
The Long Shadow of Chinese Blacklists on American Academe - teawithcarl
http://chronicle.com/blogs/worldwise/the-long-shadow-of-chinese-blacklists-on-american-academe/33359
======
firstOrder
The U.S. has secret travel bans with "ideological exclusion provisions" as
well.

Swiss scholar Tariq Ramadan's had his H1-B visa to be a professor at Notre
Dame revoked due to the Patriot Act's "ideological exclusion provision" in
2004. He was also formally denied a B visa to come and speak at universities.
He's now teaching at Oxford.

Bernadette Devlin McAliskey is a former British member of parliament. The
56-year old grandmother Bernadette Devlin McAliskey was banned from entering
the U.S. in 2003 because she was deemed a "serious threat to national
security".

Cat Stevens, also known as Yusuf Islam, was banned from entering the U.S.
2004. That's the singer of "Peace Train", "Morning Has Broken", "Wild World"
etc.

And so on. Of course, someone can make the case that the U.S. should not let
these people in, but the same case could be made that China shouldn't let
their analogous contemporaries in.

You have to wonder why when the U.S. is doing this, people complain about a
foreign country, which they have no control over, doing this. In April 2001
the U.S. rammed a Lockheed EP-3 into a Chinese plane just outside the PRC
border, killing the Chinese pilot, then landed on PRC territory without
permission. Now we have people complaining China won't allow American
commissars wishing to undermine it's power in, while of course America does
the same exact thing.

~~~
pnathan
This article is not about the US. firstOrder's comment is a example of a
"whataboutism" response[1]. While "what about the US" is a valid concern, it's
offtopic in this thread and should be placed on its own thread.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism)

~~~
djcapelis
While I agree that an argument of the form: "Well X does Y too, so Y is not
that big a deal." is fallacious and poisonous, I do think it is important to
talk about issues like this in their larger context and I feel firstOrder's
comment mostly kept on the right side of that line. (I guess I think the
context of the first paragraphs is important but the latter paragraphs verge
on something that's less about adding context and more about excusing things.)

In this discussion, it is important to have the context that many governments
engage in this behavior. Not so that it can be excused, but so that when we
discuss how to deal with it, we can do it in a way that's informed and tackles
the actual issues including the nuances of escalating bilateral cycles.

While I think it is perfectly reasonable to make a moral and ethical judgement
based on a unilateral context, but it is a mistake to examine the foreign
policy without discussing the bilateral or multilateral interactions that help
create and sustain it.

~~~
mikeash
The latter paragraphs don't "verge on" anything, they just go straight into
anti-American and pro-Chinese apologetics without even trying to pretend
otherwise.

I mean, this says it all, right here:

"In April 2001 the U.S. rammed a Lockheed EP-3 into a Chinese plane just
outside the PRC border, killing the Chinese pilot, then landed on PRC
territory without permission."

The only way you can possibly think that a four-engined turboprop can "ram" a
fighter jet is if you have a bias so large that its gravitational field
affects the orbits of nearby planets.

~~~
AnIrishDuck
More information is on Wikipedia [1]. After reading that article, it
definitely sounds like the quoted statement was created from within some kind
of reality distortion field.

To add to your original comment: the US pilot insisted that the plane was on
autopilot (and thus he was hit by the Chinese pilot, not vice versa), the
Chinese pilot had a history of flying way too close to US planes, and the US
plane "landed without permission" because it was so damaged after the event
that the crew was on the verge of bailing out.

1\.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainan_Island_incident](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainan_Island_incident)

~~~
mikeash
It's funny, it didn't occur to me that there'd be anyone who didn't already
know all about it. Not meant to be a comment on you, just me not thinking
about it enough.

Your elaboration is exactly right on all counts. And to add a bit more, even
if none of that were true, it still makes no sense for a lumbering
reconnaissance plane to "ram" a maneuverable fighter jet that intercepted it.
It would be like a container ship "ramming" a jet-ski. Even if it wanted to,
it simply can't maneuver to make it happen.

~~~
AnIrishDuck
> Not meant to be a comment on you, just me not thinking about it enough.

