Official Portland welcomed Xu Lin, a ranking government representative, from China Tuesday April 27 whose agency is helping Oregon launch Chinese-language classes in several schools statewide. Ms. Xu is 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 called Hanban, 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 the U.S. Information Service, a federal agency that once ran centers promoting the United States abroad.
Hanban is financing a program adopted by the Legislature in February to teach Mandarin Chinese in Oregon schools. The program, open to 15 schools, is the first to be coordinated by a state, instead of arranged with individual institutions, Xu said.
Xu started her career as a quality inspector in a state-owned factory making Red Flag bicycles. She honed her negotiation techniques and English-language abilities later, securing education grants from the World Bank. She holds a Peking University doctorate in higher-education management. (Source: Richard Read, The Oregonian , Apr 27, 2010).