Gauging China's Influence and Interference in U.S. Higher Ed

Report catalogs complaints and interventions by embassy officials and Chinese students on American campuses. 
By Elizabeth Redden 

Concerns about Chinese government interference in American higher education seem to have become ubiquitous over the past year.
Lawmakers have lambasted universities for hosting Confucius Institutes, outposts for Chinese Communist Party propaganda or intelligence collection, and their complaints have prompted several of the institutes to close.
Congressional committees have held hearings about Chinese espionage efforts to infiltrate U.S. higher education.

The Trump administration in June moved to restrict the duration of visas for Chinese graduate students studying certain sensitive fields. 

Chinese student-spies

President Trump himself told a group of CEOs in August that almost every student from China in the U.S. is a spy.
Western scholarly publishers have blocked access to journal articles within mainland China to comply with government censors. 

And two new reports -- one a scholarly paper based on a survey, the other journalistic-- found that self-censorship is a widespread problem in the China studies field, though the reasons cited for this vary.
It’s in this context that the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars released its report “A Preliminary Study of PRC Political Influence and Interference Activities in American Higher Education” (throughout the report the author uses the acronym for the People's Republic of China in favor of the adjective "Chinese"). 

The study, which is based largely on interviews of more than 180 people, including more than 100 professors, documents alleged attempts to infringe on academic freedom at U.S. universities on the part of both Chinese embassy officials and individual Chinese students over the past two decades.
The study, authored by Anastasya Lloyd-Damnjanovic, a Schwarzman Associate at the Wilson Center for 2017-18, concludes that "over the past two decades, PRC diplomats stationed in the United States have infringed on the academic freedom of American university faculty, students, administrators, and staff by: complaining to universities about invited speakers and events; pressuring and/or offering inducements to faculty whose work involves content deemed sensitive by the PRC authorities … and retaliating against American universities’ cooperative initiatives with PRC partner institutions."

Chinese students, meanwhile, have in various cases infringed on academic freedom by “demanding the removal of research, promotional and decorative materials involving sensitive content from university spaces”; “demanding faculty alter their language or teaching materials involving sensitive content on political rather than evidence-based grounds”; “interrupting and heckling other members of the university community who engage in critical discussion of China”; and “pressuring universities to cancel academic activities involving sensitive content.”
In addition, the report documents cases in which Chinese students have “acted in ways that concerned or intimidated faculty, staff, and other students at American universities,” such as by “monitoring people and activities on campus involving sensitive content”; “probing faculty for information in a suspicious manner”; and “engaging in intimidation, abusive conduct, or harassment of other members of the university community.”
The highly sensitive nature of the subject comes across in Lloyd-Damnjanovic’s methodology section, in which she writes that many potential respondents did not return her emails, or sent back what she described as "curt remarks alleging that the premise of the study was political, alarmist, or racist."
To such responses Lloyd-Damnjanovic countered, “It is essential that studies of PRC influence be conducted in an objective, balanced and responsible fashion. Broad brushes, generalizations and policy in the absence of a substantial empirical foundation are problematic. But to dismiss concerns about PRC influence and interference without even considering whether there is evidence is tantamount to burying one’s head in the sand.”
The Chinese embassy in Washington condemned the report's conclusions Monday, saying, "This allegation of the report you mentioned is totally groundless, full of prejudice, discrimination and hostility."
The following are a few of the specific cases and issues highlighted in the Wilson Center report.

Hosting of speakers and events. 

The report states that "PRC diplomats have since at least the early 1990s made official expressions of displeasure to American universities for hosting certain speakers and events." 

In the cases discussed, which mostly happened at major research universities, Lloyd-Damnjanovic wrote that these requests were seen as "propagandistic" and duly if politely rebuffed. 

But she raised the question of whether smaller institutions more reliant on Chinese students and cooperative initiatives with Chinese universities for revenue would disregard the complaints of embassy officials so easily.

Retaliation and the Dalai Lama. 

The report describes retaliation against universities that play host to speakers the Chinese government doesn’t like. 

Richard Daly, who formerly headed the Maryland China Initiative at the University of Maryland and now works at the Wilson Center -- he wrote the foreword to the report -- said that groups of municipal- and provincial-level PRC officials stopped attending the university’s executive training programs for a period of time after the Dalai Lama gave a speech at Maryland's College Park campus in 2013.
The report also says that executive training programs organized through Maryland’s Office of China Affairs -- a successor office to the Maryland China Initiative -- have “experienced disruptions” since 2017 when a Chinese student, Yang Shuping, gave a controversial commencement speech praising the “fresh air of free speech” in the U.S. 

Maryland's media relations office declined to comment.
The report further describes retaliation against the University of California, San Diego, after it invited the Dalai Lama to give a commencement speech in 2017. 

The report cites faculty members who say they heard from their colleagues at Chinese partner institutions that universities were ordered by a government entity -- believed to be the Ministry of Education -- not to collaborate with UCSD. 

Among other retaliatory actions, a faculty member told Lloyd-Damnjanovic that the ministry blocked funding of a joint research center operated by the University of California's 10 campuses and Fudan University. 

UCSD's media relations office did not comment on the report.

Pressures on faculty. 

The report also describes attempts by embassy officials to pressure or induce U.S.-based faculty who study topics the Chinese government deems sensitive in order to influence their research. 

As one example, the report cites the case of a City University of New York professor, Ming Xia, who said he received a call from an official at China’s New York consulate in 2009 demanding he withdraw from a project to create a documentary about the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. 

“‘We know this movie may give you financial rewards but we can give you much more,’” Xia recalled the official as saying, according to the account in the report, which he confirmed for Inside Higher Ed. 

“He also told me that I would pay the price if I went ahead with the movie and emphasized that [they] are going to do everything [they can] to stop this film.” Xia rejected the officials' request.

Chinese students' reluctance to speak. 

The report details concerns by some professors that their Chinese students feel unable to speak freely about sensitive topics in an American classroom.
Lloyd-Damnjanovic summarized an interview she conducted with Jason McGrath, an associate professor of Asian languages and literatures at the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus. McGrath described being “met with silence” when he attempted to facilitate a discussion about a film about corruption in China. 

"Frustrated," Lloyd-Damnjanovic wrote, "McGrath gently scolded the class until a student from the PRC who normally participated spoke up. ‘We’re uncomfortable talking about that because we don’t know who might be listening to us,’ the student said. 

