Both business and government-level negotiation and tourism anywhere outside the Anglosphere depends on there being a common linguistic competency through which to talk.
Every time one party is unable to understand the language and the linguistic intricacies of the other, that party stands at a disadvantage.
Assuming everyone can, should or will speak English is an admission of national ineffectiveness.
This week is Chinese Language Week, and a good time to think about studying languages.
The Chinese Language Week Trust was established 10 years ago to highlight the importance for New Zealand of being able to communicate at all levels with the then-most-populous nation in our region, and with the fastest-growing community in New Zealand.
This is not a question of promoting Mandarin over Cantonese or any other Chinese language.
The importance of building and preserving language skills applies to all parts of the Chinese linguistic spectrum. Cantonese has a heritage status as the language of the longest-standing part of New Zealand’s Chinese community, and for that reason, if no other, it needs to be preserved.
Engaging with China or its people at a government, business or personal level will inevitably require skills in Mandarin.
Yet our universities are cutting back on Chinese teaching (and not sustaining the research strength to teach more broadly about Chinese matters). Numbers studying Chinese at school nose-dived during Covid and have proven slow in picking up again.
Study of Chinese implies no sympathy for or judgment on the government of China. Its study gives an insight into one of the world’s oldest and greatest civilisations.
It is both a self-interested statement on the importance to us of our largest trading party, and also a recognition of the importance of New Zealand’s own Chinese community.
The vision of the New Zealand Chinese Language Trust is for New Zealand to build and sustain a core of Chinese language competence across our society.
That must start in our schools and it must have the support of Government, community and parents. It does not require everyone in New Zealand to be China-literate. But it does require an environment where such skills are valued and promoted.
We cannot expect to set the terms of how we engage with China. Chinese, not English, is China’s preferred language of government, diplomacy and trade.
Chinese tourists, a pillar of our tourism industry, will increasingly expect us to cater for their interests, including through having a hospitality sector that demonstrates language capability.
At a government level, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has been training Chinese linguists for over 50 years.
It is a commitment that nationally is still seriously under-valued and under-emulated. Zespri’s lead in having superbly competent bilingual Kiwis in its China office is a rarity when it should be the rule.
The trend to monolingualism, which our numbers of students studying foreign languages (and not just Chinese) reflects, would be incomprehensible in Europe. And, for that matter, in China.
Our long-term self-interest suggests we should be thinking and acting similarly.
Tony Browne was New Zealand’s ambassador in Beijing in 2004-2009. MFAT sent him to Hong Kong in 1973 to study Chinese. Paul Clark is a professor of Chinese at the University of Auckland. He was one of the first group of NZ students to study in Beijing in 1974-1976 on an official scheme that continues today. Both are trustees of the NZ Chinese Language Week Charitable Trust.
