America's Elite Universities Are Censoring Themselves on China

[TomSea]

America's Elite Universities Are Censoring Themselves on China

There is an epidemic of self-censorship at U.S. universities on the subject of China, one that limits debate and funnels students and academics away from topics likely to offend the Chinese Communist Party. This epidemic stems less from the hundreds of millions of dollars Chinese individuals and the Chinese Communist Party spend in U.S. universities, or the influx of students from mainland China—roughly 350,000 in the United States, up more than fivefold from a decade ago. Rather, it is that some people in American academia, too eager to please Beijing or too fearful of offending China and the Chinese people, have submitted to a sophisticated global censorship regime. This weakens not only their scholarship and integrity, but also their negotiating power with Beijing over issues such as access for research, conferences and other academic collaborations, and joint programs between American and Chinese institutions.

More than 100 interviews over the last six months with professors, students, administrators, and alumni at U.S. universities reveal a worrying prevalence of self-censorship regarding China. In a previously unreported incident, Columbia University’s Global Center in Beijing canceled several talks it feared would upset Chinese officials, according to a person familiar with the matter. Some graduate students admitted to regularly censoring themselves. “It has gotten to the point where I don’t engage with anything overly political relating to the Chinese state,” said a white graduate student at a top American university, who described her views as “middle of the road” for those studying China. “I would not willfully do anything that would endanger my ability to get a visa to China in the future,” she added. (Like many of the people I spoke to for this article, the student asked to remain anonymous, because of the real and perceived risks of openly discussing self-censorship. She also asked that I identify her race because she believes there is even less freedom for people of color and Chinese-Americans to speak openly about China.)

Sometimes the censorship is blatant, like at Columbia, or when North Carolina State University canceled a visit from the Dalai Lama in 2009. “I don’t want to say we didn’t think about whether there were implications,” said the university’s provost, Warwick Arden. “Of course you do. China is a major trading partner for North Carolina.” Or, more recently, in September 2016, when the provost of New York’s Alfred University, Rick Stephens, personally ejected the researcher Rachelle Peterson from campus for investigating Chinese government influence at the school. (Stephens, through a spokesperson, declined to comment.)

Read more at: https://newrepublic.com/article/150476/american-elite-universities-selfcensorship-china

New Republic article for the China-phobes!

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

https://www.dw.com/en/why-is-the-us-targeting-chinas-confucius-institute/a-43403188

The Confucius Institute is China's government-funded international culture and language institution. Founded in 2004, it styles itself as being similar to European culture and language institutes like Germany's Goethe Institute or Britain's British Council.

Officially, the mission of the Confucius Institute is to promote Chinese language and culture abroad through branches on university campuses that offer courses and host events.

However, Confucius institutes have been criticized as propagating an idealized version of Chinese history and culture and stifling criticism while promoting a watered-down narrative on issues that provoke international controversy — such as China's incorporation of Tibet or Taiwanese sovereignty.

Nearly 40 percent of Confucius Institutes are located in the United States. In recent months, members of the US Congress, the director of the FBI and academic advisory groups have gone so far as to accuse the Confucius Institute as being a "subversive" mechanism controlled by Beijing to slowly indoctrinate US universities with a pro-Beijing narrative.

Read more: Critics fear influence of Chinese state on Confucius Institute affiliates
https://www.dw.com/en/critics-fear-influence-of-chinese-state-on-confucius-institute-affiliates/a-15688977

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

 How China Infiltrated U.S. Classrooms

Even as they face criticism, Chinese government-run educational institutes have continued their forward march on college campuses across the United States.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/16/how-china-infiltrated-us-classrooms-216327

Last year, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte made an announcement to great fanfare: The university would soon open a branch of the Confucius Institute, the Chinese government-funded educational institutions that teach Chinese language, culture and history. The Confucius Institute would “help students be better equipped to succeed in an increasingly globalized world,” says Nancy Gutierrez, UNC Charlotte’s dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and “broaden the University’s outreach and support for language instruction and cultural opportunities in the Charlotte community,” according to a press release.

But the Confucius Institutes’ goals are a little less wholesome and edifying than they sound—and this is by the Chinese government’s own account. A 2011 speech by a standing member of the Politburo in Beijing laid out the case: “The Confucius Institute is an appealing brand for expanding our culture abroad,” Li Changchun said. “It has made an important contribution toward improving our soft power. The ‘Confucius’ brand has a natural attractiveness. Using the excuse of teaching Chinese language, everything looks reasonable and logical.”

Li, it now seems, was right to exult. More than a decade after they were created, Confucius Institutes have sprouted up at more than 500 college campuses worldwide, with more than 100 of them in the United States—including at The George Washington University, the University of Michigan and the University of Iowa. Overseen by a branch of the Chinese Ministry of Education known colloquially as Hanban, the institutes are part of a broader propaganda initiative that the Chinese government is pumping an estimated $10 billion into annually, and they have only been bolstered by growing interest in China among American college students.

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

American Universities Are Welcoming China’s Trojan Horse

A growing number of Confucius Institutes are importing Chinese censorship into U.S. campuses.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/09/american-universities-are-welcoming-chinas-trojan-horse-confucius-institutes/

China is spending an enormous amount of money trying to build goodwill overseas by building schools. By itself, that’s not unusual. Many nations send teachers abroad as a form of cultural and linguistic diplomacy: the Alliance Française for French, the Goethe-Institut for German, the Instituto Cervantes for Spanish, and the British Council for English.

China’s Confucius Institutes sound similar enough to these Western institutions. But their activities are far more pernicious. Though the Confucius Institutes present themselves as a vehicle for cultural diplomacy, it would be more accurate to think of them as a way for China to subvert American higher education. And, without greater vigilance by American universities, this is precisely what they will accomplish.

Confucius Institutes operate in a fundamentally different way than their Western counterparts. Whereas Germany, France, Spain, and Britain erect their own stand-alone institutes that offer extracurricular courses, China insists on planting its Confucius Institutes inside existing colleges and universities. China has poured plenty of money into this effort; although Confucius Institutes only started operating in 2004, China now has 513 of them worldwide, plus another 1,074 Confucius Classrooms located in primary and secondary schools. That’s far more than the Goethe-Institut’s 159 schools or even the Alliance Française’s 850 outfits. And this investment is heavily targeted at the United States, which is home to more Confucius Institutes and Classrooms than any other nation — 39 percent of the total. And Western universities, for their part, have eagerly seized on the opportunities offered by Confucius Institutes.