In the three decades following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, one of the ways China sought to rebuild its image abroad was by systematically forging partnerships with Western universities.

At first, these partnerships mainly focused on research collaboration.

Later, they grew to include the Confucius Institutes for language education, generous funding for various joint projects, and the establishment of Western universities' branch campuses in China.

At a time when China was undemocratic but liberalizing, such engagement seemed like a sensible strategy.

Values

There have always been uneasy moments in Western universities' relationships with China, whether prompted by tensions over hosting the Dalai Lama or controversies over university self-censorship on China-related topics. But these might have been dismissed as growing pains on China's learning curve toward a more enlightened regime.

It seemed that everyone—even Beijing—shared the same ultimate goal of a more liberal, more democratic China.

Now that China has tilted toward full-blown totalitarianism at home and military expansionism abroad, the "values transfer" rationale for engagement with China has evaporated.

It has become crystal clear that Chinese President Xi Jinping has no intention of leading China toward convergence with the West.

As a result, Western universities can no longer argue that they are pursuing a larger civilizing mission in their dealings with China.

All that is left is the pure, crass hunger for Chinese money.

Money, of course, is where it all began.

In the 1990s, Western universities started developing a cottage industry in offering bespoke short courses to teams of visiting Chinese officials.

By the turn of the millennium, their large-scale recruitment of Chinese students had begun.

Then, in 2004, China issued a bold invitation to the world's universities: If you host a centre for the study of Chinese language and culture, the People's Republic of China will pick up the tab. That was the birth of the Confucius Institutes.

Billed as China's answer to the British Council and the Alliance Française, China's 541 Confucius Institutes are housed at universities abroad, not run as independent outlets for public diplomacy like their European competitors.

Critics worry that Confucius Institutes promote Chinese government propaganda, but these concerns are probably overblown.

The reality is that Confucius Institutes are not so much designed to indoctrinate the students who take their courses as to influence the administrators of the universities that host them.

China provides the start-up funds, the salaries, the teaching materials, and sometimes even the buildings for Confucius Institutes.

Perhaps just as important, China supplies the teachers.

It's no easy task to find qualified Chinese teachers in Conway, Arkansas, or Las Cruces, New Mexico, to say nothing of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, or N'Djamena, Chad.

In an era of strained university budgets, it must be very attractive when a foreign government offers to fund and staff a revenue-generating language learning centre. Confucius Institutes at most Western universities focus on offering noncredit classes to the public, while ordinary faculty teach for-credit classes to degree students.

That at least some university administrators have been compromised seems likely.

• In the United Kingdom, Parliament has held hearings on the potential of Confucius Institute funding to influence university policies.
• The University of Queensland in Australia has experienced a governance crisis over its moves to expel a student activist who has been highly critical of the university's Confucius Institute ties.
• And, of course, in the United States, the umbrella organization coordinating Confucius Institutes has recently been designated as a foreign mission by the State Department.

Point missed

But this debate misses the main point.

For three decades, universities have attempted to play a pivotal role in Western public diplomacy toward China.

They have collaborated with Chinese institutions, opened campuses in China, and educated hundreds of thousands of Chinese students.

Along the way, they generated millions of dollars in revenues, but always with the promise that the money ultimately supported progress toward the larger goal of a more liberal China. Collaboration would help professionalize Chinese institutions; overseas campuses would be island outposts of academic freedom; Chinese students would internalize Western values and take them back to China.

Perhaps through no fault of the universities, those public diplomacy missions have failed.

Chinese universities have been forced to abandon "freedom of thought" pledges in favour of "Xi Jinping Thought." Continue reading

Professor Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of European Studies, made this comment while warning that universities must "hold the line" against the "salami slicing" of free speech.

At a festival in Wales, he was promoting his book titled "Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World".

He noted threats to the tradition of free speech in universities coming from above from the Government and from below in the form of students' sensitivities.

Professor Garton Ash said UK universities are now encouraged by counter-terrorism legislation to block even non-violent extremists from appearing on site.

This comes in the form of a "prevent duty" aimed at stopping radicalisation of vulnerable students.

At the same time, a number of UK universities now pledge to create a "safe space' for their students.

This is inspired by similar policies in the US, in order to protect students from language or behaviour which could be considered offensive or threatening.

But Professor Garton Ash said he had noticed an increasing trend for a small number of offended individuals to be able to shut debate down on campus.

He described this as a "subjective veto act".

With regard to "prevent duties", he said historic figures like Marx, Hegel, Darwin, Rousseau and "definitely Jesus Christ" could be considered "non-violent extremists" today.

"The Home Office wouldn't want [Jesus] preaching on campus.

"This is a real threat I think to free speech and one we have to fight back against."

While student concerns must be listened to, universities have to fight to hold the line, he said.

A Home Office spokesman said that the law states that, in complying with prevent duties, universities must have particular regard to their duty to ensure freedom of speech and academic freedom.

"In many cases, complying with the prevent duty is as simple as ensuring there is an effective chair and a strong opposition voice," the spokesman said.

In November last year, Oxford University cancelled an abortion debate after female students complained they would be offended by a man being on a panel.

Sources

• The Telegraph
• Daily Mail
• Image: Theology21.com

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops declined to comment on the Obama administration's latest modification to the Health and Human Services mandate that many Catholic employers are challenging in court.

But other organisations defending plaintiffs in some of the 44 current legal challenges to the HHS mandate said the modifications would not help most of their clients.

Significantly, the Catholic Health Association, which a year ago expressed initial support for the Obama mandate, offered no endorsement of the administration's latest proposal.

Under the latest proposal, Catholic dioceses will probably be exempted from coverage by the HHS mandate. Catholic hospitals, social agencies and universities will not — though the administration proposed other ways to provide the required benefits without any direct financial or administrative involvement by objecting religious non-profits organisations.

The government's plan is to allow Catholic hospitals and universities to offer employee health plans that do not directly provide free contraception and other "preventive services" for women.

Employees or insured students who wanted contraceptive coverage would be able to arrange it through outside insurance companies, at no cost to themselves and without financial or even administrative support of the faith-based institution.

For-profit companies and non-profits that do not have an explicitly religious mission, such as pro-life organisations, could not avail themselves of this stand-alone policy.

Yuval Levin, of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, said in a National Review Online post that that new proposal "betrays a complete lack of understanding of both religious liberty and religious conscience.

"Religious liberty is an older and more profound kind of liberty than we are used to thinking about in our politics now. It's not freedom from constraint, but recognition of a constraint higher than even the law.... It's not the right to do what you want; it is the right to do what you must."

National Catholic Register

Catholic News Service

National Review Online

Image: Salon