No slight taken. I was still in middle school when the Hainan Island incident
happened, and I figured there's a sizable young population on HN that's in the
same boat. Young kids tend not to pay as much attention to the machinations of
foreign policy.

~~~
mikeash
I figured it was probably due to age. I was in college at the time and it was
big news for quite a while, although very much in a "if you're paying
attention to the news" kind of way, not something that made people stand up
and _pay_ attention like the events that overshadowed it later that year.

------
dak1
One of the most important things we can do is intellectually insist on the
separation of the concepts of "China" and "the PRC government".

Today, usage of the word "China" is interchangeable with the words "PRC
government" both in colloquial use and in the minds of many people,
particularly in China.

This makes it nearly impossible to hold a position that opposes the actions or
positions of the PRC government without being seen as anti-China, and thus
anti-the-people-of-China-and-their-best-interests (and holds an implied
suggestion that the PRC is infallible).

Thus people, both inside and outside of China, who promote ideas like
protecting the environment, freedom of speech, protecting the rights of
landowners, or freedom of movement actually have Sinophobic ulterior motives
and/or are trying to prevent the people of China from succeeding in the world.
Viewing any differing opinion through this lens makes it nearly impossible to
have honest discussions about a whole host of issues and allows the wholesale
reduction of such arguments.

Until of course the PRC itself changes its position, at which point you should
too.

~~~
beachstartup
this is very high-minded, and logical, but i'm sorry, but in my humble opinion
the average person just doesn't have the raw intellectual horsepower to
distinguish between 'ethnically chinese' and 'the government of the prc'. the
press caters to these people, hence the ambiguation.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment)

[https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=attacks...](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=attacks+on+arab+americans&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8)

~~~
PakG1
Isn't that why it's all the more important to insist on what parent is saying?

~~~
fit2rule
Try the same trick with "Scientologists" and "The Church of Scientology" and
see if you feel like its so easy.

(Its not.)

~~~
PakG1
Scientologists subscribe to The Church of Scientology. It's a personal
decision. Citizens are born into their nation. It is not a personal decision.
Therefore, I cannot see the two as comparable. And I know lots of Chinese
people who hate their government, societal structures, etc, because of all the
problems that are inevitable from those Chinese norms. And that is
corroboration for me that it is so easy.

------
tokenadult
I'm a student of the Chinese language and of Chinese history and culture too.
I read some of the Chinese press in the original language, and, yes, heavy-
handed government censorship is much more pervasive in China since 1949 than
it has ever been in the United States. Moreover, the Chinese government does
far more to "prepare" (ideologically) and monitor its students overseas than
the United States does. (I can say without fear of contradiction, as an
American who has lived in the Chinese-speaking world, that the United States
did nothing whatever to monitor my activities overseas while I was a student.
Chinese students in the United States know better than to make the same claim
about the birth country government.) To sum up, the Chronicle of Higher
Education here is commenting on an important issue of academic freedom that
needs a lot more attention. The people-to-people exchanges of many young
Chinese students coming to the United States and quite a few United States
students, scholars, and journalists traveling to China are more effective in
developing international understanding when China lays off trying to control
the thinking of its citizens at home and aboard. I'll believe China is
comparable to the United States in this regard the day that all prior
restraint of newspapers and broadcast news channels is lifted, and when the
ruling party of China faces free and fair elections at regular intervals (as
has happened in Taiwan for about two decades now).

------
supportvector
It's very sad to see that the Academic Freedom is compromised so much, whereas
China itself is benefiting from it on a daily basis (think about number of
Chinese students who are benefiting from higher education in US institutions
which founded on the very basic idea of academic freedom). Moreover, the
tenure committee should consider issues like this when they evaluating
someone's work.

On the other hand, some other scholars were "smart" enough to steer their
voice to a more positive direction. For example, articles such as "How
Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective
Expression" (published on American Political Science Review) is something PRC
prefer than a honest criticism.

------
notahacker
How pervasive are these blacklists, exactly? I took International Relations
classes with a lecturer whose specialist field of interest is China, and his
writing on the subject of China's attitude towards human rights, the
resistance to democratic reform and a full-length book on Mao doesn't seem to
have stopped him from being able to get a visa, or even from briefly living in
China and affiliating himself to a Chinese university.

Is it possible the _self_ -censorship is not only worse than actual attempts
to censor _Western_ scholars, but would be a potential issue for academics
serious about studying China even if China had a completely free press due to
fear of offending cultural sensibilities? What's the standard of academic
discourse on the Rape of Nanking for scholars with aspirations to study in
Japanese institutions like?

