Chinazism

Scholars and Ex-Diplomats Warn of Chill After Canadians Detained in China

By Chris Buckley and Catherine Porter

The Canadian embassy in Beijing, this month. Dozens of former diplomats have signed a letter warning that China’s recent arrests have made their work “unwelcome and risky in China.”

BEIJING — Warning that China’s arrest of two Canadians has created a dangerous chill for people working on policy and research in that country, more than 100 academics and former diplomats have signed an open letter calling for the two men to be immediately freed.
Made public on Monday, the letter was an international cry of concern from people who work and study in China, saying the arrests threaten the flow of ideas with Chinese academics and officials that is essential for policy work and research aimed at narrowing international rifts.
The letter warned China that the detentions will result in “greater distrust.”
Its signatories included 27 diplomats from seven countries and 116 scholars and academics from 19 countries.
“Meetings and exchanges are the foundation of serious research and diplomacy around the world, including for Chinese scholars and diplomats,” the letter said. 

The arrests, though, “send a message that this kind of constructive work is unwelcome and risky in China.”
Timothy Brook, a professor of Chinese history at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and one of the signatories, said in a phone interview, “If China wishes to be seen as a full and responsible member of the international community, it needs to set itself a much higher standard than this.”
“To punish Canada,” he added, “is really for China to say: ‘We have no friends in the world and we want no friends in the world. We will do just what we want on the terms that we want.’”
The Chinese police detained the two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, last month as officials in Beijing scrambled to press Canada to free Meng Wanzhou, a Chinese technology executive, arrested in Vancouver on Dec. 1, and held for extradition to the United States on fraud charges.
The Chinese government was enraged by Meng’s arrest.
The arrests of the Canadians, as well as a death sentence for drug trafficking given to a Canadian man by a Chinese court last week, have plunged Canadian-Chinese relations into their worst tensions in decades.
But the roster of signatories shows that the arrests of the two men have sent shivers far beyond Canada, and well beyond diplomatic concerns.
“The letter is important as a forum for China specialists to stand up and be counted, to speak up to defend one of our own,” said Anne-Marie Brady, a professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand who studies Chinese politics and who also signed the letter. 

“We know it could be any one of us.”
“At the very least, speaking up in this way will keep the two men safe from harm,” Ms. Brady added. “The public campaign ensures the whole world is watching as China uses Canadian citizens as pawns in a wider geopolitical standoff.”

Michael Kovrig, left, a former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, an entrepreneur with high-level contacts in North Korea, have been detained in China.

Other signatories were Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a former British foreign secretary, and Chris Patten, the former European commissioner for external relations. 

Two former American ambassadors to Beijing — Winston Lord and Gary Locke — also signed, as did six previous Canadian ambassadors to Beijing.
“Chinese actions are becoming out of line with international laws and global norms,” said Susan Shirk, an American signatory who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for China and the region.
“If the Chinese government and Communist Party feel they can simply detain people as part of what appears to be a dispute that’s really with the United States and Canada,” she said, “that puts all our bridge building efforts at risk.”
Also signing was Gareth Evans, the former Australian foreign minister who is president emeritus of the International Crisis Group, the nonprofit organization that Mr. Kovrig has worked for since 2017, after leaving the Canadian foreign service.
Since Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor were detained, the Canadian government has campaigned for and received international support from a growing list of countries, including Spain, which last week demanded the men receive “fair, transparent and impartial treatment.”
The letter echoes that multilateral approach and defies the traditional Chinese foreign policy of isolating countries, said David Mulroney, a former Canadian ambassador to China.
“Maybe this represents a new approach, not that people are ganging up on China, but that the international community says this isn’t appropriate,” Mr. Mulroney said. 

“The old isolate-and-dominate approach won’t work anymore.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has rejected the idea that the arrests and death sentence for the Canadian men were retribution for Meng’s arrest.
Even so, Chinese officials and media comments have argued that their country must defend itself. The open letter said experts and officials considering going to China would have to weigh the risks in the wake of the arrests.
Mr. Kovrig was seized at night from a street in Beijing about nine days after the Canadian police arrested Meng, the chief financial officer of Huawei, a Chinese technology giant.
She has been released on bail in Vancouver and is awaiting a decision on whether the Canadian government can extradite her to the United States, where prosecutors have accused her of bank fraud linked to business deals with Iran that contravene American sanctions.
As a diplomat and then an adviser for the International Crisis Group, Mr. Kovrig specialized in Chinese foreign policy, especially its role in North Korea and other Asian trouble spots. 