For McGrath, ‘that was the first time that I sort of suddenly had the realization that the students in my class, some of them at least are very aware -- if it’s a large class with a lot of Chinese nationals and they don’t know them all -- that they might be self-censoring what they say because they’re worried about who else in the class might be listening, and who they might be talking to.’”
McGrath confirmed via email this account was accurate. 

Monitoring. 

Lloyd-Damnjanovic wrote that "numerous faculty and students reported experiences in which they felt they were being monitored by students or campus actors who appeared to be from the PRC while engaging in sensitive academic activities." 

For example, she wrote of a case at Harvard University where a faculty member said that two of her colleagues, both visiting scholars from China, "confided in her that they had caught another visiting PRC scholar searching their offices after hours and heard him openly discuss writing periodic reports to the government during the 2016-17 academic year. 

The faculty member’s colleagues said they thought the reports pertained to the political views and activities of ethnically Chinese faculty, visiting scholars and students at Harvard. 

"They warned the faculty member to refrain from discussing sensitive political issues in front of unfamiliar ethnic Chinese," Lloyd-Damnjanovic wrote.

Abuse by Chinese students. 

Lloyd-Damnjanovic's interviewees also described experiencing harassing or abusive behavior on the part of Chinese students. 

In one example, an ethnically Chinese professor identified only by his former affiliation at Indiana University described his experience after speaking on a 2008 panel organized by a student organization, Campaign for Free Tibet.
Lloyd-Damnjanovic wrote, "After the event, the faculty member noticed that he and his background had become a topic of discussion among members of the [Chinese Students and Scholars Association] email Listserv. A week later, the faculty member was walking in the park with his children when someone of student age who appeared to be a PRC national approached, pointed, and called him a 'dog' in Chinese. During a trip to the local farmer’s market several days later, the faculty member noticed someone of student age who appeared to be ethnically Chinese approached with a camera and took a close-up photograph of his son’s face. The faculty member said that the photographic activity made him fear for the safety of his son, a toddler at the time, and for his family."
“It is intimidating,” the faculty member told Lloyd-Damnjanovic. 

“You can never be 100 percent sure it is related to the [Tibet] speaking event, but it happened right after.”

Self-censorship. 

Lloyd-Damnjanovic also asked her faculty interviewees about the issue of self-censorship. 

Varying reasons they gave for self-censorship include concerns about being denied a visa to enter China and the effects that would have on their career and concerns about the safety of their research subjects. 

Some scholars who are Chinese citizens or of ethnic Chinese heritage said they self-censored out of concern for family and friends in China.

The Wilson Center study came out several days after two professors published a paper based on their survey of more than 500 China studies scholars. 

About 68 percent of respondents to that survey identified self-censorship as a problem in the field.
The survey, conducted by Sheena Chestnut Greitens, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri, and Rory Truex, an assistant professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, also documented the real risks China scholars can face in conducting research. 

Greitens and Truex found that about 9 percent of China scholars reported having been “taken for tea” by Chinese government authorities to be interviewed or warned about their research, 26 percent of scholars who conduct archival research reported being denied access and 5 percent reported difficulties obtaining a visa. 

In addition, 2.5 percent -- 14 individual scholars -- reported experiencing temporary detention by police or physical intimidation.

China's Subversion Machine

CHINA’S LONG ARM REACHES INTO AMERICAN CAMPUSES
Beijing is stepping up efforts to inject party ideology into student life. 

BY BETHANY ALLEN-EBRAHIMIAN

When Xi Jinping visited Washington on Sept. 24, 2015 on a state visit, hundreds of Chinese students lined the streets for hours, carrying banners and flags to welcome him.
It was a remarkable display of seemingly spontaneous patriotism.
Except it wasn’t entirely spontaneous.
The Chinese Embassy paid students to attend and helped organize the event. 
Working with Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSAs) at local universities — a Chinese student organization with branches at dozens of schools around the country — government officials from the office of educational affairs at the Chinese Embassy in Washington collected the contact information of about 700 students who had signed up to attend.
Embassy officials communicated with students via WeChat, a Chinese messaging app, during the event and into the night, responding to messages as late as 3 a.m.
According to a Chinese student at George Washington University who attended the event, participants each received about $20 for their effort, distributed through the CSSA a few months later.
This wasn’t an isolated example of paid political mobilization.
A similar arrangement had occurred in February 2012, when Xi visited Washington as vice chairman. In that case, it took almost a year for the embassy to transfer the promised funds to the George Washington CSSA.
In January 2013, the student group sent a message, recently reviewed by Foreign Policy, to its members saying the compensation from Xi’s welcome the previous year was finally available, and they could come pick up the cash at the campus community center if they brought a photo ID. 
The George Washington CSSA did not respond to a request for comment.
And when then-President Hu Jintao visited Chicago in 2011, the University of Wisconsin-Madison CSSA bused in Chinese students, excited about a free trip to the city and a chance to glimpse the president.
The association also surprised the students at the conclusion of the trip with a small cash payment. The CSSA president told students not to speak to the media about the money.
The association did not respond to a request for comment.
The embassy-sponsored welcome parties, which lend an aura of power and popularity to the visiting leaders, are just one example of the close relationship that the Chinese government maintains with Chinese student groups across the United States.
In the past few years, as Xi has strengthened the party’s control over every aspect of Chinese society and sought to extend his power abroad, consular officials have markedly increased their efforts to exert ideological influence over students — leaving some CSSA members wary to speak out against what they see as unwanted government intrusion.
Chinese students at George Washington University line the streets of Washington on Sept. 24, 2015 to welcome Xi Jinping during his state visit.

