Read the series here: Unbridled Evil
Chapter Seven: Western Companies Collaborate with Evil Regime (Part II)
Section 3: Academia Complies with CCP’s Wishes- Western China Scholars and Universities Acquiesce
The West’s Hypocrisy
Consequences When Western Scholars Are Bought
- Unfettered Opening of the U.S. Market to China
Paying Only Lip Service to ‘Freedom’ and ‘Human Rights’
Rogue Regime Baffles the West
Working with a Rogue Regime
- America: Founded on Faith and Sociability
Deterioration of Western Civilization
Two Historic Opportunities the US Missed
The Price of Not Upholding Justice
Barbarism Afraid of U.S. Intervention
Section 3: Academia Complies with CCP’s Wishes
On Aug. 18, 2017, Cambridge University Press pulled over 300 articles and book reviews on its China site from the China Quarterly (CQ), one of the most prestigious journals in the China studies field, at the request of the government’s General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP).The Press said it complied with the request so as to prevent the shutdown of the entire site. Most of the articles in question relate to topics deemed sensitive to the Chinese Communist Party, such as the Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen Square, Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and date back to the 1960s. It said that it had received a similar request to take down more than a thousand e-books a few months earlier.
Two months later, Springer Nature, the world’s largest academic book publisher, blocked access in China to at least 1,000 articles from the websites of the Journal of Chinese Political Science and International Politics, two Springer journals. All of the articles in question contained keywords deemed politically sensitive by the Chinese authorities, including “Taiwan,” “Tibet,” and “Cultural Revolution”.
The incidents triggered international outcries among scholars, but censorship and self-censorship inflicted upon western scholars and academic institutions are far from accidental.
Scholars perceived as offensive to the regime are routinely banned from China’s shores. Andrew Nathan and Perry Link, two well-known China experts, have long had trouble obtaining visas to China. Thirteen scholars, including James Millward, a professor of history at Georgetown University, were also blacklisted by Beijing for publishing a book about Xinjiang in 2004.
Western China Scholars and Universities Acquiesce
For scholars, their careers are often at stake if they choose to adhere to the principle of academic independence when facing pressure from China.He Qinglian, a Chinese author and economist now living in exile in the U.S., made it very clear in her book, “The Pitfalls of Modernization” (现代化的陷阱). The following are some excerpts from this book.
“’Economic growth’ has not only become the [basis of] legitimacy of the ruling government, but also the source of [positive attitudes] of many foreign scholars who are happy to work with the Chinese government on research projects. As for the government’s habit of cooking the data, these scholars have chosen to deliberately [ignore that issue.]”
“In the process of reform and opening up, the Chinese government learned to use its control over the international community [so that it would] form a favorable opinion on China. When some scholars [from abroad, who could not be bought or intimidated], criticized the Chinese government [on moral grounds], [over the years] they were denied entry visas by the government, and their academic careers [suffered]. Such practices actually played the role of ‘guiding public opinion.’ Some other scholars (especially those ethnic Chinese) found that praising can win the favor of the Chinese government. They are able to enter China and obtain from the government agencies information and materials, which they themselves might know to be untrue. But this is a necessary condition for them to obtain [their research funding] and also valuable ‘capital’ to win recognition in academia.”
“As a result, a noteworthy ‘cycle’ has emerged between the Chinese government and these scholars. The Chinese government, which monopolized the supply of all kinds of information, is the authoritative provider of all research materials, while the research work conducted by some foreign scholars based on the provided materials has been selectively published by the Chinese government in its official papers and bulletins that report the foreign research on China. The Chinese government thereby proves to its own people that China’s economic achievement has been demonstrated by foreign scholars. Among most of the Chinese public who hold strong nationalist sentiment on the surface but deep down still [harbor] a feeling of [inferiority to] western civilization, the endorsement by foreign scholars is quite powerful. Of course, such an interest-based relationship between the Chinese government and foreign scholars where the two parties reciprocated with materials and research work does not look good for the scholars. It is therefore often covered up.”
