Western Academic Prostitution

China Bullies Western Universities Because They Let It
BY CHRISTOPHER BALDING 

Cambridge University Press’s announcement that it had removed 300 articles of the China Quarterly from its Chinese website at the request of regulators reignited the debate on academic freedom in China. 

Following massive pushback, the publisher announced that it would not censor the requested articles and even went so far as to make them available for free. 

But the incident should be a warning to Western universities, academics, and publishing houses that they must reconsider how to engage with a China intent on censoring ideas both at home and abroad.
It’s not the China Quarterly articles themselves — a ragtag bunch going back to the 1960s, which seem to have been arbitrarily chosen using keywords like “Tiananmen” and “Xinjiang” — that mattered for the hundreds of scholars who immediately protested the decision. 

It was the fact that a respected publication was bending the knee to censorship and what this represented about the broader complicity of Western organizations, universities, and academics in helping China export its academic censorship around the world.
Over the past decade, the number of Chinese students studying abroad has increased rapidly. 

In 2000, there were fewer than 50,000 students, but by 2015 more than 500,000 were heading overseas every year. 

Many Chinese students welcome the escape from an education system that values rote memorization over critical thinking and requires multiple classes, usually slept through, on communist ideology.
Western universities rushed to meet demand. 

They sent recruiters and negotiated agreements with third parties to sell Chinese students on the idea of studying abroad. 

Elite universities hurried to open campuses or sign partnership agreements with Chinese universities. Twelve universities — including Carnegie Mellon, Duke, and Johns Hopkins — have established degree-granting partnerships with Chinese universities to meet demand for their educational services.
Some critics within academia raised concerns about cooperating with China’s notoriously illiberal universities, where censorship and self-censorship is the norm. 

This has deepened since Xi Jinping took office in 2012; Chinese professors avoid giving interviews to any media even on uncontroversial topics, with one well-known Chinese professor noting, “In the last 40 years, freedom of speech for intellectuals has never been constricted as severely as it is now.” 

The crackdown on academic speech has strengthened sharply in the last few years, with Western textbooks being removed from classrooms and academics silenced. 

The central government recently has also begun to restrain online media and entertainment in order to demonstrate ideological loyalty in the lead-up to the 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress, planned for October.
Little effort is made to hide the restrictions at Chinese universities, which openly publish censorship guidelines for faculty that forbid criticizing the Chinese constitution, party leaders, and discussing religion. 

Other informal prohibitions include discussion of specific topics such as Taiwan, Tibet, and Tiananmen Square. 

According to a recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on U.S. universities in China, Chinese students respond with self-censorship, avoiding any taboo topics for fear classmates may “report on whatever the students say.”
Meanwhile, professors in Chinese universities expect to have party monitors report on how closely their lectures conform to approved ideology, and ambitious faculty who want to move into leadership roles at any university must be party members. 

Recent audits carried out by the all-powerful Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, which leads the ongoing anti-corruption campaign that has also functioned as an ideological purge, critiqued elite Chinese universities like Peking and Tsinghua, known for their relative openness to Western ideas, for weak “ideological and political work.”
Western universities’ traditional response to criticisms on China’s restrictions on free inquiry was to claim that they could help liberalize their Chinese counterparts by establishing contact with them. 

What has happened instead is that they’ve ended up importing Chinese academic censorship into their own institutions. 

Cambridge University Press censoring on behalf of Beijing is not the first time elite British universities have opted for the bottom line over principle in accepting Chinese censorship contributions.
A recent study by the U.S. National Association of Scholars found widespread evidence that the Confucius Institutes, Beijing-funded centers for “Chinese culture and language” in foreign campuses, limit what can be taught and discussed not just in their courses but throughout universities. Confucius teachers are paid by the Chinese Ministry of Education and are required to adhere to Chinese laws on speech even when teaching overseas. 

As the report noted, “Some reported an outright ban on discussing subjects that are censored in China.… [U]niversities have made improper concessions that jeopardize academic freedom and institutional autonomy.” 

