The Times - UK (2020-10-17)

34 1GM Saturday October 17 2020 | the times

Comment

Cambridge University, refers to the democratic and

sovereign country by Beijing’s preferred term:

“Taiwan, Province of China”. Birdlife, a Cambridge-

based conservation organisation, cancelled a

partnership with a Taiwanese counterpart in

deference to mainland sensitivities about terminology.

Such pressure aims to marginalise and demoralise the

“other China”, which the mainland regime regards as a

rebel province, not an independent country.

Other self-censorship has a direct impact. “A

considerable portion of academics will say, ‘I can’t be

bothered, I don’t want to pick a fight with the CCP’,”

says Professor Fulda. Profit-minded publishers weed

out China-critical content from academic journals.

Chinese students shun course modules that include

sensitive material, or write their assignments in a way

that will not get them into trouble at home.

British academics look with alarm at developments

in other countries. Kaz Ross, of the University of

Tasmania, runs what she calls a “politics-lite” course

for students based in mainland China and Hong

Kong, with a different reading list and syllabus.

She puts their safety first, she explains. A

lecturer at the University of Auckland warned

students not to bring up topics such as

“Tiananmen Square; Uighur concentration

camps; Hong Kong democracy; Taiwan;

Tibet; Falun Gong; criticism of Xi Jinping”

because doing so might endanger students

from China and Hong Kong.

An expert on Chinese influence

operations, Anne-Marie Brady of the

University of Canterbury in New Zealand,

has been silenced for what its vice-

chancellor claimed were errors and

“misleading inferences” in her evidence to

a parliamentary inquiry on Chinese

interference. The university has given no

details. Her lawyer, Stephen Franks, says

the ban on her speaking to the press,

ostensibly to protect privacy, is “spurious”,

adding that disputes should be resolved by

argument, not disciplinary proceedings.

Whereas Chinese rules increasingly apply

The Communist Party’s malign influence on students

and syllabuses has been ignored, says Edward Lucas

weekend essay

Our universities

have sacrificed

academic liberty

for Chinese cash

Cambridge University has

promised to investigate

outside interference on its

students. Right, a protest

at Exeter University over

the treatment of Hong

Kong by Xi Jinping, below

contracts and the need to attract students and staff are

big vulnerabilities. Another is overseas campuses:

Leeds, Liverpool, Nottingham and Birmingham City

universities all have offshoots in China. Even the

ability to conduct fieldwork — vital for academic

careers — is exploited for influence.

Only now is Britain waking up to longstanding

worries about Chinese pressure. The American

academic Perry Link wrote a notable article in the

New York Review of Books in 2002, likening the foreign

shadow of Chinese censorship to “a giant anaconda

coiled in an overhead chandelier. Normally the great

snake doesn’t move. It doesn’t have to.”

The first response in Britain and other countries was

to restrict Chinese researchers’ access to sensitive fields

such as materials science, quantum computing and

artificial intelligence. Now concerns over academic

freedom have sharpened. Article 38 of Hong Kong’s

national security law contains sweeping extraterritorial

provisions, which potentially criminalise criticism of

the Chinese system by anyone, anywhere. Any teacher

or student visiting Hong Kong or China, or countries

such as Thailand with a record of extraditing people at

Beijing’s behest, risks arrest on the basis of their

remarks or research, critics say. A spokesman for the

Chinese embassy in London disagreed. He said: “China

has no ambition to dominate the world [and] respects

academic freedom. We have never exerted any political

influence on normal academic activities in British

universities. The abuse of freedom of expression by

certain forces to spread fallacies, deceive the public

and instigate division and turmoil for the purpose of

destabilising China will be met with firm and strong

opposition from the Chinese people.”

More than 100 academics have published an

open letter criticising the national security law.

The Chinese party-state, it warns, is

“weaponising students to monitor their

university instructors”. One of the letter’s

instigators is Professor Fulda, author of

The Struggle for Democracy in Mainland

China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. After its

publication he accepted that he would no

longer be able to go to Hong Kong or China. “I knew

that this was the price I had to pay,” he says. But the

new law is a “gamechanger”, he says, in stoking self-

censorship.

The danger areas go far beyond the obvious subjects

such as history and politics. The scientific theory that

mankind’s origins lie in Africa, though widely accepted

abroad, is fiercely contested in China. It clashes with

the deeply held racial-nationalist belief that the Han

Chinese are descended from the folkloric “Yellow

Emperor”, with corresponding and unique physical,

mental, intellectual and even moral traits.

China pays minute attention to issues that many in

Britain would regard as a detail, such as the

designation of beleaguered Taiwan. Under Chinese

pressure, the International English Language Testing

System, part-owned by the British Council and

‘I

t is too late,” said the 21-year-old student at one

of London’s best-known colleges, misery etched

on his face. “This university has already gone

red.” He was talking to the mother of his oldest

friend, explaining that he must break off contact.

As political refugees from China, she and her family

were criminals in the eyes of the regime. Associating

with them would endanger him and his family back in

China. There could be no exceptions, he explained.

His mobile phone (using a mandatory Chinese

number) was monitored and spies, embedded in the

student body and elsewhere, were watching. They

would notice if he even left the campus.

Britain is a free country. But for Chinese students

here, life is little different to the dictatorship at home.

Speaking out is dangerous; even seeking asylum risks

retribution against loved ones back home. Members of

the Uighur Muslim minority are particularly

vulnerable: if they step out of line their families can be

consigned to torture and forced labour in the regime’s

infamous network of re-education camps.

One goal of this control system is to enlist Chinese

overseas in espionage, particularly the theft of

technological and other secrets. Another is to curb

criticism of the Chinese Communist Party. Ulysses

Chow, studying at Cambridge, was one of many pro-

democracy students from Hong Kong to find their

inboxes flooded with abuse and mischief. Students say

they are marshalled into counterdemonstrations to

shout down those protesting against the regime’s

repressive policies, even though they privately agree

with the protesters. The Chinese embassy in London

summoned the student quoted above, who asks that

his name not be used, and told him to write an article

rebutting criticism of China’s human rights abuses.

Even non-Chinese who dare to criticise the

Communist Party face harassment. They often receive

little support from the British universities. A flurry of

forged emails earlier this year targeted leading critics

of the regime. Andreas Fulda, an outspoken politics

professor at Nottingham University, was surprised to

learn that he had quit his post — the resignation letter

had been sent from an email account opened in his

name. Later he received a death threat.

Behind what the Commons foreign affairs

committee last year called an “alarming” pattern of

Chinese meddling is hard political goals. One is that

discussion of China, anywhere in the world, is a

potential threat to the regime’s legitimacy and must be

controlled. Hollywood, hugely dependent on the

Chinese market, has not made a film critical of China

since 1997. Our universities are heading the same way.

The fundamental problem is that western cultural

institutions are encouraged to be entrepreneurial —

competing for customers, sponsors and partners — at

home and overseas. Little stops them doing deals with

authoritarian states. Though few in the West spot this

hole in our system, the Chinese regime does. It uses its

colossal commercial and financial muscle to exploit it.

For universities, the search for grants and research