Student Union
Chinese Students Say Free Speech in US Chilled by China
Although Beijing is thousands of miles away, some Chinese students and China-studies professors in the U.S. say they fear the Communist Party is reaching into their classrooms.
Interviewed at a half-dozen U.S. universities, students from the People's Republic of China (PRC) reported self-censoring in class on topics deemed sensitive by the Communist Party -- such as the massive protests in Hong Kong and the status of Taiwan..
"I wouldn't feel safe to speak publicly or under recording," said a PRC graduate student at Georgetown University in Washington.
Chinese students said they were concerned about being watched by fellow Chinese students. One student said he feared it would negatively impact his family back in China, his future, and his visa.
"For me, I will go back to China and get a job," the student said. "Maybe, I will work for a government corporation. So, if I say something sensitive about Hong Kong, I worry that the Chinese government will know something about my opinion and that will influence my work or my future in China."
The PRC embassy in Washington did not return VOA's request for comment.
Students interviewed for this story said they feared retribution from the Chinese government if they were identified.
"In China, we don't want to talk about the government too much," said one University of Maryland student. "I send Twitter news to my friends in China but later delete the information from my phone, because I am afraid that when I get back to China, they will search my phone."
The student noted that his political-science undergraduate research is hindered by his discomfort speaking on certain class topics: mass protests in Hong Kong, the independent status of Tibet and Taiwan and recognition of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader.
The Wilson Center, a bipartisan think tank in Washington, reported in 2017 that a small community of PRC students and diplomats have engaged in intimidation tactics ranging from intelligence gathering to financial retaliation. "A Preliminary Study of PRC Political Influence and Interference Activities in American Higher Education" examines PRC influence in American universities.
Western college professors say they, too, feel Chinese intelligence gathering in their classrooms.
"There have been a couple times where I have had these older gentlemen from the PRC show up in my classroom unannounced and claim they were visiting and who wanted to sit in on my class," said Crystal Chang-Cohen, who teaches political science at University of California-Berkeley. "But they could not produce any ID so I said no."
Professors who research Chinese politics and history said they suspect they are monitored by PRC intelligence officials. One instructor said Chinese who attend his class who appear older than a typical student are asked to leave if they decline to produce student identification.
A University of Maryland history professor said he, too, occasionally sees classroom visitors he does not recognize. He said he suspects they are gathering intelligence.
"I think it is a concern that we have organizations on campus that have significant ties to the Chinese government, and are used to monitor the behavior of my PRC students," said a government and politics professor at the University of Maryland. Classroom discussions "are typically dealing with PRC sensitive issues, for example, history or political science," the professor said.
Almost all of the college instructors and professors interviewed by VOA asked to remain unnamed out of fear their American universities would not support them if the Chinese government protested their comments, they said.
Chinese students comprise more than 33% of the 1,095,299 international students in the U.S. They typically pay full tuition and fees, which many U.S. universities rely upon for revenue.
The PRC has slashed lucrative university programs when the program dissented from the Chinese government's policies, the Wilson Center reported. It retaliated against the University of Maryland in 2013, which hosted the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, despite warnings from Chinese diplomats. China has occupied Tibet for more than 60 years.
In 2018, Vice President Mike Pence described China's funding for the Maryland program as "suddenly turned from a flood to a trickle."
Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSA) "alert Chinese consulates and embassies when Chinese students, and American schools, stray from the Communist Party line," Pence said at an address at the Hudson Institute in Washington.
And Chinese student Yang Shuping, who addressed the 2017 graduation exercises at the University of Maryland about the "fresh air of free speech" in America, was swiftly rebuked back home. The Communist Party's official newspaper -- China Daily -- published her family's address in China and the family was roundly harassed online.
Shuping later apologized.
Professors and students point to campus Confucius Institutes and CSSAs as participants in intelligence gathering and political influence. The Chinese government, which funds Confucius Institutes worldwide, says these organizations disperse information about Chinese culture and society, not political dogma.
