For most professors, “departmental politics” means sparring about curriculum requirements and parking spots. These sorts of campus conflicts can get nasty. But a recent firing at one of China’s top universities took departmental politics to a different level entirely.
Last week, faculty members at Peking University voted to fire Xia Yeliang, an economist who has criticized the Chinese government and called for human rights and democratic freedoms. The dismissal has provoked concerns about academic freedom in China.
These concerns are particularly important because educational partnerships between the U.S. and China are flourishing. And academic exchanges between the two countries will likely increase in years to come.
Now is a time of transition: a period when we can negotiate the terms for how partnerships between U.S. and Chinese institutions ought to work. The American universities, including the University of Virginia, that collaborate with Chinese schools should take a hard line on academic freedom. Xia’s dismissal offers an opportunity for American higher-education leaders to protest a crackdown against writers and intellectuals that has escalated under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s leadership. Since February the Chinese government has arbitrarily detained 55 activists and tightened controls on social media and online expression, Human Rights Watch reports. And in May the government banned the discussion of seven topics in university classrooms — including human rights and press freedom.
Academic inquiry cannot survive in a climate hostile to free expression. If we wish to extend our academic links to China, we must insist that scholars’ freedoms be protected at the universities with which we work. Now, as we lay the groundwork for collaboration with Chinese institutions, we have leverage. Once the patterns of these institutional relationships are set, they are much harder to change.
Peking University claims that it dismissed Xia because his colleagues were unsatisfied with his teaching and publication record. Yet Xia says he passed muster when he was up for a vote based on his academic qualifications last October. Many in the West, including the New York Times’ editorial board, share Xia’s suspicions that he was terminated because of his political speech against the Chinese government. The outspoken professor, who favors free markets and has written two books on economic reform in China, signed a petition in 2008 calling for an end to one-party rule in the country.
Despite the signs that Xia’s dismissal was politically motivated, there has not been much of an outcry from the institutions that partner with Peking. Wellesley College is a notable exception. Xia was informed in June that he might be dismissed. Some 136 Wellesley professors signed an open letter (1).pdf in September saying that they would ask Wellesley to reconsider its relationship with Peking if Xia were fired.
Wellesley is not the only American school that works with Peking. Stanford opened a $7 million research center at Peking in 2012. Cornell, Yale and Columbia also have institutional relationships with the Chinese powerhouse. And the University of Virginia counts Peking as one of its closest academic allies in its effort to transform itself into a global university.
The University’s partnership with Peking took off in November 2009, when University officials, including then-President John Casteen, flew to Beijing to cut the ribbon on a College of Arts & Sciences office on Peking’s campus. The University has maintained a physical presence at Peking in numerous ways since 2009. The University offers a student exchange program. It also touted the Jefferson Global Seminars, which launched this summer, as “the culmination” of efforts that began with the creation of an institute between the College, Peking and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Peking’s importance to our global-outreach efforts means we have a stake in how it handles academic freedom. Just a few weeks ago, leaders of nine top Chinese research universities, including Peking, released a statement affirming their commitment to academic freedom. Xia’s dismissal shows how shallow Peking’s commitment is.
American schools must not sacrifice academic freedom for the sake of lucrative relationships with Chinese institutions. In banding with other American schools to address Peking’s firing of Xia, we must not close doors, and we should approach conversations respectfully. But we have an obligation to take a firm stance. Academic freedom is something we cannot compromise on. A partnership that ignores one of scholarship’s fundamental tenets is not a partnership worth having — unless we wish to hoist our pocketbooks above our principles.
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