Adapted from Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary,'' in GoLocal24.com.
Americans should worry about the increasing efforts of Chinese interests to try to curb free speech about that nation at U.S. and other Western colleges and universities, including some prestigious New England schools, such as Harvard. This push for self-censorship includes financial incentives by big donors linked to these regimes and threats to curtail access to the hugeChinese market.
There was at least a modest victory against the march of the dictators when Cambridge University Press reversed itself and decided to republish hundreds of articles on its Chinese site that the university had previously supinely blocked at Beijing’s request.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Cambridge had “blocked more than 300 articles dealing with sensitive topics ranging from pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests to Tibet on its Chinese site.’’
In reinstating the articles after academics denounced the self-censorship, Cambridge University Press said: “Academic freedom is the overriding principle on which the University of Cambridge is based.’’ Good to hear, if belated!
Of course, severe Chinese government censorship of the Internet in that nation will continue, as will efforts by Chinese interests to silence criticism of the regime wherever they can around the world. Those who believe in liberty and free inquiry shouldn’t be encouraging these authoritarian aggressions.
John Pomfret, former Beijing bureau chief of The Washington Post, described the regime’s efforts in a Post essay headlined “China’s odious manipulation of history is infecting the West’’. Among his remarks:
“China’s move to demand self-censorship {by Cambridge} is not an isolated case. It’s just one of many the Communist government has taken in recent years to mold history and historians to serve the needs of the Chinese Communist Party. Party boss Xi Jinping has led a campaign against what he calls ‘historical nihilism,’ the party’s shorthand for attempts to write honestly about the past and mistakes committed by China’s Communist leaders. As part of that campaign, historians and writers have been silenced and jailed, books have been banned and party censors have launched a nationwide campaign to expunge any positive mention of Western political ideas from Chinese college textbooks.’’
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