Academics banned from China

Many academics who work on Southeast Asia have a natural interest in the problems that can emerge for those who fall foul of the region’s governments. Scholars working on a range of countries, including Indonesia, Thailand and Burma, have faced significant challenges on occasions when their work rubs up against countervailing political priorities. Readers of New Mandala know some of these stories only too well.

With Southeast Asian matters in mind I was interested to read that a group of 13 academics (all contributors to the pictured edited volume) were banned from traveling to China because of their scholarly work on the troubled western province of Xinjiang. Bloomberg is carrying a long article on this fascinating topic. It includes much of potential relevance to students and scholars of Southeast Asia. The comments from Gardner Bovingdon right at the end of the article are particularly worthy of consideration.

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john francis lee

19 August 2011 at 12:24 am

U.S. universities should fight for professors blacklisted by China, said Columbia President Lee Bollinger. He’s discussed Nathan’s situation with Chinese officials, who promised to “think about it,” he said…

Miami established a Confucius Institute in 2007. The Hanban supplied $100,000 in start-up funds, 3,000 volumes of books, audio-visual and multimedia materials, and one or two language instructors for whom it pays salaries and expenses, according to a contract obtained by Bloomberg News through a public records request. The Hanban has provided a total of $924,785 for the institute through April 2011, according to Robin Parker, the university’s general counsel…

The Chinese government, along with philanthropy and tuition, will pay for the New York University campus slated to open in Shanghai in 2013, the school’s president, John Sexton, said.

US Universities are US Corporations in the ‘Education’ Bidness. NYU has sold a franchise operation in China, while Miami has opened a Chinese franchise in Florida. ‘Scholars’ work for their bosses and do as they’re told. Just like welders, or ‘journalists’.

Xinjiang had attracted little academic attention until the New York-based Henry Luce Foundation approved a $330,000 grant to the School of Advanced International Studies, or SAIS, at Johns Hopkins in 2000, said former foundation Vice President Terry Lautz.

S. Frederick Starr, the volume’s editor, chairs the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at SAIS, which is based in Washington. Not a Sinologist himself, Starr advised Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush on Soviet affairs. With Rudelson, deputy director of the institute from 1999-2001, Starr recruited the book’s 15 co-authors: 13 Americans, one Israeli, and one Uighur.

Contributors were paid $3,000 apiece, Rudelson said. Each tackled a different aspect of Xinjiang history and society, from the province’s economy, ecology, education and public health to Islamic identity and the Chinese military presence. Starr and 11 authors were interviewed by phone for this article.

Sounds like the SAIS set these guys up. Madeleine K. Albright, Eliot A. Cohen, William Sebastian Cohen, Francis Fukuyama, Gary J. Schmitt, Paul Dundes Wolfowitz, David Wurmser… these neo-cons are the type of ‘scholars’ you get at the SAIS.

13 * 3,000 puts 330,000 – 39,000 in S. Frederick Starr’s pocket, doesn’t it?

In an introduction to the Chinese translation, Pan Zhiping, a researcher at the academy, portrayed “Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderland” as a U.S. government mouthpiece. In an introduction to the Chinese translation, Pan Zhiping, a researcher at the academy, portrayed “Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderland” as a U.S. government mouthpiece.

Well… it’s not really inaccurate to portray SAIS as a US government mouthpiece.

Featuring “a hodgepodge of scholars, scholars in preparation, phony scholars, and shameless fabricators of political rumor,” the book by the Xinjiang 13 “provides a theoretical basis for” America “one day taking action to dismember China and separate Xinjiang,” Pan wrote.

Not addressing the qualifications of the 13, China’s fantasies about US aims are not wholly unjustified. The neo-cons are ready, willing…. and able?.. to spend America’s last dime on their wars… and China!.. real men foment color-revolutions in China! after they’ve conquered Tehran.

“My understanding of what they’ve done is essentially self- criticism, which is the order of the day in China for years: ‘Yes, I regret what I did,’” he said. “I would not have considered that a palatable way to go back.”

Good for Gardner Bovington. Leaves one with less than a totally unclean feeling after reading this article on American universities… in a business rag, where it belongs, I suppose.

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Shane Tarr

21 August 2011 at 10:39 pm

Am I missing something here? Academics doing what they are told just like welders or journalists. Be that as it may welders and journalists generally get paid more than academics. Perhaps this reflects the perceived usefulness of such occupational groups to paymasters and paymistresses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Huw Slater

26 August 2011 at 6:55 pm

Here is an interesting response to the Bloomberg article:
http://www.thechinabeat.org/?p=3746

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Academics banned from China

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