By Lucy-Claire Saunders

Returning from his fifth trip to Beijing since he became premier in 2005, Gordon Campbell has announced a string of British Columbia/China initiatives - some predictable and some quite out of the ordinary.

Perhaps the most interesting and controversial development is the announcement that Beijing will pay to develop credit courses for B.C. high schools.

The money will come from the Beijing-funded Confucius Institute at Burnaby’s B.C. Institute of Technology (BCIT) and will go towards developing a language curriculum for Grades 10 through 12. It is unclear just how much money is being set aside.

The B.C. government is hailing the initiative as a "gift" and "an important step forward in building on the existing social, economic and educational ties between jurisdictions." As China positions itself as an economic powerhouse, B.C. is looking to create cultural and business ties that prove fruitful in the future.

But the latest announcement has lead many to wonder about B.C.’s intellectual sovereignty. How much control will Beijing have over the public high school curriculum under such a scheme?

The Education Ministry says that the deal with China is not unprecedented – in 1997, B.C. signed a similar deal with the Italian government and in 2005, B.C. accepted money from a Korean community group for the development of Korean language classes.

In both cases, the money was earmarked for the development of Integrated Resource Packages (IRPs), basic information packages of background materials teachers can use in the classroom in support of the provincially-approved curriculum.

The real questions will arise when the details of this latest agreement are released, says assistant professor of politics at the University of B.C., Vyes Tiberghien,

"This could end up being harmless but it really depends on how much influence China will have on the curriculum itself," said Tiberghien, who returned from China last week.

"And of course, from the Chinese perspective, this is more successful than having a separate institution that competes with mainstream education."