This point is also shared in Holz’s article cited above. “Some western China scholars have relatives in China. Others own apartments there. Those China scholars whose mother tongue is not Chinese have studied the language for years and have built their careers on this large and nontransferable investment. We benefit from our connections in China to obtain information and insights, and we protect these connections. Everybody is happy: western readers for the up-to-date view from academia, we ourselves for prospering in our jobs, and the Party for getting us to do its advertising. China is fairly unique in that the incentives for academics all go one way: One does not upset the Party.”
For institutions, it is usually the money for which they are giving up their principles.
In recent years, Chinese students have flocked abroad to receive western style education. By 2015 more than 500,000 were heading overseas every year. The changes in the Chinese economy have produced individual wealth in families. That new wealth enables Chinese families to pay the high prices of U.S. degrees for their kids.
Chinese students have become a big market in the United States and nobody understands this better than universities. Over 60 percent of Chinese students cover the full cost of an American university education themselves, effectively subsidizing the education of their American peers.
Western universities also rushed to meet demand. They sent recruiters and negotiated agreements with third parties to sell Chinese students on the idea of studying abroad. Elite universities hurried to open campuses or sign partnership agreements with Chinese universities. Twelve universities—including Carnegie Mellon, Duke, and Johns Hopkins—have established degree-granting partnerships with Chinese universities to meet demand for their educational services.
The West’s Hypocrisy
Balding wrote that western universities answer the charge that they are acquiescing to China’s restrictions on free inquiry by claiming that their contact with their Chinese counterparts has the beneficial effect of liberalizing them. The reality, however, is that they don’t liberalize China one iota and end up accepting Chinese academic censorship into their own institutions.The Chinese pressure takes many forms. “China even has its embassies and consulates direct Chinese student groups, coordinate protests, and gather information abroad on reluctant participants. The University of California San Diego considered canceling a speaking engagement with the Dalai Lama after pressure by Chinese student groups that work with the Chinese government, and some universities, like North Carolina State, have even rescinded their invitations to the Tibetan leader. Many students and scholars have encountered Beijing-directed pressure and censorship at events around the world,” Balding wrote.
The claims of academic freedom by western universities that have partnered with Chinese universities for degree-granting programs ring hollow. Western universities have admitted that they must impose censorship on themselves in order to exist in China, according to Balding. “[A recent U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) report] noted that one western institution’s faculty handbook includes ‘language that protects academic freedom but also encourages self-censorship to prevent externally imposed discipline.’ Even foreign students now have to take propaganda classes mandated by the government.”
“We do not ask if … the People’s Congresses are congresses of the people, [or] the People’s Liberation Army is liberating or suppressing the people, or if the judges are not all appointed by the Party and answer to the Party. We say ‘Tiananmen incident,’ in conformance with Party terminology, but called it ‘Tiananmen massacre’ right after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, when ‘incident’ would have made us look too submissive to the Party.”
“Which western textbook on China’s political system elaborates on the Party’s selection and de facto appointment of government officials and parliamentary delegates, and, furthermore, points out these procedures as different from how we view political parties, government, and parliament in the West? By following the Party’s lead in giving the names of western institutions to fake Chinese imitations, we sanctify the Party’s pretenses. We are not even willing to call China what its own constitution calls it: a dictatorship (a ‘people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants, which is in essence the dictatorship of the proletariat’).”
Consequences When Western Scholars Are Bought
Perry Link, in his 2002 article, “China: The Anaconda in the Chandelier,” said it very clearly, “The highest priority of the top leadership of the Communist Party remains, as in the past, not economic development, or a just society, or China’s international standing, or any other goal for the nation as a whole, but its own grip on power. Thus, it continues to ban any public expression of opposition to itself and continues to crush any organization that it does not control or could not easily control if it needed to.”[6]Conforming to Beijing’s censorship is abetting the regime’s hold on power. When western scholars go along with censorship, two things happen. First, their research lends legitimacy to Chinese communist rule, including the suppression of its own people. Second, the research misleads the western public and confounds its policy makers, so as to help create a false narrative of China that benefits the dictators of Beijing. These two things are what Beijing wanted and likely were very much in Beijing’s mind when it used money or the fear factor to bring about western academic censorship.
