VZCZCXRO0737
PP RUEHDT RUEHHM
DE RUEHCHI #0074/01 1310637
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 110637Z MAY 06
FM AMCONSUL CHIANG MAI
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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 CHIANG MAI 000074 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SCUL PGOV PREL TH CH
SUBJECT: CHIANG RAI PROVINCE PUSHES CHINESE LANGUAGE PROMOTION 
 
REF: CHIANG MAI 18 
 
CHIANG MAI 00000074  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
¶1.  Summary.  As the Thai province closest to China and a 
historical center for former Kuomintang forces, Chiang Rai has 
long had schools - often unofficial ones - teaching Chinese 
language.  Building on this heritage, the province is striving 
to position itself as a center of Chinese language learning, 
with support both from the People's Republic of China (PRC) and 
Taiwan.  More and more schools and universities in the region 
are adding Chinese programs to meet parent and student demand, 
although English remains the most popular foreign language. 
End summary. 
 
¶2.  With business and family ties to nearby China, Chiang Rai is 
actively encouraging Chinese learning and use as part of its 
"Provincial Economic Strategic Plan."    Business people trading 
with China are the biggest promoters behind this development. 
According to prominent Chiang Rai businessman Anan Laothammatas, 
Chinese traders want to communicate with Thai traders directly, 
making Chinese language skills a crucial part of doing business 
in the Mekong region. 
 
¶3.  Official promotion, parental aspirations and actual practice 
are not in complete accord, however, as Anan admitted that his 
own children attend a prestigious Thai school in Bangkok.   His 
brother, former Mahachon party leader Anek Laothammatas, sends 
his children to a tri-lingual Thai, English and Chinese school 
in Bangkok but intends them to pursue higher education in the 
U.S.   Nevertheless, a growing number of schools in northern 
Thailand are opening Chinese language classes and scrambling to 
recruit scarce Chinese-qualified teachers to meet parental 
demand. 
 
KMT villages turn to tourism 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  Chiang Rai municipality, a sister city of Yunnan's Jinghong, 
erected street signs in Chinese as well as Thai and English in 
2002; the leaders of the Chamber of Commerce, many from southern 
Chinese roots, have learned Mandarin for business purposes. 
Areas such as Mae Salong, where Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang 
(KMT) communities settled in 1961, are now "tourism villages"; 
bus loads of tourists from Taiwan come to buy tea and visit the 
KMT Martyrs Memorial while Thai tourists enjoy Yunnanese food 
and mountain temperatures. 
 
¶5.  The provincial education office is completing a year-long 
effort to develop Chinese language text books for schools in 
Chiang Rai.  The local office receives no support from the Thai 
Ministry of Education (MOE), which, despite official 
pronouncements promoting Chinese language learning, is just 
starting to develop curricular materials.  Until the end of the 
communist insurgency in the early 1980s, the MOE monitored 
schools teaching Chinese because of national security concerns. 
Today the same ministry is promoting Chinese as the second most 
important foreign language for Thai students. 
 
¶6.  Both Taiwan and the PRC assist schools and curriculum in the 
province.  Schools in the Mae Sai, Mae Fah Luang, Mae Chan, and 
Chiang Saen areas with traditional KMT connections receive 
support from Taiwan while higher educational institutes such as 
Mae Fah Luang University (MFLU) and Chiang Rai Rajabhat 
University look to the PRC for assistance and partnership.  MFLU 
received US $1.5 million from the PRC several years ago to build 
the Sirindhorn Chinese Language and Cultural Center on campus. 
 
Using Confucius to market Chinese language and culture 
--------------------------------------------- -------------- 
---------- 
 
¶7.  Chinese Consul Jin Yilin told the Consul General that MFLU 
recently signed an agreement with Xiamen University to establish 
a Confucius Institute, one of approximately 50 worldwide and an 
expected three in Thailand promoting Chinese language and 
culture.   She predicted that the MFLU institute will open 
before another Confucius Institute planned at Chiang Mai 
University with Yunnan Normal University because "we gave MFLU a 
lot of money when I was Thai desk officer." 
 
¶8.   The growing popularity of Chinese language has led to MOE 
efforts to increase funding and exert greater control, although 
the shortage of qualified teachers remains an obstacle.   The 
Thai government is particularly interested in remote schools 
located in former KMT villages that were long neglected by Thai 
authorities and still use textbooks and teachers from Taiwan. 
In an effort to standardize the curriculum, the Ministry is now 
 
CHIANG MAI 00000074  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
developing 12 Chinese language texts in cooperation with Yunnan 
Normal University. 
 
¶9.   Although support from the PRC usually takes the form of 
university-to-university agreements, the two governments are 
also co-funding a program to send Thai teachers for refresher 
training in China.  However, a Chinese offer to increase the 
number of training slots to1,000 per year has highlighted the 
human resource shortage, as the MOE worries where it will find 
this many Thai teachers of Chinese. 
 
¶10.   Comment.   Chiang Rai has proclaimed itself a gateway to 
the Greater Mekong Subregion and made Chinese language teaching 
a priority for local schools.  Unregistered schools once 
considered illegal are now being asked to prepare textbooks for 
teaching Chinese, giving the program in Thailand's northernmost 
province a reason to flaunt the Chinese connections that once 
made the province suspect on national security grounds.  Despite 
this local boosterism, however, a lack of qualified teachers and 
the still-greater appeal of English suggest Chinese will remain 
the second most popular foreign language in the foreseeable 
future. 
CAMP