While many countries, including the United States, fund educational activities abroad, the Chinese government’s direct control over student groups is unique. 
Beijing’s influence over these groups is also beginning to raise questions and concerns among students on American campuses, who fear they will be accused of being agents of espionage.
The growing ties are also concerning U.S. government officials, who are wary of China’s political and economic reach in the United States.
At a security hearing last month, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that American universities are naive about the intelligence risk of Chinese “nontraditional collectors, especially in the academic setting,” and claimed that China poses a “whole-of-society threat.”
Although the extent of Chinese government funding and oversight of these organizations is not entirely clear and appears to vary from group to group, it seems to be more significant than previously known — and growing.
FP spoke to more than a dozen members of the group across the country (including four current or former presidents), was given access to internal messages and documents, and reviewed the publicly available charters of dozens of these groups, in Chinese and English.
All of the students who spoke to FP requested anonymity for fear of potential reprisals.
FP found that CSSAs regularly accept funds from their local consulates and many officially describe themselves as under the “guidance” or “leadership” of the embassy. 
Internal correspondence reviewed by FP also show that consular officials communicate regularly with CSSAs, dividing the groups by region and assigning each region to an embassy contact who is responsible for relaying safety information — and the political directive — to chapter presidents. 
CSSAs explicitly vet their members along ideological lines, excluding those whose views do not align with Communist Party core interests.
The Chinese Embassy did not respond to a request for comment on any of the issues raised in this article.
Chinese Communist Party influence within the United States is a real concern, and the vessels of that influence “should be transparent and it should be disclosed,” says Bill Bishop, author of the influential Sinocism newsletter, which offers insights into Chinese politics and government.
The number of Chinese students studying in the United States has skyrocketed from tens of thousands a decade ago to more than 330,000; nearly one in three international students is Chinese.
Numerous CSSA members, including two current chapter presidents, say that they are uncomfortable with what they felt was growing ideological pressure from the embassy and consulates. 
That pressure has become more apparent since 2016, when the Chinese Ministry of Education issued a directive ordering schools to instill greater patriotism and love for the party in students of every age — including Chinese students studying abroad.
Pressure on CSSAs to promote “patriotic” ideas was particularly acute in October 2017 during the 19th party plenum, the key national planning session held every five years at which top officials are selected and new policies are announced.
Consular officials sent out requests to CSSAs around the country to hold events related to the plenum. One such message, viewed by FP, encouraged groups to organize viewing sessions for their members to watch the opening ceremonies together, and requested that they send photos or reports of the event back to the consulate.
Consular officials also requested that CSSAs across the United States post articles praising Xi’s vision for the country and touting other party propaganda. 
Officials asked groups to organize study sessions to discuss the party pronouncements coming out of the plenum. 
Articles and invitations to plenum-related events appeared on the WeChat accounts of CSSAs at University of California at Berkeley, Harvard University, Georgetown University, and other schools around the country.
These and similar requests have troubled some CSSA leaders.
“I really don’t want CSSA to have any relationship more than basic etiquette with the Chinese Consulate,” says the president of a large CSSA at a major university, speaking to FP.
“I try to reject any sponsor from the embassy, financial wise, since I want our club to be able to make our own decisions.”
The student says that the requests feel to him like an attempt to inject a political ideology where it doesn’t belong.
He says he tries to keep the consulate at arm’s length, offering bare minimum compliance with its requests in order to keep up a good relationship.
He does not post the pro-party articles that the consular officials send to him, though he knows other CSSA presidents do.
“I feel like the tendency is that the consulate tries to control CSSAs more and more,” says the CSSA president.
“I don’t think this student group should be involved with government in any way.”
The CSSA president emphasizes that while he is concerned about the increasing control the Chinese government tries to exert over student organizations, he is not deeply alarmed yet.
“The current situation is not that Chinese students don’t have freedom after they come to the United States,” he tells FP.
“If something bad is happening, it has not happened yet.”
But the association president feels he must at least make a show of complying with embassy requests, citing a sense of peer pressure that exists within the CSSA.
A consular official often asks him for evidence of compliance, such as photos or a brief report, to show to superiors, and the student doesn’t want to get the consular officer in trouble.
“The people inside [the consulate], I feel most of them are good, they’re just doing their jobs,” said the student.
“But I do feel like there is an invisible hand behind them, saying they want more than this. Maybe the policymaker is in Beijing, or in D.C.”
The president of a CSSA at a small liberal arts college expresses similar reservations, telling FP that he also chose not to post the articles the consulate had sent him.
“I personally disliked those content. I felt it’s wrong to do it,” the student tells FP.
Chinese consular officials often communicate with CSSA leaders through group chats in the Chinese messaging app WeChat.
Consular officials divide the regions into different umbrellas, with specific officials responsible for certain regions, and then create WeChat groups for the presidents of all the CSSAs in the region, with a consular official also a member of each group. 
This allows officials to communicate announcements and requests directly to dozens of CSSA presidents by sending a single message. 
FP viewed a screenshot of one group that included nearly two dozen regional CSSA presidents receiving messages from a Chinese Consulate official.
The West Coast region has more institutionalized oversight.
An umbrella organization called Southwest CSSA was founded in 2003; the organization itself is not affiliated to any university, and oversees the CSSAs at universities in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Hawaii. 
In some ways the umbrella group functions as a regional office to increase coordination and cooperation among campus CSSAs, holding annual elections from among its member CSSAs for its board of officers, and holding joint events.
But Southwest CSSA’s ties to the consulate are far closer than those of the individual groups at universities. 
Its bylaws state that all presidential candidates must first receive approval from the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles before the election can take place. 
Southwest CSSA sometimes holds events inside the consulate itself.
Southwest CSSA also openly supports party ideology. 
Its stated goals, according to its website, include “promoting the spirit of ‘studying abroad to serve the country’” — a direct quote from a letter Xi Jinping sent to Chinese students studying in Moscow in December.
This letter has been the subject of a major push, with consulates encouraging Chinese students around the world to study and learn from the president’s words. 
Other stated goals include “promoting patriotic feeling” and helping Chinese students “serve the motherland in many ways even while they are studying in America.”
In 2016, Southwest CSSA filed for tax-exempt status as a public charity with the IRS.
According to its tax forms, it reported $107,304 in gifts and contributions, but no money from fundraising or membership dues.
Its list of donors is not publicly available.
Neither Southwest CSSA nor the Los Angeles consulate responded to a request for comment.
Chinese consular funding of CSSAs is widespread, and any CSSA is eligible to apply for government funds.
Many CSSAs tout their relationships and financial ties to Chinese consulates on their websites, usually only in Chinese, omitting this connection from the English translations on the website.
The financial relationship between the Chinese government and the CSSAs is not always well advertised.
In June 2017, the president of the University of Pittsburgh’s CSSA wrote on her Weibo account that the group received $6,000 a year from the Chinese Embassy; she later deleted the post.
Others are more open.
The goals of the Harvard Medical School CSSA, according to its charter, include “loving the motherland” and “uniting” the Chinese students and researchers at Harvard Medical School with the Chinese Embassy “for the prosperity and strength of the motherland.” 
The charter also mentions funds received from the “embassy sponsor.”
Many other CSSAs, from those at small liberal arts colleges to prestigious private universities to major public research institutions, openly accept consular funding as well.
Onlookers wait to catch a glimpse of Hu Jintao in Chicago on Jan. 20, 2011.