In China he attended meetings with Chinese officials and academics, and was interviewed on Chinese television programs.
Mr. Spavor, who was arrested soon after Mr. Kovrig, is a businessman who has made a specialty of securing access and business in North Korea. 

The Chinese government has said both men are suspected of “harming national security,” a vague charge that can include espionage.
Last week, in a further escalation of the tensions between China and Canada, a court in northeast China sentenced to death a Canadian man, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, who was convicted of drug smuggling. 

Mr. Schellenberg’s lawyer said the death sentence was extraordinarily swift, coming on the same day as his retrial, which had been ordered at an appeal hearing in later December.

The Kiwi Vassal

Campaign calling for New Zealand to protect China expert gathers pace

Anne-Marie Brady became a target after the release of a paper on Chinese foreign influence last year

By Eleanor Ainge Roy in Dunedin

 Anne-Marie Brady, professor on China at the University of Canterbury.

More than 150 global China experts have added their voices to demands that the New Zealand government protect Professor Anne-Marie Brady, a China scholar who has been the victim of a year-long harassment campaign.
Brady, an expert in Chinese politics at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, had her home and office burgled in February, and her car sabotaged last month.
Brady became a target after the release of a paper on Chinese foreign influence in 2017 and has asked the New Zealand’s government for extra security for herself and her family.

Jacinda Ardern urged to protect China critic after 'harassment'

After the government failed to respond, academics, human rights activists and journalists within New Zealand last week called on the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, to step in and provide security for Brady.
Now 150 China experts from around the world have signed an open letter calling for action.
The letter states that under Xi Jinping’s rule domestic repression in China has increased, “as illustrated by the fate of hundreds of human rights lawyers and activists rounded up in 2015”, as well as the “re-education” camps in East Turkestan.
At the same time, the Chinese government targeted critics overseas, the letter states.
“Another form of this escalation are the unprecedented attacks on foreign scholars and researchers of contemporary China, be it in the form of Cultural Revolution-style in-class harassment for their views and opinions, denial of visas, threatened or actual libel suits or, in some cases, detentions during research visits in mainland China.”
“Brady has become the target of a series of incidents which, taken together with attacks from Party-directed media, are consistent with an intimidation campaign.
“New Zealand authorities have been less than forthcoming in their support for a prominent scholar targeted by a foreign power, even adopting a dismissive posture – an attitude appreciated by PRC state media.”

The 165 signatories include global China experts from 17 countries, including American author, journalist and social commentator Bill Bishop, Danielle Cave from the International Cyber Policy Centre and Swedish human rights activist Peter Dahlin.
Last week Brady told the Guardian she and her family had requested security assistance from the government but it was not forthcoming. 

“I am really concerned about the safety of my family. About four months ago we asked for more protection from the New Zealand security intelligence service … We haven’t had a reply,” Brady said.
“We are doing everything we can to improve security in our home. But New Zealand is a very open society... We’re just doing the best that we can by ourselves, but we’re not security specialists.”

Open letter
By Sinopsis and Jichang Lulu

Under Xi Jinping’s rule, the PRC Party-state has intensified domestic repression to levels not seen in decades, as illustrated by the fate of hundreds of human rights lawyers and activists rounded up in 2015, or most shockingly, the build-up of “re-education” detention centers in East Turkestan, holding hundreds of thousands, perhaps over a million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities.
The wave of domestic repression has been accompanied by increasing efforts to limit freedom of expression even beyond the PRC’s borders, both in overseas Chinese communities, where independent media have been largely taken over by entities connected with the CCP United Front and Propaganda systems, and even among foreign entities, such as academic publishers or commercial firms.
Another form of this escalation are the unprecedented attacks on foreign scholars and researchers of contemporary China, be it in the form of Cultural Revolution-style in-class harassment for their views and opinions, denial of visas, threatened or actual libel suits or, in some cases, detentions during research visits in Mainland China.
In New Zealand, Anne-Marie Brady, an academic who investigated the CCP’s influence in local politics has become the target of a series of incidents which, taken together with attacks from Party-directed media, are consistent with an intimidation campaign. 

New Zealand authorities have been less than forthcoming in their support for a prominent scholar targeted by a foreign power, even adopting a dismissive posture – an attitude appreciated by PRC state media.
In response, we have initiated an open letter in support of Brady and her research. 