Western universities are not just accepting censorship; they are signing up for it.
Western universities that have established partnerships with Chinese universities for degree-granting programs have faced similar problems. 

While publicly stating their support for academic freedom, Western universities have accepted the reality that they must impose a censorship regime to exist in China. 

The GAO report noted that one Western institution’s faculty handbook includes “language that protects academic freedom but also encourages self-censorship to prevent externally imposed discipline.”
Even foreign students now have to take propaganda classes mandated by the government.
China even has its embassies and consulates direct Chinese student groups, coordinate protests, and gather information abroad on reluctant participants. 

The University of California San Diego considered canceling a speaking engagement with the Dalai Lama after pressure by Chinese student groups that work with the Chinese government, and some universities, like North Carolina State, have even rescinded their invitations to the Tibetan leader. Many students and scholars have encountered Beijing-directed pressure and censorship at events around the world.
The latest fiasco from Cambridge University Press is a business decision. 

Cambridge University Press claimed that it risked being blocked in all of China unless it complied with the censors’ demands. 

Given China’s decision to block the articles after they were restored, the publisher’s fears were well-founded. 

But either way Cambridge University Press should have made a stand, instead of folding at the first chance. 

Worryingly, Cambridge University Press is not alone in its dereliction of duty. 

Many other well-known institutions and professors regularly acquiesce to Chinese authorities or their counterparts on a range of issues bearing on academic freedom. 

Cambridge University Press’s sudden discovery of its spine is admirable, but the publisher’s initial unwillingness to refuse the request underscores how reluctant institutions are to risk their Chinese cash cows.
Aiming for a diverse student body or announcing opposition to Donald Trump’s immigration ban is a low-cost form of opposition that helps a university establish liberal credentials at home. 

No foreign university, however, has demonstrated willingness to show the same level of opposition to demands made by the Chinese government that it would deem unacceptable at home. 

The opportunities are too big, and their principles turn out to be surprisingly pliable.
Western universities, academics, and publishing houses face a stark choice. 

If they continue to obey Beijing, they make themselves complicit in promoting censorship and human rights violations. 

If they walk away, they turn their backs on large revenue streams and potential donors.
Yet good intermediate steps can be taken in dealing with Communist Party demands to impose censorship on Chinese research abroad. 

First, university libraries should consider unsubscribing from publishing houses or journals that promote censorship by their complicity. 

Markets that do not promote censorship are ultimately much more important to Cambridge University Press than China. 

Second, professors should refuse to submit, review, or cite journals that promote censorship by complicity.
Universities need to change the entire way they think about China.
Universities selling their brand to China are much too willing to sell their principles as part of the package. 

The idea that U.S. universities in China operate with any real academic freedom is delusional; if they are to engage, they must accept that they are part of the party machinery.
Domestically, Western universities with strong privacy and freedom of speech protections should not be afraid to stand up for those values. 

Whether it is inviting a scholar to speak on Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution or the Dalai Lama, universities should not cave to insecure demands by Beijing on what is and is not acceptable discussion about China. 

Chinese students who harass teachers or fellow students over nationalistic issues, as just happened at the University of Sydney in Australia, should be censured by university authorities, not pandered to.
Additionally, Western democracies should take action against Beijing-directed intelligence efforts on university campuses and the direct running of student groups from Chinese embassies. 

If universities value freedom of thought and assembly, they will need to promote these ideals by making students feel secure that they are not being monitored and reported on in China. 

Western governments and universities, which often protest U.S. military recruitment efforts, seem much more sanguine about Beijing intelligence efforts and direction.
Finally, punitive measures by Western universities and academics need to be considered. 

Children of Chinese senior party officials who, on paper, make less than $20,000 a year are attending elite U.S. universities and enjoying the benefits while their parents rail against the dangers. 

(The usual course is to claim that a “foundation” or “sponsor” has sent them, as happened with Bo Guagua, the son of the now-fallen leader Bo Xilai. Bo Guagua was also suspended from Oxford University for his poor performance, only to find himself unusually and fortunately restored the next year, at a time when his father still seemed like a useful contact for the university.) 