In some cases, the consulate deposits the money directly into the personal account of the CSSA treasurer or other officer, rather than the official CSSA account, according to three association members.
A separate, unofficial CSSA bank account is sometimes set up to receive the funds. 
In either case, the university administration may be unaware that the organization is receiving funding from a foreign government. (The Columbia University CSSA was briefly shuttered in 2015 for rules violations; the school administration allowed the group to resume operations within a year.)
Receiving money from a foreign government or officials could trigger the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which is designed as a transparency mechanism for organizations attempting to influence American opinion.
Normally, academic organizations are exempt from FARA registration, says Ben Freeman, the director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the nonprofit Center for International Policy.
That means, for example, that Chinese graduate students studying in the United States on Chinese government scholarships do not have to register.
And FARA only applies to advocacy conducted with the American public in mind, according to Freeman.
“If the Chinese government is paying a Chinese group here to do advocacy to influence other Chinese, that would not trigger FARA,” he says.
But what might trigger registration as a foreign agent is if a Chinese government-funded group attempted to change the behavior of U.S. government officials or to sway American public opinion at large, he says.
In at least one case, the Chinese government, through a local CSSA, appeared to do just that. 
In late 2017, the Wayne State University CSSA in Michigan was involved in an ethics investigation into the local city council after the CSSA offered four scholarships to the Ypsilanti mayor and three other local officials to fund travel to China. 
After the trip took place, it was discovered that the Chinese Consulate had provided the money to persuade Ypsilanti city officials to support a $300 million Chinese-funded development project. 
The Wayne State CSSA did not respond to a request for comment.
Some CSSAs have accepted money directly from high-ranking Chinese government officials.
In February 2017, Hong Lei, a former Chinese foreign ministry spokesman and now a diplomat at the Chinese Consulate in Chicago, made a personal donation to the CSSA at the Washington University in St. Louis, according to an article posted to the group’s WeChat account.
The consulate’s website mentioned his visit to the school, but not the donation.
The association did not respond to a request for comment.
For Chinese students, however, a more important concern is potential political pressure, which can come in the form of explicit ideological vetting.
In a March 2016 message to students announcing upcoming elections, the University of Minnesota CSSA stated that candidates for president who were Communist Party members would receive preferential consideration for the post (FP viewed a copy of the message).
The group’s website states that the group receives “strong financial support” from the Chicago consulate.
In some cases, the CSSAs make the ideological requirements for membership clear.
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville CSSA charter states that members are required to “love the motherland” and to “protect China’s honor and image.” 
The Chinese-language version of the charter, which differs from the English-language version, also states that members must hold Chinese passports; that students or researchers from Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Macau who do not have Chinese passports must uphold the “one-China principle” and support “national unification” in order to be a member; and that ethnic Chinese students without Chinese passports can join if “their heart belongs to the motherland.”
Embassy officials have also coached CSSAs how to respond during a public relations crisis, like what happened at the University of Maryland in May 2017, when Yang Shuping, a Chinese undergraduate, praised American democracy and criticized Chinese government oppression during her commencement address. 
Her remarks went viral on the Chinese internet and Yang became the subject of virulent online attacks from patriotic Chinese netizens.
The University of Maryland CSSA, rather than supporting her, posted a video criticizing her remarks.
Shortly after the incident, an embassy official met with CSSAs from 14 schools from states near the Washington metro area, including the University of Maryland CSSA. 
In the meeting, the official praised the group’s response and encouraged other CSSAs to follow suit, according to typed notes from the meeting reviewed by FP.
The official recommended that CSSAs, if faced with a similar crisis, should contact the embassy as soon as possible and provide a detailed report, issue a public statement immediately, and avoid violence and personal attacks.
In 2017, widespread opposition among Chinese students at the University of California, San Diego over an invitation to the Dalai Lama to give the commencement address sparked suspicion that the Chinese Embassy was behind the protest.
The UC San Diego CSSA issued a strongly worded statement and requested a meeting with the administration, in which it asked university officials to ensure that the Tibetan spiritual leader would not address politics in his speech.
In May 2017, shortly after the Dalai Lama’s visit, Chinese diplomatic officials gave an award to the UC San Diego CSSA at an annual CSSA conference held inside the consulate itself, according to a post on the group’s WeChat account.
The close ties between the student groups and the consulates keep Chinese students mindful that government officials are just one WeChat message away.
One Chinese student at a large university in the south says the CSSA’s links to the embassy bothered them, and that since 2015, the ties have become more obvious. 
“Self-censorship in authoritarian states is usually a state of being constantly careful about what you say and do,” the student says.

Per un pugno di renminbi

Liu Xiaobo’s death exposes Western kowtowing to China’s despots
By ROWAN CALLICK
Serving both God and Xi Jinping: Angela Merkel and Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Hamburg.

The global response to the death of Chinese Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo and his crudely stage-managed cremation and burial at sea will be viewed by chroniclers as a historic watershed.
Democracy and universal human rights are losing their champions, and their power as paradigms.
The world is changing fast. 

At the start of this year — when Xi Jinping received an adulatory welcome from the World Economic Forum elite at Davos with his speech championing “economic globalisation” — it was clear that the centre of international gravity was shifting.
The rush of international leaders to laud the launch of Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative followed. 

Those accorded the loudest fanfares in Beijing for that event were Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte and Russia’s Vladimir Putin — three champions of the new populist authoritarianism.
The G20 in Hamburg followed, at which German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who accorded Xi an especially warm welcome, implicitly contrasted favourably the Chinese “win-win” cliche with the US view of globalisation, which she said was “about winners and losers”.
The G20’s vacuous communique was suffused with the vocabulary and views with which Beijing feels at home.
Soon, China will host the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa for a summit.
Each step in this impressive progress underlines China’s authoritarian culture as the new global norm.
A year ago, the International Court of Arbitration lambasted China’s occupation and arming of the South China Sea. 

But Beijing refused to participate in the process, said it would ignore any finding and would plough on with its strategy. 