The letter, to be published on the Sinopsis website on Thursday 6 December, will remain open for signatures for approximately one week. 

The initial 169 signatories include academics, think-tankers, journalists, human-rights activists, politicians and others, based in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Australia, China, Japan, Argentina, Canada and the United States.
We will continue to accept signatures for approximately a week after publication. 

The list of signatories will be regularly updated. 

To add your name to the list, please send your name and affiliation to open.letter.am.brady@gmail.com.

Open letter on harassment campaign against Anne-Marie Brady

We, the undersigned concerned scholars and others with an interest in China, have been alarmed and appalled by the recent wave of intimidation directed against our colleague, Professor Anne-Marie Brady, in apparent retaliation for her scholarly research on contemporary China.
Anne-Marie Brady, a scholar of Chinese politics affiliated with the University of Canterbury, has investigated the external propaganda and political influence mechanisms employed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in New Zealand and beyond. 

Her 2017 paper Magic Weapons, based on extensive Chinese and English-language sources and previous scholarship on the PRC political system, described the CCP’s use of United Front tactics to control extra-Party forces, intensified at home and abroad under current CCP secretary general Xi Jinping. 

Professor Brady has accompanied her research with specific policy recommendations on how the New Zealand government can deal with the CCP’s political influence operations. 

These policy recommendations have attracted wide interest far beyond New Zealand.
Since the publication of her work on global United Front work, Brady’s home and office have been subjected to burglaries, during which no valuable items other than electronic devices were stolen. Most recently, her car was found to have been tampered with in ways consistent with intentional sabotage. 

According to media reports, Interpol and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (SIS) are involved in the investigation. 

In China, academics were interrogated by Ministry of State Security agents after their institutions hosted Brady. 

Brady has also been personally attacked in media under the direction of the CCP, both in the PRC and in New Zealand. 

Taken together, these circumstances make it likely that this harassment campaign constitutes a response to her research on the CCP’s influence, and an attempt to intimidate her into silence.
Despite the evidence of CCP interference provided in Brady’s research, of which the harassment campaign appears to be a further example, the New Zealand government has been slow to take action and failed to acknowledge that a problem exists. 

Professor Brady’s repeated requests for additional SIS and police protection have been ignored for four months.
Far from unique to New Zealand, the CCP’s global United Front tactics and other political influence operations have been documented in other locations, in Europe, Oceania, Asia and the Americas. Small nations are especially vulnerable to the PRC Party-state’s exploitation of asymmetries in economic power and relevant expertise to advance its political interests. 

Whether within or without the limits of the law of their target countries, these activities have considerable effects on their societies and merit evidence-based research and the attention of politicians and the media. 

The harassment campaign against Brady risks having a chilling effect on scholarly inquiry, allowing the CCP to interfere in the politics of our societies unfettered by informed scrutiny.
We urge the New Zealand authorities to grant Professor Brady the necessary protection to allow her to continue her research, sending a clear signal to fellow researchers that independent inquiry can be protected in democratic societies and conducted without fear of retribution.
We join other voices in support of Professor Brady, which have included statements by a New Zealand Chinese community organisation, some of her Canterbury University colleagues, New Zealand academics and two Australian Sinologists, as well as many others on social media.
We further hope decision makers and the public at large, in New Zealand and elsewhere, will engage with evidence-based research on the CCP’s United Front tactics, such as Brady’s Magic Weapons, and give due consideration to policy advice emanating from such research.

Signatories (169) as of 6pm, 5 Dec 2018 (CET)