The Confucius Institute U.S. Center describes itself as supporting "the teaching and learning of Chinese language and culture in the United States and enable people-to-people exchanges, deepening cross-cultural understanding and language development. The Center promotes a nationwide network of Confucius Institutes that delivers educational and cultural programs that teach Mandarin, cultivate Chinese cultural awareness, and facilitate educational exchanges.
"The world is a big place. The CIUS Center brings a little piece of China to everything we do.
But some universities in Australia, U.K., and U.S. have terminated their contracts with Confucius Centers after bipartisan calls for internal investigations.
Chinese influence has been a top concern of U.S. intelligence agencies.
FBI Director Christopher Wray, in testimony before Congress, said his agency has "a thousand open investigations … involving attempted theft of intellectual property," and almost all the cases involved the Chinese.
"Confucius Institutes function as an arm of the Chinese state and are allowed to ignore academic freedom," the American Association of University Professors published in 2014.
But the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) disagrees.
"We do support the type of work done by Confucius Institutes in terms of building libraries, funding Chinese language classes and promoting cultural exchanges," said Lynn Pasquerella, AAC&U's president. "Our experience has not uncovered any evidence of interference by the Chinese government or infringements on academic freedom.
"China is our greatest collaborator for scientific research, and over-surveillance will have a negative impact on knowledge generation.
VOA reached out to six CSSAs through email and social media messages, which did not respond.
Georgetown University's CSSA mission statement describes itself as committed to "providing academic, professional, social and entertainment information and services to its members; promoting Chinese culture, history and languages; promoting dialogue within the Association and the broader Georgetown University community." Mission statements are similar at other universities with Confucius Institute contracts.
The CSSAs "receive guidance from the Chinese Communist Party through Chinese embassies and consulates … and are active in carrying out overseas Chinese work consistent with Beijing's United Front strategy," according to a 2018 report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. That commission monitors and investigates national and trade issues, according to its webpage.
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US advisory council ends Nigeria visit, signs student exchange deal
Members of a U.S. presidential advisory council have approved a student exchange deal between an American college and a Nigerian university as part of the council's effort to strengthen collaboration on education, health, entrepreneurship and development between Africa and Africans living abroad.
The council also visited a health facility supported by the United States Agency for International Development in the capital.
Nigerian authorities and visitors chatted with members of the U.S President's Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement as they toured a healthcare facility in Karu, a suburb of Abuja, on the last day of the council's three-day visit to Abuja and Lagos.
The facility is one of many supported by the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, to improve the management of childhood illnesses, family planning, immunization and delivery.
The tour was part of the council's effort to promote African diaspora-led investments in technology entrepreneurship, education and healthcare delivery.
"They're doing a phenomenal job there, it really gave us a sense of what the healthcare system is in Nigeria," said Deniece Laurent-Mantey, executive director of the advisory council. "This is our first trip as a council to the continent and we chose Nigeria for a reason — the diaspora in Nigeria is very active, very influential, and they're really a source of strength when it comes to our U.S.-Africa policy. And so for us coming to Nigeria was very intentional."
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Akila Udoji, manager of the Primary Healthcare Centre of Karu, said officials in Nigeria were pleased that the council members were able to visit.
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Earlier, the council signed a deal for a student exchange program between Spelman College in the southern U.S. city of Atlanta and Nigeria's University of Lagos.
Laurent-Mantey said education exchanges are one of the council's top priorities.
"In Lagos, we had the president of Spelman College — she's also a member of our council — she signed an agreement with the University of Lagos to further education exchange programs in STEM and creative industries between those two universities," Laurent-Mantey said. "And I think for us it's very important, because Spelman College is a historically Black university, and so here we are promoting the importance of collaboration between African Americans and Africans."
In March, the advisory council adopted its first set of recommendations for the U.S. president, including the student exchange initiative, advocating for more U.S. government support for Africa, climate-focused initiatives, and improving U.S. visa access for Africans.
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5 killed, dozens injured in clashes over Bangladesh jobs quota system
At least 5 people were killed and dozens injured in two separate incidents in Bangladesh as violence continued Tuesday on university campuses in the nation's capital and elsewhere over a government jobs quota system, local media reports said quoting officials.