Which it has.
The bureaucracies of the Western leaders, including Australia, carefully considered how to respond to Liu’s imminent death.
The result: national leaders said nothing, foreign ministers regretted Liu’s demise and asked if his widow, Liu Xia — charged with no offence — might be allowed to travel outside China.
When Liu was awarded the Nobel in 2010, symposiums were held, speeches made, Western leaders commented widely.
Erna Solberg, the Prime Minister of Norway, which hosts the Nobel Peace Prize and was punished economically by China after Liu’s award, said nothing in the weeks after news of his liver cancer leaked out. 

The former Amnesty International leader there, Petter Eide, said “silence was a sign of support for the Chinese authorities”.
The question that governments, corporations, and especially now also universities, in Western countries ask is not what would Jesus do — which they would think risible — but what would China do.
Journalists and satirists in the West are widely praised for their bravery in poking fun at Donald Trump, the softest target since King George III.
How many have joked about Xi Jinping, the most powerful person in China since Mao Zedong, and in some regards even more powerful? 

In China, even to draw a cartoon or caricature of him is at least banned, and is likely to lead to something worse.
People in the West wonder whether their companies, or economies, will be cut off from China’s wealth if they venture criticisms or make fun.
Even firms like Facebook that have leveraged off their maverick founding myths, end up playing Chinese rules. 

Apple just conceded control over its Chinese data to comply with Beijing’s new cybersecurity regulations as it stores information for its customers in China with a government-owned company.
Trump read out an impressive speech on Western values before the G20. 

But he negated every word when he breathlessly replied — a few hours after Liu had died — to a question about Xi: “He’s a friend of mine. I have great respect for him … a great leader … a very talented man … a very good man … a terrific guy. I like being with him a lot, and he’s a very special person.”
Russia is slipstreaming China’s elevation, sequestering Crimea just as China has done with the South China Sea, as the two form a tight unit in controlling the UN Security Council.
The video of US student Cody Irwin joking in fluent Mandarin about Trump — to laughter and applause — at his graduation speech at Peking University this month has been widely praised.
But when Chinese student Yang Shuping praised America’s “fresh air” and democracy in her commencement speech at Maryland University in May, she faced an avalanche of enmity.
Appropriate lessons are being drawn. 

In career opportunity terms, Irwin has cemented his future, Yang has sealed her fate.
The Sinologist David Shambaugh wrote last month: “Until China develops values that appeal universally, it will lack one of the core features of global leadership.”
However, it is the Western world that is losing contact with core values. 

It is valuing more highly the control and the authority that China is championing.

Chinese Fifth Column: The Enemy Within

Ban Official Chinese Student Organizations Abroad

• Chinese embassies finance the student organizations, including through dinners, parties and travel.
• The manner in which the CSSA controls speech of not only Chinese students, but Chinese dissidents, professors, and even the Dalai Lama, means that CSSA erodes the richness of critical Chinese and other voices, decreasing the diversity of viewpoints available on campus.
• Student members of the CSSA have been accused of espionage; this includes in Canada, and through its chapter in Belgium, from which student spies sent agents to the U.K., France, Netherlands, and Germany.

By Anders Corr

Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSA) seek to monitor and control the speech of Chinese students and professors in Australia, according to a report on June 3. 

Similar monitoring and control by student organizations was reported in the United States in May. Chinese student organizations not only curtail free speech, but prescribe correct speech, for example a CSSA demonstration welcoming Li Keqiang in Australia, and protests against a Dalai Lama speech at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and against a presentation on human rights at Columbia University in New York City. 

The groups have launched similar interventions at Duke University in North Carolina, and in the United Kingdom. 

In May, a Chinese graduate student, Yang Shuping, gave a commencement speech at the University of Maryland in support of clean air and freedom of speech. 

The local CSSA denounced her in a video with multiple Chinese students praising China. 

State-controlled media in China condemned her, Chinese netizen complaints went viral, and likely intimidated, she apologized.

Four student volunteers take an oath before entering the Lunar Palace 1, a laboratory simulating a lunar-like environment, for an initial 60-day stay, in Beijing on May 10, 2017. Four postgraduate students from the capital's astronautics research university Beihang entered the 160-square-metre (1,720-square-foot) cabin -- dubbed the 'Yuegong-1', or 'Lunar Palace' -- on May 10, as Beijing prepares for its long-term goal of putting humans on the moon. 

This type of control and influence of Chinese students abroad has persisted since at least the late 1980s. 

Today, there are about 150 chapters of the CSSA. All of them are officially recognized by the Chinese government.

Student members of the CSSA have been accused of espionage. 

This includes in Canada, and through its chapter in Belgium, from which student spies sent agents to the U.K., France, Netherlands, and Germany.

The targets of infiltration were large laboratories and universities. 

One student intern in France was convicted in 2005 for “database intrusion”, spent just two months in prison, and became an instant hero.
Humorously, at least one chapter of the CSSA considers “political revolutions” to be within its mandate. 

The CSSA at Michigan Technological University has a constitution that admits its connection to the Chinese embassy, and states, “However, C.S.S.A. will not participate in any political revolutions, unless in special conditions.”
Chinese embassies finance the student organizations, including through dinners, parties and travel. 

One chapter copied embassy text to its website.

Columbia University disbanded its chapter of the CSSA in 2015. 

Its website stated one of its missions as, “facilitating the perceptions of China's peaceful rise.”
Embassies attempt to handpick officers, and in the case of the Cambridge University chapter, supported the suspension of a CSSA election to keep its favored president, Chang Feifan, in place for an additional term. 

This resulted in the university disbanding the organization until it held an election, which she lost after reportedly breaking the rules against bribery by bringing up to 100 people out to formal dinners. That was one bright moment in the history of the CSSA.
Such government intervention, propaganda and strictures on freedom of speech are contrary to the principles of academic freedom. 

In Monash, Australia, the leader of a Chinese student group had an aggressive encounter with a campus pharmacy that resulted in the removal of the Epoch Times, a newspaper run by a Chinese spiritual and dissident group, the Falun Gong. 

A lecturer was suspended because of an exam question about a common Chinese saying that Chinese officials only tell the truth when they are drunk or careless. 

Similar to the saying, in vino veritas, the question nevertheless offended Chinese students. 