Martin Hála, Charles University and Sinopsis.cz
Jichang Lulu, independent researcher
Filip Jirouš, Sinopsis.cz
Kateřina Procházková, Sinopsis.cz
Anna Zádrapová, Sinopsis.cz
Hernán Alberro, CADAL
Jamil Anderlini, journalist
Nathan Attrill, PhD Candidate, Australian National University
Ross Babbage, Chief Executive Officer, Strategic Forum
David L. Bandurski, Co-Director, China Media Project
Michael Barr, FAHA, Flinders University
Michael Beckley, professor, Tufts University
Jean-Philippe Béja, Research Professor Emeritus, CNRS
Bill Bishop
Joseph Bosco, former China Country Director, Office of the Secretary of Defense
Julia Bowie, Center for Advanced China Research
Hal Brands, Johns Hopkins SAIS
Sarah M Brooks, International Service for Human Rights
Dr. Douglas Brown, John Abbott College, Sainte Anne de Bellevue, Quebec
Charles Burton, Brock University
Reinhard Bütikofer MEP, Bündnis90/Die Grünen
Darren Byler, Department of Anthropology, University of Washington
Harald Bøckman, Visiting Senior Fellow, London School of Economics and Political Science / University of Oslo
Dag Inge Bøe, social anthropologist
Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Professor of Political Science, Hong Kong Baptist University
Alan Cantos, physical oceanographer and Director of the Spanish Tibet Support Committee (CAT)
Yaxue Cao, China Change
Kevin Carrico, Macquarie University
Danielle Cave, Deputy Head, International Cyber Policy Centre, The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and PhD Scholar, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, ANU
Lenka Cavojská, sinologist
Anita Chan (Prof.), Co-editor, The China Journal, Australian National University
Alvin Y.H. Cheung, Affiliated Scholar, US-Asia Law Institute, NYU School of Law
Jocelyn Chey, University of Sydney
Tarun Chhabra, policy analyst
Donald Clarke, Professor of Law and David A. Weaver Research Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School
Professor Jerome A. Cohen, NYU Law School
J Michael Cole, China Policy Institute (U Nott), Research Associate CEFC
Gabriel Collins, Rice University
Anders Corr, Corr Analytics
Demetrius Cox, independent researcher
Peter Dahlin, Director of Safeguard Defenders
June Teufel Dreyer, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Miami
Mathieu Duchâtel, Deputy Director, Senior Fellow, Asia and China Programme, European Council on Foreign Relations
Ryan Dunch, Professor, History and Classics, Director, Program in Religious Studies, University of Alberta
Ian Easton, Research Fellow, Project 2049 Institute
Elizabeth C. Economy, Council on Foreign Relations
Charles Edel, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney
Eric Edelman, Johns Hopkins SAIS
Kingsley Edney, University of Leeds
Johan Elverskog, Southern Methodist University
José Elías Esteve Moltó, Universitat de València
Feng Chongyi, University of Technology Sydney
Magnus Fiskesjö, Department of Anthropology, Cornell University
John Fitzgerald, Swinburne University of Technology
Martin Flaherty, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
Lindsey Ford, Director for Political-Security Affairs, Asia Society Policy Institute
Ivan Franceschini, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and Australian National University
Vanessa Frangville, Université libre de Bruxelles
Aaron Friedberg, Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University
Edward Friedman, Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Dr Andreas Fulda, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham
Kateřina Gajdošová, Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Charles University
Ursula Gauthier, grand reporter, L’Obs
David Gitter, Center For Advanced China Research
Louisa Greve, Uyghur Human Rights Project
Gerry Groot, University of Adelaide
A.Tom Grunfeld, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus
Guo Shan-yu, Charles University
Rosemary Haddon, (formerly) Massey University
Ian Hall, Professor of International Relations, Griffith University
Terry Halliday, Research Professor, American Bar Foundation, Honorary Professor, School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet), Australian National University, Adjunct Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University
Clive Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics, Charles Sturt University, Canberra
Mette Halskov Hansen, University of Oslo
Mark Harrison, University of Tasmania
Jonathan Hassid, Iowa State University
Laurens Hemminga, City University of Hong Kong / Leiden University
Anne Henochowicz, Los Angeles Review of Books China Channel
Daniel Herman, former minister of culture, KDU-ČSL
Samantha Hoffman, analyst
Marie Holzman, Solidarité Chine, Paris
Leta Hong Fincher, independent sociologist
Charles Horner, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Fraser Howie, author and independent China analyst
Carlos Iglesias, human rights lawyer
J. Bruce Jacobs, Emeritus Professor of Asian Languages and Studies, School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University