In 2007, Holz expressed his grave concern over the consequences of western scholars being bought.
“We obviously know of the labor camps into which people disappear without judiciary review, of torture inflicted by the personnel of state ‘security’ organs, and of the treatment of Falun Gong, but choose to move on with our sterilized research and teaching. We ignore that China’s political system is responsible for 30 million dead from starvation in the Great Leap Forward, and 750,000 to 1.5 million murders during the Cultural Revolution. What can make western academics stop and think twice about who they have bedded down with?
Section 4: The Failure of the US-China Policy
In 1991, two years after Jiang Zemin took office, the United States won the cold war as the Soviet Union imploded. Now, after nearly three decades, facing China, the remaining significant communist country, the United States has been on a policy of accommodating instead of changing China. Due to its own greed and inability to comprehend the true nature of Chinese communism, the United States treats China as if it were a normal government instead of a murderous regime, violating the human rights of millions, and bearing ill will towards the West, the United States in particular.For many years, the buzzword of our China policy has been “engagement,” that is, by contacts and exchanges, the United States hopes to gradually transform China into a free and democratic society committed to the rule of law.
Unfettered Opening of the US Market to China
After World War II, the United States became the world’s No. 1 superpower, economically and militarily. Its domestic market is the world’s most mature and efficient market with gigantic purchasing power. Any country to which the U.S. market opens its door will quickly become rich. This was true for the Asian boomers, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.Engaging in free trade with Sino-Soviet countries was not permitted by law since the 1950s. That changed for China in 1980 when the United States granted China the status of the Most Favorable Nation (MFN). Since 1978, economic growth had become the sole source of legitimacy for the ruling communist regime. Its export-oriented growth model made the U.S. market critical to the nation’s economy. Beijing could not afford to take its trade status with the United States lightly. MFN needed to be renewed every year. The annual review of the MFN status gave the United States some bargaining power to condition China’s access to the U.S. market on its trade and human rights practices.
In 2000, the Clinton administration signed into law granting the permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status to China. Thereafter, the U.S. market was wide open to China without any material restriction. Those days are gone when Beijing had to worry every year that the United States would raise objections to its trade policies and human rights practices.
With many authoritarian regimes, the United States usually adopts a carrot-and-stick approach, but toward China, it dropped the stick.
Behind the passage of the bill were the U.S. corporations that gazed upon the cheap labor in China and were able to persuade the politicians to pave the road for their investment, and make an exception for China. In exchange for corporate economic benefits, the U.S. government knowingly set aside the usual concerns it has of violations of religious and political freedom. Only one year before signing the PNTR, the regime started a nationwide campaign to eradicate Falun Gong.
In other words, as the United States was offering China the world’s largest, unified, mature, and mega-zillion dollar consumer market, it was boosting the economy of a dictatorship.
Paying Only Lip Service to ‘Freedom’ and ‘Human Rights’
When implementing its China policy, the U.S. government made human rights and freedom a lower priority than trade.The Strategic Economic Dialogue under President George W. Bush, and the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialog under President Barack Obama, were attended by top cabinet members and policy heavyweights, and so these discussions clearly outweighed the U.S.-China Human Rights Dialog, which were mostly led by a State Department assistant secretary.
In February 2009, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Asia, she said, the United States pressing on human rights issues “can’t interfere” with dialogue on other crucial topics.
Before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, under pressure from Congress and media, President Bush met with a few U.S.-based democracy activists in the White House, but this move could not compare to the support he gave to Beijing with his personal trip to Beijing and attending the opening ceremony of the Games.
All the above sent a clear and unmistakable signal: the United States does not attach much importance to China’s human rights abuses.
To Beijing, it could be interpreted as an acquiescence to its human rights violations. As a result, Beijing becomes more aggressive. Every year since 1999, on the day after the U.S. State Department’s release of its annual human rights report, Beijing releases a report criticizing the U.S. human rights record, putting the United States on the defensive.
