Introduction

By the turn of the 21st century，China successfully built up its economic and military might and became the leading power in the world. In the meantime，the nation was awakening to the need of increasing its soft power by building up the image of “a responsible big nation” with peaceful development and harmonious civilizations. With “raising the Chinese cultural soft power” as the national strategic plan（Xi，2014），many initiatives have been created，out of which the most influential one is the Confucius Institute（CI thereafter）. CI has a mission，similar to the other international cultural institutions such as British Council（UK），Institute Franais（France），Goethe-Institut（Germany），Italian Cultural Institute（Italy），Cervantes Institute（Spain），and Korean Cultural Centre（South Korea），among others. The first CI was launched in Seoul，South Korea，in November 2004，which was followed by hundreds more being established around the world in just a decade. British Council 2013注1 reports that，out of the 12 current cultural institutions，China’s CI make up 31.1% of the world’s total（322/1035）and 79.23% of the USA total（103/130）by 2012（Holden，2013）.

CI’s rapid growth and spectacular presentation in the international community have invited numerous studies and analyses from both China and abroad（Gil，2008；Paradise，2009； Wu，2009，2010； Yang，2010； Stambach，2015； to name just a few）. While the Chinese academics focused on CI’s role in spreading the Chinese language and culture around the world to develop the country’s soft power，their foreign counterparts are more critical focusing on its role as an instrument to counterbalance the so-called “China Threat.” However，few have probed why CI has gained such a high popularity worldwide in such a short period of time and why students，parents，and communities are attracted to it. This study attempts to fill the gap. Drawing on insights from the notion of soft power（Nye，1990； 2004；2011）and the Linguistic capital theory（Bourdieu，1986，1991），this study intends to answer questions such as： What motivates China to promote its soft power? How do Confucius Institutes fit in China’s soft power strategy? What drives American to learn Chinese language and culture at CI? Data for analysis are from four major resources：（1）the Hanban/CI Institute HQ annual reports（2006-2015），（2）the large-scale surveys by Pew Research Center on the American public view of China（2013）and BBC World Service on influence and attraction（2012），（3）the researcher’s 3-month-long observations of CI/Confucius Classrooms in an Eastern city，USA，and（4）one-on-one interviews with CI teachers and directors in the USA and China.