Jakub Janda, Executive Director, Head of Kremlin Watch Program, European Values Think-tank
Rodney Jones, Wigram Capital Advisors (HK)
Alex Joske, Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Elsa B. Kania, Harvard University
Karina Kapounová, sinologist, Charles University, Prague
Thierry Kellner, Université libre de Bruxelles
Jeffrey C. Kinkley, Portland State University
Ondřej Klimeš, Czech Academy of Sciences
František Kopřiva, MP, Czech Pirate Party
Zuzana Košková, University of Freiburg
Adam Kozieł, Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights
Dr Mei-fen Kuo, The University of Queensland
Petr Kutílek, lecturer in transitional politics, Prague
Michael Laha, Program Officer at Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations
Françoise Lauwaert, Université libre de Bruxelles
Professor John Lee, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
James Leibold, La Trobe University
Steve Levine, Department of History, University of Montana, USA
Filip Lexa, Sinologist and Indonesia expert, Charles University, Prague
Jon R. Lindsay, Assistant Professor, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto
Perry Link, Princeton University
Olga Lomová, Charles University
Nicholas Loubere, Lund University
Julia Lovell, Birkbeck College, University of London
Maree Ma, Vision Times Media Corporation (Australia)
T M McClellan, PhD, Independent scholar, formerly Senior Lecturer (Chinese) in The University of Edinburgh
Barrett L. McCormick, Professor, Marquette University
Kevin McCready, former AusAID official, translator
Paul Macgregor, historian and heritage consultant, Victoria, Australia
Richard McGregor, Lowy Institute
Anne McLaren, Professor, Chinese Studies, FAHA, Asia Institute, University of Melbourne
Thomas G. Mahnken, Johns Hopkins SAIS
Victor H. Mair, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, University of Pennsylvania
Maurizio Marinelli, University of Sussex
Peter Mattis, Research Fellow, China Studies, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
Rory Medcalf, Australian National University
Jonathan Mirsky, historian of China, former journalist in China and Tibet
Michelle S. Mood, Political Science and Asian Studies, Kenyon College
Zbyněk Mucha, indologist and tibetologist, Charles University
Luisetta Mudie, translator
Ian Mukherjee, independent analyst
Andrew J. Nathan, Columbia University
Adam Ni, Visiting Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University
Cassy O’Connor MP, Tasmanian Greens Leader
Mareike Ohlberg
Max Oidtmann, Georgetown University
Jojje Olsson, journalist and author
Charlie Parton, Associate Fellow, RUSI
Gaia Perini, University of Bologna
Eva Pils, Professor of Law, King’s College London
Sophie Richardson, PhD, China Director, Human Rights Watch
Sean Roberts, The George Washington University
Kaz Ross, School of Humanities, University of Tasmania
Fergus Ryan, Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Gabriel Salvia, Director General, CADAL
David Schak, Adjunct Associate Professor, Griffith Asia Institute
Matt Schrader, editor, Jamestown Foundation China Brief
Mark Selden, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, State University of New York at Binghamton
James D. Seymour, Columbia University
Victor Shih, associate professor, UC San Diego
Susan L. Shirk, Research Professor and Chair, 21st Century China Center, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC-San Diego
Jan Sládek, Charles University Faculty of Arts, Department of Sociology, vice-dean for information resources
Prof. Martin Slobodník, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia
Angela Stanzel, Senior Policy Fellow, Institut Montaigne
Janice Gross Stein, University of Toronto
Marina Svensson, Lund University
Josef Šlerka, Head of New Media Studies Department at Charles University
Hiroki Takeuchi, Southern Methodist University
Teng Biao, US-Asia Law Institute, New York University
Martin Thorley, University of Nottingham
Alan Tidwell, Director, Center for Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Studies, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Rory Truex, Princeton University
Glenn Tiffert, Hoover Institution
Aki Tonami, University of Tsukuba
Steve Tsang, Professor of Chinese Studies, SOAS University of London
Professor Jonathan Unger, Political & Social Change Department, Australian National University
Professor Arthur Waldron, University of Pennsylvania
Gerrit van der Wees, George Mason University
Andréa Worden, independent researcher
David Curtis Wright, University of Calgary
Teresa Wright, Department of Political Science, California State University
Michael Yahuda, Emeritus Professor, LSE, Visiting Scholar, Sigur Center for Asia Studies, The Elliott School, George Washington University
Wai Ling Yeung, Western Australia Department of Education
Lukáš Zádrapa, Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Charles University Prague