For example, police in China routinely harass and mistreat journalists from western media, such as CNN, Bloomberg News, and the BBC, whenever they cover demonstrations or “sensitive events.” The U.S. government and news associations push back, but Beijing simply dismisses any complaints and blames any problems on the journalists.
With its muted support for democracy, freedom, and human rights, the United States signals it values engaging with the Chinese people much less than with the rulers in Zhongnanhai.
None of the U.S. presidents ever met in person with political dissidents or oppressed groups during their visits to China. In the past decades, many State Department democracy funds were also funneled through the Chinese government. Between both governments, there are a wide range of established mechanisms of contacts and exchanges: summits for heads of states, high-level strategic dialogues, state-provincial governorship meetings, and regular conferences of the political parties of both countries. However, between the U.S. government and Chinese people, especially those who have been suppressed by the PRC regime, there is almost zero regular engagement.
By making friends with the Chinese people, the United States can benefit in two ways:
First, allying with Chinese people, the United States embraces the most powerful leverage against the PRC. The Chinese Communists fear two things most on earth: the U.S. government and the Chinese people. The main reason why Beijing puts economic development at the center of its national policy is to use economic growth to justify to 1.4 billion people its continued rule. While Beijing suppresses the Chinese people, it tries hard to win their minds over by handing out monetary and material benefits.
Second, no matter how the political situation in China evolves, the future of China belongs to its 1.4 billion people. Engaging with them ensures U.S. future long-term strategic interests in Asia.
Rogue Regime Baffles the West
In the western world, people play by the rules, with a common understanding of the basic principles that ensure a fair game. When dealing with a rogue state such as China, it is a mistake to expect the same kind of respect for the rules.A rogue will not honor his promises. In its bid for the 2008 Olympic Games, the PRC made several promises in 2001 to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to improve its human rights conditions. However, in 2008, as Amnesty International pointed out, “In the run-up to the Olympics, the Chinese authorities have locked up, put under house arrest, and forcibly removed individuals they believe may threaten the image of ‘stability’ and ‘harmony’ they want to present to the world.” The Games went on and many world leaders flocked to Beijing, which enhanced the regime’s image. The PRC clearly understood that if it did not make the promise, the IOC in 2001 would likely not make the decision to select China. However, once that decision was made, whether or not to keep the promise didn’t matter to the communist leaders.
When the PRC was applying for accession to WTO, it also gave many market-opening pledges. However, once it became a full-fledged member, the pledges were ignored. Today, governments, and even less so, corporations, have little means to make China behave in accordance with international standards.
A rogue will also employ deceptive tricks for its own interest. For example, after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, the PRC became a pariah in the international community. Facing worldwide criticism and economic sanctions, it came up with an idea that many western governments accepted: closed-door human rights dialogues. It told the international community, “It’s fine to criticize our human rights, but please do it quietly.” Many governments went along. As a result, private talks occurred, with fantastical promises made, international criticism was subdued, and the PRC continued its business as usual.
Working with a Rogue Regime
After the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, the Chinese Communist Party has been very clear and consistent in the path it walks. Economically, it exerts tight control over key sectors while allowing freedom of labor and commodity markets. Politically, it shuns a multi-party system and parliamentary politics. Without the separation of the three branches of government—legislative, executive, and judicial—ultimate power lies vested in the Party. In another words, the “China Model” is a government-controlled economy under one-party dictatorship. China has made this very clear to its own people and to the whole world. Since the global financial crisis, Beijing has been even more proud and vocal about it.However, the western world has chosen to unconditionally have its markets open to Chinese goods, allowing its economies to bind to the Chinese economy. It no longer insists on democratic values and individual freedom when dealing with China, but accommodates to China’s autocratic system. On many occasions, the western governments have even invited China as a team player in the rule-making process regarding world trade.
Section 5: The West Capitulates
America: Founded on Faith and Sociability
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Thomas Jefferson wrote these words in the Declaration of Independence in 1776, which was the rationale for the 13 colonies declaring independence from the British crown.The fundamental idea of liberty is that each citizen has the right to explore and act in accordance with his own conscience. Political freedom means a social environment that allows citizens to act at high levels of morality.
