www.falungong.sk 

Smíšená česko-čínská komora vzájemné spolupráce: www.czechchina.com

From Huang Ping, Liu Zuokui edited, Stakeholders in China-CEEC Cooperation, China Social Science Press, 2016.