Vatican agreement with China could deal blow to Catholic church

Open letter opposes recognition of Chinese government-appointed bishops by the Vatican
By Harriet Sherwood 

Catholics in Hong Kong gather at the news that Beijing and the Vatican, whose relations were severed after the Communist state was founded in 1949, have reached a deal. 

The Catholic church risks damaging its moral authority and plunging its followers into confusion if the Vatican presses ahead with an imminent deal with the Chinese government, a group of influential Catholics has warned.
Fifteen lawyers, academics and human rights activists, most based in Hong Kong, have signed an open letter to bishops across the world expressing dismay at an agreement which would involve the Vatican recognising seven bishops appointed by China’s Communist party.
The deal is aimed at restoring relations between China and the Vatican, which were cut almost 70 years ago. 

But the group of leading Catholics say it could create a schism in the church in China.
“We are worried that the agreement would not only fail to guarantee the limited freedom desired by the church, but also … deal a blow to the church’s moral power,” the letter says. 

“Please rethink the current agreement, and stop making an irreversible and regrettable mistake.”
The letter comes less than two weeks after a senior Catholic leader in Asia accused the Vatican of selling out the church in its efforts to make a deal with the Chinese government.
Cardinal Joseph Zen, the former bishop of Hong Kong, wrote in a blog post: “Do I think the Vatican is selling out the Catholic church in China? Yes, definitely, if they go in the direction which is obvious from all what they are doing in recent years and months.”
Last month, the Vatican asked two “underground” bishops – who operate without Chinese government approval – to relinquish their positions in favour of government-appointed counterparts, one of whom was excommunicated by Rome in 2011.
One of them, Guo Xijin, said at the weekend he would “obey Rome’s decision” and respect any deal struck between the Beijing and Vatican authorities. 

Guo and the second bishop, Zhuang Jianjian, are under police surveillance and Guo has been repeatedly detained, including for 20 days last year.
The issue of bishop appointments is at the centre of efforts to restore Vatican-Chinese relations, which were officially severed after the foundation of the Communist state in 1949.
There are an estimated 10 to 12 million Catholics in China, with about half worshipping in underground churches, and half in government-managed churches.
The Chinese government has appointed seven bishops, who are not recognised by Rome. 

Up to 40 Rome-backed underground bishops operate without Chinese government approval.
Negotiations to restore ties between the two powers opened more than 18 months ago, but the issue of bishops has been a major stumbling block.
Last year Xi Jinping told the Communist party congress that religions in China “must be Chinese in orientation”, and the government must “provide active guidance to religions so that they can adapt themselves to socialist society”.
New regulations came into force on 1 February specifying the types of religious organisations that can exist, where they can exist and the activities they can organise.
There has been a crackdown on burgeoning evangelical Protestant churches, with many being forced to remove crosses and ordered to disband.
According to the Catholic leaders’ open letter, “the Communist party in China, under the leadership of Xi Jinping, has repeatedly destroyed crosses and churches, and the [state-controlled China Catholic Patriotic Association] maintains its heavy-handed control over the church.
“Religious persecution has never stopped. Xi has also made it clear that the party will strengthen its control over religions.”
It goes on: “We cannot see any possibility that the coming agreement can result in the Chinese government stopping its persecution of the church and ceasing its violations of religious freedom.”

Open Letter to Cambridge University Press about its censorship of the China Quarterly

Open Letter to Cambridge University Press about its Censorship of the journal China Quarterly
By James A. Millward, Professor of History, Georgetown University, Washington D.C.

Cambridge University Press’s decision to censor the journal China Quarterly as it is viewed online in China is a craven, shameful and destructive concession to the PRC’s growing censorship regime. 

It is also needless.
As recently reported, and admitted after the fact in a corporate statement, CUP has culled some 300 articles and reviews from a flagship journal on Chinese affairs after receiving a demand from some relevant organ in Beijing. (Possibly more alarming, but as yet unclear, is CUP’s admission that it has removed 1000 book titles from its sales website in China at the behest of the PRC party-state.) 

The works CUP is now censoring from China Quarterly were researched and written by scholars from around the world who believed that upon acceptance these works would actually appear in the journal and not be removed willy-nilly. 

The articles were published in China Quarterly only after peer-review and expert editing; books in its book-review section were also originally peer-reviewed and selected by knowledgeable editors. 

CUP is thus, in response to pressure from Chinese authorities and without consulting its authors, countermanding the peer-review process and overriding the journal’s own editors about content in the journal. 

This comprises a clear violation of academic independence outside as well as inside China.
Some book authors have recently agreed to allow limited censorship of their own books so that they might be published in Chinese translation. 

Often that censorship happens in the translation process itself, and can involve simple rewording as well as cutting whole sections.[1] 

Even where wholesale chopping of content has happened, however, this differs from what CUP is doing now. 