~~~
jpatokal
China can censor scholars publishing in China, but it cannot directly censor
scholars publishing outside. Hence the phenomenon in this article: visa bans
and other methods of pressure that aim at getting scholars to censor
themselves.

And re: Japan, I'm not aware of Japanese authorities denying visas to
academics on the basis of their beliefs. There's no comparable issue here
anyway: Japanese textbooks do cover Japanese war crimes in detail, with
denialists a marginal fringe, while denial of the Tiananmen massacre (etc) is
official PRC state policy.

~~~
e12e
> Japanese textbooks do cover Japanese war crimes in detail, with denialists a
> marginal fringe

While I agree that denialists might be marginal, I wasn't aware that textbooks
cover war crimes "in detail"? My only personal experience is as an exchange
student to Fukuoka in 96-97 -- and there certainly wasn't much "detailed"
coverage of Japanese war crimes in second year of high school as I recall.

But that's a few years ago now, maybe the curriculum has been updated?

~~~
jpatokal
Well, that's going to depend on how much detail you expected: Japan has
several thousand years of history and a dozen years to teach it all to each
child, with 50+ approved textbooks to choose from.

------
wenwwyccc
I wonder has the author ever researched on how the U.S give out VISA? or the
millions of ways to get on the blacklist of US? For example, mentioning you
want to pursue a career in U.S after graduating from a U.S university will
cause your visa to be denied. Now that's a lot to talk about.

~~~
JabavuAdams
The VISAs aren't really the point. The point is that researchers outside of
China are censoring themselves in order to retain access to their object of
study. This has a wider chilling effect.

~~~
polskibus
They are different, but at the same time both visas and censorship are a
matter od policy and politics. One could argue that both are damaging country
reputation to some extent.

------
ChrisNorstrom
This feels like the next cold war. The new guy vs the established old man.
Both want power and dominance. No nukes this time, that's silly. This time,
it's knowledge, technology, patents, designs, and trade secrets.

------
nl
I'm slightly disappointed about the level of discourse here about this. Visa
issues are a side show - the real story is about the self censorship people
are subjecting themselves to.

The important idea that Perry Link suggests is that US Universities should
deliberately push at the very limits of Chinese censorship within China, so
that academics will feel free to discuss thing within those boundaries.

It's quite a clever way of trying to avoid the self-censorship trap, which -
as the author points out - is probably more dangerous than the actual
censorship itself.

~~~
westiseast
Welcome to the general level of internet discourse about China. Pretty much
any internet debate about the Middle Kingdom tends to dissolve into:

* But look at the US * err... and that's it.

~~~
pnathan
I don't believe that's coincidental:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party)

------
chaostheory
There's an inconvenient "solution". Start changing your full name to a very
common one like John Smith or whatever is an extremely common combination.
This probably has other uses as well. The passing test is whether or not
someone can google you returning hundreds or ideally thousands of results.

~~~
cinquemb
This will only last as long as "searching" remains a purely textual
experience. Just wait until searching for people by uploading a photo becomes
more prevalent; I can see people advocating for those to undergo facial
reconstruction surgery.

------
vorg
We can rewrite large portions of the article to illustrate how citizens in
Western countries self-censor to ensure they can always get a job...

I do not know why I am barred from being employed at a job. There are many
possible reasons; I speak and blog often in support of labor rights in
businesses and in criticism of various employers. But no recruiter or HR
person will say exactly where or when I crossed a line. Giving clear
punishment for unclear reasons will cause any person, whether directly
involved or merely an observer, to be cautious and to censor what one says on
financially sensitive topics. Businesses in the West have used this technique
on their own workers for decades.