Firing the instructor will cause other professors to walk on eggshells not to offend Chinese students, resulting in increasingly antiseptic instruction devoid of anything that might offend. 

That will decrease learning, and increase doldrums, for all students. 

In the case of the Dalai Lama speech, UCSD caved to the CSSA and promised an apolitical speech. 

To proscribe a topic in the speech of the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is laughable for an institution of higher learning that purports to academic freedom. 

In the case of the Maryland student, the CSSA response, in conjunction with other state responses, bordered on harassment given the power that the Chinese state has on her and her family in China. She likely apologized from a sense of duress. 

There was no “safe space” for her thoughts in Maryland despite our constitutional right to freedom of speech. 

Her sad example has a chilling effect on other Chinese students who might wish to express their true thoughts while abroad.
The manner in which the CSSA controls speech of not only Chinese students, but Chinese dissidents, professors, and even the Dalai Lama, means that CSSA erodes the richness of critical Chinese and other voices, decreasing the diversity of viewpoints available on campus.

Restrictions on freedom of speech is an issue for which all students who want diversity should demand redress. 

Legitimate student-led organizations should oppose state-influenced organizations like the CSSA not because it is Chinese, but because it represses free thought and does not, because it may not, represent the diversity of Chinese perspectives. 

If a Chinese student organization does not represent the full diversity of Chinese perspectives, it is not simply Chinese, it is more particular. 

In this case, its messaging represents the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). 

There is a big difference between China and the party. 

Not labeling the CSSA for what it is, is not truth in advertising.

The fifth column: Local Chinese Americans greet the Chinese Navy vessels in San Diego on December 6, 2016 during Chinese Navy four day visit to California. 

These authoritarian and ultimately coercive organizations should be banned or curtailed by not only university rules, which are likely to be lax due to revenues from full tuition paid by Chinese students, but by law, in order to protect the freedoms of our democracies, the academic independence of our universities, and the personal freedom of Chinese students studying abroad. 

Protecting these freedoms is a protection for hundreds of thousands of Chinese students, including 329,000 Chinese students who study in the U.S., and 150,000 in Australia.
If Chinese students in our democracies do not feel free to speak their minds, they are akin to second-class citizens. 

That is an ethical corruption of diversity, and of our egalitarian and democratic principles. 

Whatever the Chinese Embassy tells the students in the CSSA to say about their organization, they are better off without it. 

Ask one privately over a large bottle of beer or three. 

And, don’t believe the CCP hype.

Chinese Fifth Column

The new Red Guards: China's angry student patriots
By Carrie Gracie

Ms Yang said the air in the US was "sweet and fresh"

Half a century ago millions of Chairman Mao's Red Guards gathered in rallies in Tiananmen Square to chant slogans and wave their red books of his quotations in a show of loyalty to the ideas of the "Great Helmsman".
The 21st Century successors to the Red Guards are not a physical presence. 

After the chaos of the Cultural Revolution and the tragedy of the Beijing massacre in 1989, young people are not allowed to demonstrate in China.
But some now hound their enemies online. 

The underlying rage is reminiscent. 

The instinct for intimidation is the same. 

Despite all its strengths and all its engagement with the world, China is once again prey to political groupthink and fear.
The latest trigger is a speech by a Chinese student at an American campus. 

On 21 May, at an official event, Shuping Yang praised the fresh air and freedom of speech she had found at the University of Maryland.
The video clip of her speech quickly went viral and triggered an outpouring of anger from fellow Chinese students in the US and critics at home. 

Shuping Yang swiftly apologised.

But that was not enough to stop the flood of "I am proud of China" posts accusing her of lies and deception, or the online "human flesh searches" to dig up incriminating information about her and her family.
Of course there are also some reasons to be proud of China.

The Red Guard was Mao Zedong's ideological youth movement to "purify" the Communist Party

But being proud of China does not mean denying another Chinese citizen the right to an opinion. 

The irony is that the very backlash against her has only served to make her point about the want of freedom of speech in her homeland. 

It has also highlighted a conflict between a commitment to free speech in Western countries that host large communities of Chinese students and the paranoid determination of the Chinese government that free speech should be limited when it comes to talking about China, even beyond Chinese borders.
Freedom of speech is any society's feedback loop. 

It means precisely the freedom to say what is different or what may even offend. 

Of course, different societies have a different view on how much of this is appropriate. 

But China's freedom of speech goes no further than parroting the leader and attacking those who dare to speak from a different script.

Shuping Yang praised the fresh air and freedom of speech she had found at the University of Maryland.

Which brings us to Xi Jinping and his style of leadership. 

Xi's power comes from being leader of the Communist Party and since taking up that role five years ago, he has collapsed the distinction between party and government and dramatically shrunk the space for freedom of speech.
All public debate, whether in the media, academia, the legal profession or online, is a shadow of what it was in 2012. 

It is now off-limits to discuss universal values and liberal democracy. 

Instead China must loudly unite around the leadership of the Communist Party and "tell China's story confidently".

In Xi Jinping's first five-year term, China has become the world's second-largest economy and an increasingly powerful military power. 

But when Xi urges journalists, think-tanks and diplomats to "tell China's story confidently" he does not mean tell it how you like and with your own nuance. 

Students abroad are a particularly important voice in this chorus. 

It is stated Chinese government policy to "assemble the broad numbers of students abroad as a positive patriotic energy".
And so when the University of California San Diego announced that it would host a speech by Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama next month, the local Chinese Students and Scholars Association consulted with diplomats and threatened "tough measures to resolutely resist the school's unreasonable behaviour". 

At Durham University in the UK, the Chinese Students and Scholars Association, again with the support of the Chinese embassy, attempted to bar from a debate a critic of China's religious policies and human rights record.

The Dalai Lama frequently gives speeches at universities around the world

This week's mobilisation against Shuping Yang, complete with commentaries in leading state media, is part of this drive for "positive patriotic energy".
All of which causes some bafflement on the campuses concerned. 

Students from countries with a tradition of free speech may feel irritation with someone who criticises their homeland in a public speech, but their instinct is usually to shrug it off or make a joke. 

Likewise when Chinese state media deploy students from Western countries praising China and its policies, such individuals do not become hate figures for outraged student associations or national newspapers.

Years after the real events, China saw Cultural Revolution-themed restaurant

That's because liberal societies take differences of opinion for granted. 