First of all, those have been the authors’ own decisions. 

Secondly, it is Chinese-language versions, not the original English text, that is affected. 

CUP is censoring the original English-language version of the China Quarterly as it is available in the Chinese market.
Cambridge University Press’s current concession is akin to the New York Times or The Economist letting the Chinese Communist Party determine what articles go into their publications — something they have never done. 

It would be unimaginable for these media to instead collaborate with PRC party censors to excise selected content from their daily or weekly editions. 

Rather, NYT and The Economist are banned in their entirety — but they remain whole. 

There are not incomplete, scissored-up, CCP versions of the New York Times or The Economist online in China. 

In a similar fashion, Google chose to pull out of China rather than let its searches be CCP-screened and selectively blocked. 

Cambridge University Press, on the other hand, is agreeably donning the hospital gown, untied in the back, baring itself to the Chinese scalpel, and crying “cut away!” 

But even this metaphor fails, since CUP is actually assisting, like a surgical nurse, in its own evisceration. 

The result is a misleading, neutered simulacrum of China Quarterly for the China market. 

And as my colleagues Greg Distelhorst and Jessica Chen Weiss have written, “the censored history of China will literally bear the seal of Cambridge University.” 

This is not only disrespectful of CUP’s authors; it demonstrates a repugnant disdain for Chinese readers, for whom CUP apparently deems a watered-down product to be good enough.
What is particularly chilling about Cambridge’s acquiescence in this case is that the list of pieces it cut seems to have been generated with a simple search on keywords and tags for Tian’anmen, Tibet, Taiwan, Xinjiang, Uyghur and the like. 

Does anyone think Chinese censors are actually reading this stuff? 

No. 

That blacklist of banned articles and reviews probably took less than an hour to compile with a few simple searches. 

Hey CUP, why don’t you and your CCP partners just create a bot to do the same thing? 

That way future editions of China Quarterly can be auto-expurgated without a human even having to glance at the tables of contents.
But the still greater concern is that if China Quarterly and then other journals published by Cambridge (such as the Journal of Asian Studies) — powerful institutions with global clout, not vulnerable individuals — just go along with this request to censor scholarship on these topics, will scholars inside or outside China still be eager to work on Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, the Uyghurs, Tian’anmen, Taiwan independence advocates, Liu Xiaobo, the Dalai Lama, Chinese dissidents, Falun Gong and so on? 

Or will they chose safer subjects? 

And how should the people who are the subject of these articles feel about Cambridge’s decision to airbrush them from the record? 

CUP may hide behind the excuse that this is a “pragmatic” decision to preserve “Chinese” access to its less sensitive material, but who the hell gives Cambridge University Press the right to decide that Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hong Kong activists and dissidents of all sorts are less worthy than other content? 

It is noteworthy that the topics and peoples CUP has so blithely chosen to censor comprise mainly minorities and the politically disadvantaged. 

Would you censor content about Black Lives Matter, Mexican immigrants or Muslims in your American publication list if Trump asked you to do to? 

So why do you think it’s fine to cut the oppressed and disenfranchised out of China Quarterly?
CUP’s passive self-bowdlerization is unlike individual author’s decisions for another reason. 

There have been several cases in recent years of top-ranked universities doing little or nothing when their own faculty are denied Chinese visas — when these scholars are, in effect, personally “censored.” 

When universities throw their own faculty under the bus or restrict campus activities related to topics the PRC deems too “sensitive,” university administrations claim to do so in order to preserve their overall access to or initiatives in China. 

But when upstanding universities have actually called China’s bluff, China has reversed itself, as it did after it attempted to sanction University of Calgary for a Dalai Lama honorary degree or when it offered to endow a Chair in China studies at Stanford — with the stipulation that the professor filling it would never to mention Tibet. (Original article here.)
CUP may be worried about its English-language pedagogical materials and other enterprises being banned in China, but it should not be. 

Even outside of Chinese universities, vast numbers of non-academics know and respect the name “Jianqiao.” 

China is not going to ban everything branded “Cambridge” from the Chinese realm, because to do so would turn this into a big, public issue, and that is precisely what the authorities hope to avoid. 

To do so would, moreover, pit the CCP against a household name that every Chinese person who knows anything about education reveres as one of the world’s oldest and best universities. 