In the eyes of the Founding Fathers, the republic was built upon the reality that man is capable of being both good and evil. The American society, from its initial establishment to its gradual perfection, has served as a platform for citizens to pursue their faith in whatever religion or form they like.
This spirituality and morality include many aspects: conscience, faith, justice, enlightenment to God’s will, and peace of mind in God’s blessings. However, when the pursuit of such inner qualities becomes insignificant and empty, the true spirit of the United States will die.
Thomas Jefferson advocated for the necessity of moral values in governance. He believed that the relationships between citizens must rest on a moral foundation. The other Founding Fathers also shared with him in the necessity for the nation to have a moral foundation. Jefferson wrote:
Taking as his starting point, respect for the inalienable rights of human beings, Jefferson asserts that we have a moral obligation to abide a deep respect for the equal rights of others. He concludes that liberty and freedom are natural outcomes of nations with moral people. In Jefferson’s world, people are honest with one another, help one another out, and governments know there are limits to their power. The Creator grants inalienable rights to everyone and that must be respected. This was the basic concept of the Founding Fathers.
How far these sentiments are from Marx and Mao’s concepts of the individual and the state!
Here are some salient quotes from Jefferson on morality and the state.
The United States of America, guided by its ideals, has made great contributions to the world.
Deterioration of Western Civilization
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States. In his Lyceum address at the age of 28, Lincoln warned that the most serious physical threat to the country came internally, from within the country, and not externally.“Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step [over] the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.”
In the same sense, the only threat to human civilization, established by mankind throughout five thousand years of constant battles against barbarism, is no longer barbarism itself. The destruction of civilized mankind today is self-destruction due to the moral weaknesses of civilized mankind.
For thousands of years, mankind’s resistance to barbarism was mainly based on the refusal to being enslaved and plundered. When the Chinese communist appears on the world stage in the form of “generous barbarism” that was never seen before, mankind was at a loss on how to cope with the temptation.
The whole world knows the brutality of Chinese communism. However, since Jiang Zemin came to power, the brutality of the CCP is no longer flaunted to the world in the way that Hitler, Stalin, or Mao once did. The CCP’s brutality was applied only within China. Instead, the CCP has been very generous to the world. It is willing to share a great portion from what it plundered from the Chinese people with the rest of the world, with the only condition that the world close its eyes to what it did to its own people. The condition is not a harsh one, the shared profits are huge, and the suffering of some (i.e., the Chinese people’s) are distant and mostly unseen. All these conditions made the choice seemingly innocuous. Consequently, none of the governments of the free world could see through the temptation offered by Jiang’s Communist Party.
The temptation offered by Jiang’s CCP is neither a premeditated strategy nor a smart diplomacy. On the contrary, it was the only choice Jiang had at a time when the ruling CCP lost its legitimacy internationally after Tiananmen. He had to give a free hand to the corrupt officials so as to establish his personal power base, and to sell China’s national interest in exchange for other countries propping him and his cronies up.
When the free world countries pocketed the handouts from the “generous and barbaric” CCP, how do they face their own history of morality and honesty? When the free world had to be silent about the CCP’s human rights atrocities for the sake of its own interests, how could they justify their core values that defines the free world? They have tried to do it by the most disgusting way imaginable: praise from the civilized to the barbaric. Over the past decades, the West has been going out of its way to commend the “progress” achieved by the CCP. Some elevated the praise to high-sounding rhetoric: “Beijing Consensus.” They even began to criticize the western value system based on the “success” story of China.
Jiang’s corrupt governance and persecution of Falun Gong has brought the 5,000 years of ancient Chinese civilization to ruins. Today’s moral standard in Chinese society has deteriorated to such an extent that Chinese people turn away from the most basic ethics and universal values. Many people in the West are shocked and puzzled at the way ordinary Chinese conduct themselves at home and abroad.
