Editor’s Note for Wednesday, March 30, 2022
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn. Today: Academia struggles to survive under China’s closing mind.
My thoughts today:
I spent the last few days in London, where I met an old friend from Beijing, who is a scholar of ethnic minority culture. He was delighted to be out of China — where all the subjects of his research live. He complained to me about the growing restrictions on his work and even harassment by state security agents. He talked of how difficult it had become for Chinese academics to do any kind of international project.
We commiserated about mutual friends in China who used to circulate jokes on their WeChat feeds but now seem only to post about their attendance at Communist Party School training courses — and, naturally — about the glorious leadership of Xí Jìnpíng 习近平.
Before I went to the UK, I talked to another friend who is a professor at a business school at a top American university. He told me that a collaborative project with Chinese colleagues that had been going for around a decade has had to shut down because the Chinese institution would not approve it this year, even if it was run only online. That’s a business school project, that was basically about how to extract the maximum value from middle managers!
So it came as no surprise to read this morning about government officials pressuring Chinese scholars to bow out of a virtual conference hosted by the Association for Asian Studies, one of the most prestigious global organizations in its field. We have details on this sad development in our top story today.
Our words of the day are cut off the country from the outside world (閉關鎖國 bìguān suǒguó) and close the country to international intercourse (閉關自守 bìguān zìshǒu).
Announcements and events
- April 14 event: U.S.-China philanthropy dialogue — Building U.S.-China climate collaboration: The role of next gen.
- German think tank MERICS is hosting its European China Talent Program in September to “gather a select group of approximately 15 European early career scholars and professionals in Berlin to discuss European China policy with senior decision makers from politics, business and civil society.” The call for applications is here.