These schools would be justified to at least consider a moratorium on the acceptance of the children of senior Chinese officials. 

Furthermore, academics who go to China on consulting contracts or as honored persons need to consider limiting the public kudos they give to a system that goes against the values they claim to hold dear.
The naive hope that simple interaction would yield a liberal turn in China has done nothing to stop one of the biggest crackdowns on independent voices in Chinese academia since the Cultural Revolution. 

Western universities face an actual test of their commitment to free speech, rather than the cheap rhetoric they’re keen to offer at home.

Academic Prostitution

Cambridge University Press faces boycott over China censorship

By Tom Phillips in Beijing

Cambridge University Press was urged to refuse censorship requests for not only its China Quarterly journal but also any other topics or publications. 

Cambridge University Press must reject China’s “disturbing” censorship demands or face a potential boycott of its publications, academics have warned.
In a petition published on Monday, academics from around the world denounced China’s attempts to “export its censorship on topics that do not fit its preferred narrative”.
The appeal came after it emerged that Cambridge University Press (CUP), the world’s oldest publishing house, had complied with a Chinese instruction to block online access to more than 300 politically sensitive articles from its highly respected China Quarterly journal. 

The blacklisted articles covered topics including Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen massacre and the cult of personality some claim is emerging around Xi Jinping.
The petition attacked CUP’s move and urged it “to refuse the censorship request not just for the China Quarterly but on any other topics, journals or publication that have been requested by the Chinese government”.
“If Cambridge University Press acquiesces to the demands of the Chinese government, we as academics and universities reserve the right to pursue other actions including boycotts of Cambridge University Press and related journals,” it added.
The author of the petition, Peking University economics professor Christopher Balding, said he hoped it would serve as an alert to how China had dramatically stepped up its efforts to stifle free thinking since Xi became its top leader in 2012and began a severe crackdown on academia and civil society. 

“I think this is an increasing problem that really needs to be addressed much more forcefully by the international academic community,” he said.
Balding complained that while it was fashionable for academics and publishers to attack US president Donald Trump, they were far more cautious about criticising Xi’s authoritarian regime for fear of reprisals. 

“Standing up to the Chinese government involves definite costs. It is not an easy thing to do. There will be potentially punitive measures taken against you. But if it is a principle that is right in the UK and if it is right in the US, then it should also be right in China. And there will be times when you have to accept costs associated with principles.”
Another signatory, Griffith University anthropologist David Schak, said he believed Cambridge University Press had sullied its centuries-old reputation by bowing to China’s demands. 

“Cambridge seems to be the one who is now censoring rather than China, even though they are doing it at the request of China ... They have soiled their copy book.”
Schak added: “It makes you wonder what they are in the business of doing ... I thought university presses were there to publish good research.”
“They are acceding to China whereas [they should have said]: ‘What you do, we can’t stop you from doing that but we are not going to do that ourselves.’ You put the onus entirely back on the Chinese government rather than cooperating with them.”

Suzanne Pepper, a Hong Kong-based writer whose piece on politics in the former colony was among the blocked China Quarterly articles, said she expected censorship from China’s rulers but not from CUP. 

“It makes them complicit, accomplices in the fine art of censorship, which we are all supposed to deplore,” she said.
Chinese intellectuals also lamented the attempt to limit their access to foreign research. 

“This whole case makes me feel extremely disappointed,” Li Jingrui, a Chinese novelist, wrote on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter. 

In an oblique reference to China’s one-party state, she added: “I’m left with the feeling that there is absolutely no escape since every single breath on Earth belongs to the king.”

Academic Prostitution, Harvard Style

China’s $360 million gift to Harvard
By Bill Gertz

A rower paddles down the Charles River near the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., Tuesday, March 7, 2017. 