Two Historic Opportunities the US Missed
While positioning Sino-U.S. relations, the United States swings between “strategic partners” and “competitors” and wishes to strike a balance between “containment” and “engagement.” However, the basic logic of the United States has been to promote China’s integration into the international community, use the international rules to make the CCP behave, turn China led by the CCP into one of them, and become a responsible player. This is pure fantasy. How can a group that persecutes its own people become a responsible player in international affairs?“Engagement” by itself is not necessarily wrong. In the early 1990s, with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the communist camp collapsed. The Chinese Communist Party became the only heir, alongside with a few little brothers. At the time, the CCP was also facing an unprecedented isolation after the 1989 “Tiananmen Massacre.” However, this isolation lasted only for a very short period of time, and the West took the lead in engaging with the CCP. This was the first opportunity missed. Imagine if the West had been exerting continuous pressure rather than a proactive attempt to reach out to the CCP, would the Chinese people have made their own choices and abandoned the Communist Party, just as the people of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe did? This possibility cannot be ruled out.
However, history has taken another path, after all. The West chose “engagement,” which is not wrong as a foreign policy. So, where is the problem? It is the starting point. The entire “engagement” policy between China and the United States has entirely been driven by selfish interests, especially economic interests. Amid the waves of globalization, the greed of the capitalists has prevailed and persuaded their governments to please the CCP, although it was done under the exalted banner of bringing freedom and democracy to the Chinese people. It was the lure of economic benefit that drove the relationship. For those able to stand back and watch, it is startling to witness the collapse of moral principles.
Blinded by economic benefit, the United States missed its real opportunities. In 1999 when Jiang Zemin started the suppression of Falun Gong, there were about 700,000 Falun Gong practitioners gathering around Beijing every day for more than three months. This was an important opportunity to challenge the CCP and the United States missed it. This was the second opportunity missed.
The Price of Not Upholding Justice
The painful history of human beings’ concessions to barbarism has shown again and again that upholding justice in the final analysis costs the least. However, people often neglect the minimum price for righteously containing the barbaric. People mistakenly tend to measure the cost by the tremendous sacrifices required after war becomes inevitable. But the high costs occur because barbarism went unchecked. In fact, this is precisely the price of not upholding justice, and the cost of not upholding justice will keep growing as the barbaric is kept unchecked. One has to pay a greater cost later for not upholding justice.Barbarism Afraid of US Intervention
Throughout history, the barbaric forces hoped that the United States would not intervene. For example, the foreign policies of Germany and Japan before and after the beginning of World War II focused on discouraging U.S. intervention. Moreover, any concessions made by the United States in confrontation with the barbarism caused painful experiences for many due to the slaughtering of innocents and encouraging the evil. The consequences of Yalta were not forgotten. In 2005, President George W. Bush openly apologized for the Yalta Agreement in Latvia, which led to “one of the greatest wrongs of history.” The consequences of Yalta, including the hegemony of Stalin’s Soviet Union, the Korean War, and the communists winning the China civil war, followed and have left us with the world we know today, with communist rulers in China and North Korea.For China, the worst thing is pressure from the United States. The CCP’s foreign policy is entirely American-centered.
What concerns CCP most are pressures from the United States, especially the U.S. criticism of its human rights issues. The lure of profit-sharing with the CCP constitutes a new challenge to the United States in upholding its founding principles. The United States must now face the retribution of not upholding justice. This challenge, arising from the dual effects of human greed and wanting to avoid painful confrontations, has meant that the United States deviated from its national ideals and is paying the price for that.
Not only the United States, but also the world has paid the price, while giving up its principles, for allowing the Chinese communist state to get stronger. Although many people hold the opinion that the rise of Communist China was inevitable, the post-war economic growth in Germany and Japan was even more rapid and impressive. The peaceful rises of Germany and Japan were not achieved at the expense of human rights or the environment. The growth of the strength of these democracies is an increase in the strength of civilization and also an increase in the righteous forces with the United States as the leader. At the same time, the United States has benefited by directly receiving economic rewards.
Read Next: Chapter 8, The Extraordinary Moral Strength of Falun Gong Practitioners