And Chinese, probably more than anyone else, revere universities, especially name-brand ones. Cambridge University, like Stanford — or Calgary, for that matter! — can safely afford to say, “Sorry, China Quarterly is a package deal. Take it or leave it.” 

And if China chooses to leave it, we can trust resourceful Chinese colleagues and students to find workarounds to get and distribute the material, as they do for lots of English-language publications already (though that will be harder if good VPN’s disappear. #Thanks, Apple).
In recent years China has invested billions of yuan in a so far very successful effort to make its universities world-class. 

Professors with foreign Ph.D.’s are welcome in Chinese universities. 

Chinese scholars are encouraged and funded to go to conferences and spend semesters abroad as visiting scholars at foreign universities. 

Chinese libraries acquire foreign books and databases, which are especially useful in the many English-language global programs Chinese universities now run for domestic and international students. 

The field of China studies, once bifurcated between scholarship in China and that in the West, is increasingly integrated: we talk to each other in Chinese and in English at conferences, in publications and on platforms like Douban and WeChat (Weixin).
For some years, the PRC party-state censored publication in Chinese, but let English-language materials through, perhaps as a sop to intellectuals and the educated, globalizing middle class whom it successfully coopted. 

Now, by blocking VPNs, the PRC is more severely limiting the access of this trusted elite to the world at large. 

The party-state has intensified controls on publication and scholarship in China, and restricts Chinese access to scholarly tools from the world at large (Youtube, Wikipedia, Medium, Academia.edu, Google Scholar and other services are blocked in most of China). 

But in doing this, the PRC is reneging on its deal with these globalized, highly-educated elites, and pursuing policies directly contradicting those building up its universities. 

How long can this contradiction stand?
I have been periodically prevented from going to China for some 15 years now because I have written about Xinjiang. (A number of other scholars of Xinjiang, Tibet, and Chinese politics have likewise seen their visa access restricted.) 

This hurts China as much as it hurts me, since not only am I cut off from China, but the field of Xinjiang studies now carefully avoids interactions with Han scholars from the PRC. 

With reason, we hesitate to invite them to international conferences and seldom attend conferences in China or share our ideas with them. 

Chinese scholars and diplomats are quite aware of this problem. 

A number of Chinese academics, including highly-connected scholar-officials from Beijing think-tanks who directly advise the government, seek me out in Washington D.C. to ask about the newest English-language scholarship on Xinjiang — because they simply can’t get it, or learn about it, in China! 

Cambridge University Press should not abet this creeping constriction of Chinese access to the intellectual world at large by letting the party-state have its cake and eat it too. 

If the PRC authorities want to cut off their access to what the world’s scholars are saying — precisely about those thorniest problems where you’d think PRC would be most interested in fresh ideas — so be it. 

If they want to try to keep their own scholars ignorant of international scholarship, so be it. 

It’s a safe bet that most Chinese academic and political leaders are perhaps not so stupid, and will not continue along this academic cul-de-sac unless CUP and other publishers enable them.
Just say “no” to China’s self-defeating censorship demands, CUP, and I’ll happily continue to review books and manuscripts for you, essentially for free, as I do now. 

That’s the bargain you have with us, your readers and contributors from the scholarly world outside of China. 

You maintain your press’s academic integrity, and we work to produce and review your content with only symbolic remuneration (a few hundred dollars for a book that takes 10 years to write, or $150 for 2–3 days’ work reviewing a book manuscript). 

We are not in this business for the money. 

If you, an established, world-renowned educational institution sacrifice your academic integrity on venal or faux-pragmatic grounds, you cannot rely on our continued respect and cooperation.

The author received his MA from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, where the journal China Quarterly is housed. 

He received his Ph.D. at Stanford and published his first book with Stanford University Press. 

He has published a chapter and book reviews in venues published by Cambridge University Press, and is a freqent peer-reviewer of manuscripts submitted to CUP publications. 

The review of Millward’s book, Eurasian Crossroads, by Nicolas Becquelin, is among the pieces cut from China Quarterly in China by Cambridge University Press.

[1] I have myself acquiesced to a bit of censorship in the “Acknowledgements” section of one book of mine recently published in China. 

For another volume, one directly concerning Xinjiang history, I instead published the Chinese translation in Hong Kong, where there remains more academic freedom than in the PRC proper. Mainland scholars can access and read the Hong Kong addition, but it is not sold in the PRC.