At least three of the dead were students and one was a pedestrian, the media reports said. Another man who died in Dhaka remained unidentified.
The deaths were reported Tuesday after overnight violence at a public university near Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. The violence involved members of a pro-government student body and other students, when police fired tear gas and charged the protesters with batons during the clashes, which spread at Jahangir Nagar University in Savar, outside Dhaka, according to students and authorities.
Protesters have been demanding an end to a quota reserved for family members of veterans who fought in Bangladesh's war of independence in 1971, which allows them to take up 30% of governmental jobs.
They argue that quota appointments are discriminatory and should be merit-based. Some said the current system benefits groups supporting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Some Cabinet ministers criticized the protesters, saying they played on students' emotions.
The Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily newspaper reported that one person died in Dhaka and three others, including a pedestrian, were killed after they suffered injuries during violence in Chattogram, a southeastern district, on Tuesday.
Prothom Alo and other media reports also said that a 22-year-old protester died in the northern district of Rangpur.
Details of the casualties could not be confirmed immediately.
While job opportunities have expanded in Bangladesh's private sector, many find government jobs stable and lucrative. Each year, some 3,000 such jobs open up to nearly 400,000 graduates.
Hasina said Tuesday that war veterans — commonly known as "freedom fighters" — should receive the highest respect for their sacrifice in 1971 regardless of their current political ideologies.
"Abandoning the dream of their own life, leaving behind their families, parents and everything, they joined the war with whatever they had," she said during an event at her office in Dhaka.
Protesters gathered in front of the university's official residence of the vice chancellor early Tuesday when violence broke out. Demonstrators accused the Bangladesh Chhatra League, a student wing of Hasina's ruling Awami League party, of attacking their "peaceful protests." According to local media reports, police and the ruling party-backed student wing attacked the protesters.
But Abdullahil Kafi, a senior police official, told the country's leading English-language newspaper Daily Star that they fired tear gas and "blank rounds" as protesters attacked the police. He said up to 15 police officers were injured.
More than 50 people were treated at Enam Medical College Hospital near Jahangir Nagar University as the violence continued for hours, said Ali Bin Solaiman, a medical officer of the hospital. He said at least 30 of them suffered pellet wounds.
On Monday, violence also spread at Dhaka University, the country's leading public university, as clashes gripped the campus in the capital. More than 100 students were injured in the clashes, police said.
On Tuesday, protesters blocked railways and some highways across the country, and in Dhaka, they halted traffic in many areas as they vowed to continue demonstrating until the demands were met.
Local media said police forces were spread across the capital to safeguard the peace.
Swapon, a protester and student at Dhaka University who gave only his first name, said they want the "rational reformation of the quota scheme." He said that after studying for six years, if he can't find a job, "it will cause me and my family to suffer."
Protesters say they are apolitical, but leaders of the ruling parties accused the opposition of using the demonstrations for political gains.
A ruling party-backed student activist, who refused to give his name, told The Associated Press that the protesters with the help of "goons" of the opposition's Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami party vandalized their rooms at the student dormitories near the Curzon Hall of Dhaka University.
The family-of-the-veterans quota system was halted following a court order after mass student protests in 2018. But last month, Bangladesh's High Court nulled the decision to reinstate the system once more, angering scores of students and triggering protests.
Last week, the Supreme Court suspended the High Court's order for four weeks and the chief justice asked protesting students to return to their classes, saying the court would issue a decision in four weeks.
However, the protests have continued daily, halting traffic in Dhaka.
The quota system also reserves government jobs for women, disabled people and ethnic minority groups, but students have protested against only the veterans system.
Hasina maintained power in an election in January that was again boycotted by the country's main opposition party and its allies due to Hasina's refusal to step down and hand over power to a caretaker government to oversee the election.
Her party favors keeping the quota for the families of the 1971 war heroes after her Awami League party, under the leadership of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, led the independence war with the help of India. Rahman was assassinated along with most of his family members in a military coup in 1975.
