MCLC: censorship at China Studies meeting

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Terry Russell <Terry.Russell at umanitoba.ca>
Subject: censorship at China Studies meeting
***********************************************************

Source: Inside Higher Education (2014/08/06):
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/08/06/accounts-confucius-institute-
ordered-censorship-chinese-studies-conference

Censorship at China Studies Meeting
By Elizabeth Redden

Amid increasing concerns that Western universities may stand to compromise
their academic integrity in collaborating with the Chinese
government-funded Confucius Institutes, the reported censorship of
conference materials at the recent European Association for Chinese
Studies conference in Portugal has raised alarm
According to a detailed account
<http://www.chinesestudies.eu/index.php/432-test> posted on the EACS
website, conference materials were seized and several pages removed from
the conference program – including an advertisement for the Taiwan-based
Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, a
conference cosponsor -- after the chief executive of Confucius Institute
Headquarters, Xu Lin, objected to the contents.

Certain costs of the EACS conference – including the printing of
conference abstracts and the production of conference bags -- had been
covered by a grant from the Confucius China Studies Program
<http://english.hanban.org/node_43075.htm>, which is administered by the
Confucius Institute headquarters in Beijing (notably, the production of
the conference programs was not among those costs covered by the grant and
was paid for entirely out of members' conference fees). The application
for conference funding from the Confucius China Studies Program included a
provision stipulating that “The conference is regulated by the laws and
decrees of both China and the host country, and will not carry out any
activities which are deemed to be adverse to the social order.”

According to the EACS account, Sun Lam, a conference co-organizer and the
director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Minho, in Braga,
Portugal, one of two conference locations, sent a draft of the conference
program to the Confucius China Studies Program in early July for advance
comment and had been informed by telephone that the program was “splendid”
(Sun Lam and officials at Confucius Institute headquarters did not respond
to interview requests). However, when the Confucius Institute Headquarters
chief Xu Lin arrived at the conference the evening of July 22, she was
shown the abstracts and program and objected that “there were some
abstracts whose contents were contrary to Chinese regulations” and
“ordered her entourage from the [Confucius Institute Headquarters]
straight away to remove all the conference materials from the conference
venue and take them to the apartment of one of the Chinese teachers
employed at the Confucius Institute at the University of Minho.”  The more
than 300 conference participants who registered on July 23 did not receive
a program, unlike their approximately 100 colleagues who’d registered the
day before.

Roger Greatrex, the president of EACS and director of the Centre for East
and South-East Asian Studies at Sweden’s Lund University, said he spoke
briefly to Xu after the opening ceremony on the 23rd, at which point she
said that at least two pages would need to be removed from the conference
program. “She was quite adamant,” recalled Greatrex, who said his
understanding was that Xu was distressed by a perceived lack of parity
between the advertisements for the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation and the
Confucius China Studies Program and as a consequence wanted both
advertisements removed. Greatrex, who said that he does not know what in
particular​ in the conference abstracts Xu thought was contrary to Chinese
regulations, said that before the conversation could be concluded Xu left
for a meeting with Minho administrators (he estimated their discussion
lasted perhaps 90 seconds).

Meanwhile the abstracts and programs were not in the conference
organizers’ possession. According to the account on the EACS website
(which is signed by Greatrex) the Confucius Institute Headquarters
consented to the distribution of the conference abstracts after the
removal of the first page, on which it was stated that the volume was
produced with the support of the Confucius China Studies Program, and on
the condition that all funding be returned. The conference program --
which the Confucius Institute had no role in funding – was distributed to
conference participants on July 24th but with several pages removed: pages
15 and 16, which had information about the Confucius China Studies Program
and local restaurants; pages 19-20, which included information on speakers
and a book exhibition organized by the Taiwan National Central Library;
and pages 59-60, which included the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation
advertisement and logos of other sponsors, as well as information on
activities in the second conference location in the city of Coimbra.

When he realized that pages had been torn and knifed out, Greatrex said he
directed the printing of a full-color, double-sided reprinting of the
pages including the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation advertisement, which was
distributed to conference participants on the bus to Coimbra. He objected
to what he perceived to be Xu’s interpretation that Confucius Institute
sponsorship of the conference would mean that she “owned” the conference
materials.

“The EACS standpoint is that conference support does not result in the
'ownership' of the conference or its materials (no matter how much or
little support has been given) by any sponsor,” Greatrex wrote in a letter
of protest 
<http://www.chinesestudies.eu/index.php/433-letter-of-protest-at-interferen
ce-in-eacs-conference-in-portugal-july-2014>. “Providing support to a
conference does not give any sponsor the right to dictate parameters to
academic topics or to limit open academic presentation and discussion, on
the basis of political requirements.”

Greatrex said that this was the first year that EACS conference organizers
had obtained Confucius Institute sponsorship. By contrast, Taiwan's Chiang
Ching-kuo Foundation has a long history of sponsoring the conference and
has never, Greatrex said, interfered with conference proceedings.

The incident has been described in the Taiwanese press
<http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201407280024.aspx> as a blow to
always-tense relations between China and Taiwan, which China considers to
be its rightful territory. "The mainland should deal with Taiwan's
participation in activities on international occasions pragmatically,"
Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement published by Focus
Taiwan News Channel. "If there is no respect for each other, the
development of cross-strait relations will be seriously hurt."

Inside Higher Ed’s calls and emails to the Confucius Institute’s Beijing
headquarters requesting an interview were not returned. At one point an
official who identified herself only as "Wei" directed a reporter to call
back later in the day; when the reporter did so, the phone rang unanswered.

The events in Portugal come at a time of increasing scrutiny for the
Confucius Institute program, which in addition to providing funding for
conferences and scholarly research sponsors hundreds of centers for
Chinese language and culture instruction on university campuses around the
world. In July, the American Association of University Professorsissued a
statement 
<http://www.aaup.org/report/partnerships-foreign-governments-case-confucius
-institutes> urging colleges to cease their involvement with Confucius
Institutes or otherwise renegotiate their contracts to ensure the
university's unilateral control over all academic matters and to protect
academic freedom. Asserting that most agreements establishing Confucius
institutes feature “unacceptable concessions to the political aims and
practices of the government of China,” the AAUP statement continues,
“Specifically, North American universities permit Confucius Institutes to
advance a state agenda in the recruitment and control of academic staff,
in the choice of curriculum, and in the restriction of debate.” (Critics
have frequently noted the relative absence of Confucius Institute
programming on highly sensitive topics in China such as Taiwan, the
Tiananmen Square massacre and Tibet.)

Marshall Sahlins, one of the leading critics of the Confucius Institutes
and the Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology
Emeritus at the University of Chicago, said the incident brings to light
the Confucius Institute’s seriousness in enforcing its contractual
provisions stating that programming under its name must abide by Chinese
laws and regulations – which would, he noted, encompass a wide range of
restrictions on speech.

“Moreover they’re going to enforce them the way they do in China which is
not so much by going to court... but simply by fiat,” Sahlins said.