MCLC: US academic barred from China

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: US academic barred from China
***********************************************************

Source: The Guardian (7/7/14):
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/07/us-academic-sperling-barred-ch
ina-uighur-scholar-ilham-tohti

US academic barred from China after speaking out over detained scholar
Elliot Sperling believes his support for Uighur academic Ilham Tohti is
reason authorities ordered him to return to US
By Tania Branigan in Beijing

A US academic has been barred from entering China after speaking out in
support of detained Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti.

Elliot Sperling, a Tibetologist at Indiana University, was turned back on
arrival at Beijing airport this weekend and ordered to board a flight
returning to the US. No reason was given for the cancellation of his
90-day tourist visa, but he believes his vocal support for Tohti was
responsible. He had visited China several times in the past few years
without any problems, serving as visiting scholar at Peking University in
2011.

Several prominent China scholars have been refused visas in the past, but
it is rare to be rejected after being granted one.

"I asked why I was being sent back and the man said: 'I can't tell you,'"
said Sperling.

"I certainly have no expectation of shutting up because of it. The real
focus for me is not being kicked out, but this business of demonising
Ilham Tohti and part of that, I guess, is this isolation."

Tohti, a leading economist and outspoken critic of government policies in
north-western Xinjiang, has been detained since January and is charged
with separatism. His lawyer Li Fangping, who was not allowed to see him
until late last month, has said that the economist had been held in leg
shackles for almost three weeks and denied food. When the 44-year-old won
a US human rights award this spring, a Chinese foreign ministry
spokesperson said that he was a criminal suspect and no one should
interfere with China's judicial independence.

Sperling, who is friends with Tohti, said: "We have had quite a number of
talks and he is not an advocate of independence for Xinjiang, but a strong
critic of policies affecting culture, religion, economic marginalisation."

The US scholar added that he had thought it was possible he might face
visa problems, but had been able to visit many times despite being
outspoken on Tibetan issues.

He added: "I'm concerned about the message [this sends to other academics]
and the way it is accepted. Part of its strength is the willingness of
people to accept the dictates and certain – what I call authoritarian –
norms.

"I do think on one level the power of such moves by China exists to the
extent that we accord it power. If someone decides: 'Maybe I had better
keep quiet', they are ceding that power."

Sperling noted that his work was mostly historical and textual and that he
had tenure, meaning that an inability to visit China should not affect his
ability to keep a job, as it might for some scholars. Like many of those
who have been affected by similar controls, he suggested universities had
failed to speak out for freedoms in China, pointing to how keen many are
to attract more Chinese students.

China's foreign ministry had not responded to faxed queries about
Sperling's case at time of writing.

In 2011, it emerged that more than a dozen US academics had been prevented
from travelling to China after publishing essays in a book on Xinjiang
<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-11/china-banning-u-s-professors-elic
its-silence-from-colleges.html>, although some later obtained visas.
Several of the group, dubbed the "Xinjiang 13" by one member, suggested
that there had been a lack of support from their institutions.

Other American China scholars banned from visiting the country include
Perry Link, who smuggled a famed dissident into the US embassy during the
crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests of 1989, and
Andrew Nathan, who co-edited a book of leaked documents about the 1989
movement with Link.

• This article was amended on 8 July 2014 to correct the name of
Sperling's employer to Indiana University, not the University of Indiana.