In the US, in Europe and in Australia, citizens regularly excoriate their own governments and praise other countries in the media, and on satirical TV and radio shows. 

They also mount protests against their leaders.
It is vital to Beijing that these habits should not rub off. 

So in Xi's era the numbers of Chinese students studying abroad is going up but their tolerance of diverging views on China is going down.
In one respect, this is puzzling. 

At great expense, young Chinese have chosen to move from the confines of China's tightly-controlled education system to the "fresh air" of campuses which cherish tolerance and which offer all the tools to explore a range of different narratives of their own place in the world through reading and debate. But it is not so puzzling if you factor in these students' prior ideological education, the pressure on them to perform academically, and the ever-present and watchful eye of the Chinese state.

Tension is likely to grow between the liberal values of Western campuses and the "positive patriotic energy" of the growing numbers of Chinese students on these campuses. 

But the very strength of the reaction to Shuping Yang's freedom speech ensures that her words will continue to echo.
After all, it's not just Western culture which honours a loyal opposition. 

It is firmly entrenched in the historical memory of China too. 

Respect resonates down through the centuries for officials and soldiers in the imperial and the more recent Communist era who braved banishment or death for daring to speak truth to power.

Remember that in all great civilisations, the patriots whose memories endure are often those who love their country enough to point out its flaws.

Chinese Paranoia

Why China is so afraid of Chinese students in the United States

By John Pomfret 

Video of Yang Shuping's commencement speech at the University of Maryland, May 21, sparked criticism in China, prompting Shuping to issue an apology. (University of Maryland)
In 1944, amidst a crackdown on liberal dissent at home, the government of China launched a program to ensure the ideological purity of Chinese students studying in the United States. 

The government ordered that all students planning to go to the United States be first checked for political reliability and authorized Chinese officials in the United States to monitor the students and report back to China on their thoughts.
In the spring of 1944, American reporters got wind of the story, and the outcry was swift. 

The New York Times editorialized that the program appeared “totalitarian.” 

When a Chinese government spokesman defended the program, he only made matters worse. 

The Chinese government was not indoctrinating its people, he claimed — it was just teaching them table manners. 

The U.S. press howled in disbelief.
Here we are 73 years later, and it seems that not much has changed. 

Recent events involving Chinese students in the United States highlight that American ideas remain a source of anxiety to authorities in China. 

While China has obviously changed governments since World War II, free speech in the United States continues to be viewed with alarm by those in charge back home.

On Sunday, one Chinese student, Yang Shuping, spoke at the graduation ceremonies at the University of Maryland. 

A double major in psychology and theater with a minor in German, Yang did publicly what many Chinese students I’ve met in the United States have done privately: She praised America’s clean air and America’s freedoms. 

The United States may not be as exciting as China, but what it lacks in buzz in makes up for in liberty.
“The moment I inhaled and exhaled outside the airport, I felt free,” Yang told the crowd, which interrupted her speech with applause. 

“I have learned the right to freely express oneself is sacred in America,” she continued. 

“I could challenge a statement made by instructors. I could even rate my professors online.” 

For her, seeing a play on campus about the 1992 riots in Los Angeles was a turning point. 

In it, she recalled, the actors spoke openly about racism, sexism and political issues. 

“I was shocked. I never thought such topics could be discussed openly,” she said.
Yang’s observations touched off a firestorm in China and even in the United States. 

More than 50 million people viewed her speech online. 

Chinese students associated with the government-backed Chinese Student and Scholar Association accused her of not loving China. 

More significantly, the People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, called her speech “biased” and quoted one observer as telling Yang: “What you gave is not free speech, but rumor-mongering and currying favor.”
Yang’s speech follows other attempts by Chinese-government backed organizations to push an agenda among Chinese students in the United States. 

In March, the Chinese Student and Scholar Association also criticized the University of California at San Diego’s decision to invite the Dalai Lama, the exiled leader of Tibet, to speak at its commencement ceremony, threatening “tough measures to resolutely resist the school’s unreasonable behavior.”
The fact that the apex of China’s media — or other Chinese-government organizations – should concern themselves with the opinions of one of the 350,000 Chinese students studying in the United States or the invitation list for commencement speakers at a California university speaks to a deep-seated fear in China of American ideas. 

While there’s a lot of talk these days about China’s irresistible rise and the United States’ unstoppable fall, China’s government remains paranoid about the pull of American ideology on its people. 

Indeed, the past few years in China have seen an intensification of a crackdown on this ideology. Spooked in part by the “color revolutions” in the Middle East, the government is seeking to repress “Western thought” on college campuses and purge “Western thought” from college textbooks. 

“Historical nihilism,” code for anything critical of the Chinese Communist Party, has been banned, as has any praise of constitutional democracy or an independent judiciary. 

Chinese organizations that receive foreign funding, particularly nongovernmental ones, face increasing scrutiny as well.
To me, the interesting part of this story is how much it resonates in history, even farther back than World War II. 

China’s first diplomatic mission to the West set sail in 1872 and involved an educational mission to send boys to Hartford, Conn., to study military science, after which the graduates were expected to return home to help China fight against the depredations of imperialists from Europe and Japan. 

The problem, however, was that the boys soon became Americanized, shedding their Confucian robes for jackets and ties and cutting off their pigtails so that they could play baseball. 

Some even found Christianity. 

China’s mandarins accused the boys of becoming “foreign ghosts” and shut the mission down. 

In 1881, the New York Times bemoaned the end of the mission and predicted that “China cannot borrow our learning, our science, and our material forms of industry without importing with them the virus of political rebellion.” 

More than a century later, China is still trying to prove that it can.

Chinese student abused for praising 'fresh air of free speech' in US

Nationalists in China seize on remarks by Yang Shuping, accusing her of ‘demonising’ it in backlash fuelled by state-run media
By Tom Phillips in Beijing

Yang Shuping was speaking at her graduation from Maryland University. She moved to the US from China five years ago. 

A Chinese student has faced abuse from nationalists in China after she used her graduation address at a US university to celebrate “the fresh air of free speech”.
Yang Shuping, a psychology and theatre graduate from Yunnan province, came to study at the University of Maryland five years ago, as a dramatic clampdown on civil society and academia began back home under Xi Jinping.
During the speech at her graduation ceremony on Sunday, Yang recalled her delight at the US’s cleaner skies, saying “every breath was a delight”, and having the freedom to speak out.
“I have learned [that] the right to freely express oneself is sacred in America … I could even rate my professors online,” she said. 