China is providing Harvard University with $360 million that a former military intelligence analyst says appears to be part of an effort to influence one of America’s most important educational institutions.
Anders Corr, a former government analyst who specializes in foreign influence operations, stated in a letter to Vice President Mike Pence that a Chinese military-linked company, JT Capital, gave $10 million to Harvard in 2014, the same year the family of Ronnie Chan, a Hong Kong real estate mogul with ties to China, announced it is giving $350 million to the university. 

Both donations were “relatively opaque” and raise questions about the purpose of the funds, he said.
Mr. Corr, who received an international relations doctorate from Harvard in 2008, said the Chinese donations appear to be an attempt to introduce biases among the university’s professors in a bid to influence U.S. policy or public opinion in China’s favor.
“Allowing such donations does not appear to be in U.S. national security interests, and it does not appear to be necessary for Harvard’s research and teaching (it already has an endowment of $36.7 billion),” he said. 

“Perhaps there should be legislation against Chinese-linked money in U.S. politics, including think tanks and universities.”
Harvard professors also give paid speeches in China, are paid for publishing work in China and enjoy all-expenses-paid travel to China, Mr. Corr stated in his letter.
“These are all potential avenues of influence upon professors, who do not usually broadcast these pecuniary benefits as they could diminish the perception of their impartiality,” he said.
The U.S. government gave Harvard $600 million in 2016, and over the years has provided billions of dollars for research and education, he noted.
Mr. Corr then asked the vice president, who met recently with Harvard President Drew Faust, to look into whether the China-linked donations violate U.S. foreign agents’ registration laws, and whether Harvard may be providing valuable U.S. technology to China in exchange. 

The $350 million donation also should be examined by the Treasury Department-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS.
“Harvard is not unique in being a soft but influential voice on China that has a conflict of interest because of China-linked pecuniary interests,” Mr. Corr stated.
“The way in which China-linked pecuniary interests percolate through elite-level U.S. policy discussions on China on both sides of the aisle, and in supposedly bipartisan think tanks and universities, should be a concern to all U.S. citizens who depend on places like Harvard for unbiased political analysis.”
Mr. Corr said that given the substantial government support for Harvard, American taxpayers deserve greater transparency.
“Harvard is but one example, I think, of a much bigger problem of bias in U.S.-China policy analysis,” he said. 

“I hope the problem can be addressed by the enforcement of existing law, new law or at least someone with sufficient stature to improve transparency of China-linked donations and get some answers.”

A spokesman for Mr. Pence said the vice president was traveling and had no comment.

Report on China’s religious abuses
The State Department this week outlined the death, torture and abuse of religious adherents in China as part of an annual report on religious freedom.
“Throughout the country, there continued to be reports of deaths, in detention and otherwise, of religious adherents and that the government physically abused, detained, arrested, tortured, sentenced to prison, or harassed adherents of both registered and unregistered religious groups for activities related to their religious beliefs and practices,” the report states.
The report states that among China’s 1.4 billion people, there are an estimated 657 million believers — far more than the official Chinese government estimate of 200 million. 

The faith community includes 250 million Buddhists, 70 million Christians, 25 million Muslims, 301 million observers of folk religions and 10 million observers of other faiths, including Taoism. Jews number around 2,500.
China’s constitution contains a provision ensuring “freedom of religious belief” for citizens. 

But in practice religious activities are suppressed through government controls on officially approved groups and harsh repression of unofficial groups.
The report notes that members of the ruling Communist Party of China and its People’s Liberation Army “are required to be atheists” and banned from practicing any religious faith. 

“Members who are found to belong to religious organizations are subject to expulsion, although these rules are not universally enforced,” the report said.
Chinese authorities continued the practice of bulldozing unofficial “house churches.” 

The government also continued its yearslong crackdown on the Falun Gong movement, estimated to number at least 70 million. 

The group reported that dozens of its members died in Chinese detention.
“A pastor of an unregistered church and his wife were reportedly buried alive while protesting the demolition of their church; the wife died while the pastor was able to escape,” the report said.
“There were also reports of the disappearance of a Catholic priest, and the death of a rights activist for Hui Muslim minorities and others that the government said was suicide.”