“My voice matters. Your voice matters. Our voices matter.”
In her eight-minute address, Yang said she had been inspired to see her American classmates vote and take part in political protests. 

Another inspiration was a performance of an Anna Deavere Smith play about the 1992 LA riots, in which racism, sexism and politics took centre stage.

“I was shocked, I never thought such topics could be discussed openly … I have always had a burning desire to tell these kinds of stories, but I was convinced that only authorities owned the narrative, only authorities could define the truth,” she said.
“Freedom is oxygen. Freedom is passion. Freedom is love. As the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once said: ‘Freedom is a choice’.”
In one-party China, where there has been an intensifying offensive against free speech since Xi took power, the comments proved extremely contentious.
After a video of her speech was posted online by a Communist party newspaper on Monday and went viral, the backlash began.
Some attacked Yang, who is from Kunming, one of China’s least polluted cities, for depicting it as smog choked, even though her comments on China’s air quality appeared to be largely a political metaphor, not a reference to the environment.
In a social media post, Kunming’s government defended its “fresh and sweet” air and said the city was spring-like throughout the year.
Others accused Yang of denigrating China in online posts. 

“She has demonised China with the nonsense she has talked,” one person wrote.
Another said: “She has an incredible ability to lick feet. Don’t worry about coming back to China. Our motherland doesn’t need a bitch like this.”
A third called on internet users to dig up dirt on her family through a type of online campaign known in China as a “human flesh hunt”.
“Studying in the US costs a lot of money, so where is it coming from? She must come from a rich family. What on earth does her family do?” they asked.
State-run newspapers fanned the flames of the controversy. 

The party-controlled, nationalist Global Times quoted an anonymous student as saying that publicly talking about free speech was “immature and mean”. 

The student accused Yang of spreading “radical opinions”.
The People’s Daily, another Communist party-run newspaper, accused Yang of “bolstering negative Chinese stereotypes”.
A second student, who also declined to give their real name, was quoted as saying: “What you gave is not free speech, but rumour mongering and favour currying … Your freedom cannot stand, either factually or morally.”
The University of Maryland stood by Yang, describing her as a “top student”.
“The university proudly supports Shuping’s right to share her views and her unique perspectives, and we commend her on lending her voice on this joyous occasion,” it said.

A Chinese student’s commencement speech praising “fresh air” and democracy is riling China’s internet

Yang Shuping's time at the University of Maryland allowed her to enjoy the “fresh air of free speech.”

By Josh Horwitz

Yang Shuping's breath of fresh air. 

Every year in May a handful of commencement speeches will go viral, usually for the speaker’s sense of humor or ability to inspire.

But one graduation speech from this year is going viral in China for a different reason – it’s politically incorrect.
On May 21, Shuping Yang, a graduating senior at the University of Maryland, appeared at her school’s commencement ceremony to give an address. 

In her speech, Yang said that she once had five face masks in China due to the air pollution. 

Upon coming to the United States, she experienced “fresh air.”
People often ask me: Why did you come to the University of Maryland? 

I always answer: Fresh air. 

Five years ago, as I step off the plane from China, and left the terminal at Dallas Airport. 

I was ready to put on one of my five face masks, but when I took my first breaths of American air. 

I put my mask away. 

The air was so sweet and fresh, and utterly luxurious. 

I was surprised by this. 

I grew up in a city in China, where I had to wear a face mask every time I went outside, otherwise, I might get sick. 

However, the moment I inhaled and exhaled outside the airport, I felt free.
Yang went on to discuss how her time at the University of Maryland allowed her to enjoy the “fresh air of free speech.” 

A double-major in theater and psychology, she cited her attendance of a school production of the Anna Deveare-Smith play Twilight, which centers around the race riots in Los Angeles in 1992, as a formative experience.
“I have always had a burning desire to tell these kinds of stories, but I was convinced that only authorities on the narrative, only authorities could define the truth. However, the opportunity to immerse myself in the diverse community at the University of Maryland exposed me to various, many different perspectives on truth,” she said. 

“Democracy and freedom are the fresh air that is worth fighting for,” she added, as her speech came to a close.
Yang’s speech circulated quickly on China’s social media outlets. 

The hashtag “Exchange student says the air in the US is sweet” trended throughout the day on May 22, with many posts linking to a critical piece (link in Chinese, registration required) published by Collegedaily.cn, a Chinese-language blog serving overseas Chinese students. 

Most of the commenters lambasted Yang for her dour portrayal of China, particularly in a public forum overseas.

“The air in our country is bad, [but] this is not the problem. She is flattering Americans by saying our country is flawed. We are Chinese, between one another we can discuss what is wrong with our country, but we still love our homeland,” wrote one commenter.

Yang has since deleted her Facebook profile, along with her personal website. 

She did not respond to Quartz’s inquiries about her speech and its reception. 

The University of Maryland released the following statement:
The University believes that to be an informed global citizen it is critical to hear different viewpoints, to embrace diversity, and demonstrate tolerance when faced with views with which we may disagree. Listening to and respectfully engaging with those whom we disagree are essential skills, both within university walls and beyond.
The University proudly supports Shuping’s right to share her views and her unique perspectives and we commend her on lending her voice on this joyous occasion.
In response to Yang’s remarks, a group of Chinese students at the University of Maryland published a video describing themselves and their hometowns in China, titled “#Proud of China UMD.”
Quartz emailed the University of Maryland branch of the pro-China Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA), a multi-chapter university organization for overseas Chinese students, but did not receive a reply.
American universities have welcomed a flood of students from China in recent years. 

Data from the Institute of International Education show 304,000 Chinese students attended university in the US during the 2014-2015 academic year, marking a five-fold increase from a decade prior.
Yang’s speech marks the most recent incident where Chinese students are caught in political crosshairs at overseas universities.
In February, a vandalism incident at Columbia University prompted Chinese students to make a video explaining the meaning of their Chinese names. 

Around the same time, Chinese students and alumni from the University of California, San Diego expressed disapproval of the school’s invitation of the Dalai Lama to speak at commencement. Meanwhile, at Durham University in the UK, the Chinese embassy reportedly called the school’s debate society asking it to reconsider hosting an event with Anastasia Lin, a Canadian-Chinese beauty queen and human rights activist.