Universities fear online students face regime reprisals

As classes continue online due to the global coronavirus pandemic, universities in the United States and elsewhere have raised concerns about the risks of teaching topics deemed sensitive to China at a time when it is easier to ‘eavesdrop’ on online delivery, with possible consequences for students and teachers.

As online communications remain vulnerable to hacking and monitoring, universities are looking for ways to protect student privacy while maintaining freedom of expression in online classrooms amid warnings that China’s new National Security Law (NSL) for Hong Kong – which is applicable worldwide – poses significant risks.

Under the NSL, in place since 1 July, a wide range of speech and activity on campuses could be considered subversion, terrorism or collusion with a foreign country against China, regardless of the citizenship or location of the person deemed to be committing the offence.

This becomes particularly problematic as classes move online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The board of directors of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS), in a statement last month, highlighted a series of incidents involving conferencing app Zoom, widely used for online classes, noting that “data originating in the United States during some Zoom sessions was directed through some of the company’s China-based servers, making participants potentially subject to state surveillance and-or legal action”.

In June academics worldwide reacted with alarm over a statement issued by online conferencing company Zoom admitting it had been pressured by the Chinese government to suspend particular Zoom conferences deemed sensitive by China’s government.

Zoom has admitted to its ‘mistakes’ of suspending host accounts in Hong Kong and the US and shutting down online meetings relating to the anniversary on 4 June of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing.

Although Zoom has addressed some of the concerns, “it seems that for the foreseeable future, Zoom and other online meeting providers will have limited ability to prevent state intrusion by the governments in the countries where they do business,” the AAS statement said.

It added: “The expansive laws in China accommodate state censorship and compel online platforms to police and report inappropriate or illegal actions. Such regulations undermine academic freedom and place students and faculty in possible legal jeopardy, not just for the present moment, but for years into the future, making the scrupulous disposition of online material all the more imperative.

“University administrators are enjoined to educate themselves regarding the legal and political challenges that contemporary regimes pose to free intellectual exchange via online teaching and conferencing and to provide guidance to faculty and students about possible risks,” the association said.

Preserving free speech in online classrooms

Rory Truex, assistant professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, who teaches courses on China and who helped draft some guidelines for universities, said via Twitter last month: “We must continue to teach China, the good and the bad. The Chinese government is making it more difficult for us to do so, but I believe we can preserve free speech in our classrooms and protect our students during this uncertain year.

“Our general point of view is that we must not self-censor – we must teach all aspects of China, including the topics the Chinese government would rather we not teach. But we should also be more thoughtful in managing data security and communicating risks to our students.”

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that some classes at Ivy League universities including Princeton and Harvard will come with a label: “This course may cover material considered politically sensitive by China,” and students at Princeton would use code names to protect their identities when submitting work.

A Chinese history class at Yale University in the United States, which includes discussion of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, now includes in its syllabus a new warning for students accessing the course from China or Hong Kong or for students who are Chinese citizens to “review the course description carefully”.

Flagging up risk

Guidelines for universities drawn up by AAS members include clear communication to all students on course content and the shifting legal environment “so they can assess risks for themselves”.

Risks associated with using the university VPNs (virtual private networks) which bypass internet controls within China, or accessing other resources “should be clearly communicated by staff who work most closely with international students”, the association said.

“Instructors should have discretion about whether they want to put certain course materials online, as class content could potentially be accessed by Chinese authorities and used as evidence against the instructor and-or students,” according to a group of academics who have been drawing up guidelines on ‘How to Teach China This Fall’.

Truex said he would not be using ‘code names’ for students but would institute ‘blind grading’ so students’ names are not written on their assignments. He said he would also ensure student comments and discussion are not recorded.

“I will also include a statement at the beginning of my syllabus that states the content of the course and the risks posed by the NSL.” And for students based in China accessing courses: “If possible, I will encourage them to take the course once they return to Princeton in person. Taking an online Chinese politics course while in China would be very tricky,” he admitted.

“I expect the course to feel pretty much the same as before. I will teach the same content, and ask the same sorts of questions in class,” Truex added. “In a year, we will be back in person, and the risks will decrease. We will learn more about the NSL and how Beijing plans to use it – I suspect we’ll find they aren’t targeting undergrads or instructors at Western universities. I hope to roll back these policies at some point.”

But some academics note that the implication go beyond China courses.

Sheena Greitens, associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin in the United States, in comments published by ChinaFile last week, said: “Although it’s not clear what content might be deemed subversive enough to warrant official attention, the definition is broad enough that most China-focused courses would likely have content meeting that threshold.

“But so could courses on international security, global history, migration, contentious politics, national identity, conflict resolution, gender studies, and more – meaning that the law touches not just on how universities teach China, but how we teach about the world writ large.”

She added that despite attempts to mitigate risk, “we must be honest – with ourselves and students – that nothing an individual instructor at an American university can do will completely remove the risk generated by the NSL.”

“The US cannot afford to handicap research on China, or student understanding of it, by truncating course content on the very issues that make China a global strategic challenge,” Greitens said.

Main risk to students in China

Others however have noted that the NSL is primarily designed to stem dissent within Hong Kong, where some 20 individuals have already been arrested since the NSL was promulgated on 1 July. They suggest the risk of prosecution of foreign-based academics and students is low, although others say it is too early to tell.

Xiaobo Lü, associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, said in an online roundtable by the news website Politico on 26 August that “the group that is most vulnerable are instructors and students who are Chinese nationals and Chinese-Americans. They and their relatives in China could be pressured to show their Chinese loyalty and if not, they could be deemed as traitors, and even their relatives could face some dire consequences.”

Lai-Tze Fan, assistant professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada, advised university teachers not to send students outside the country “anything obviously incriminating, even if it is part of your syllabus”.

She said via Twitter that while it may seem educationally limiting and ‘non-democratic’, “assigning readings that advocate for pro-democracy protests may get them [students] into *legal* trouble if they are reading in a café or even at home on a shared computer.

“I’ve had no issue to bring such a topic up in an in-person classroom; it is only the problem of a digital trail,” Fan said.

Need for universities to act more broadly

Jonathan Friedman, director of PEN America’s Campus Free Speech Program, said in a statement issued on 19 August: “We are seeing a chilling illustration of the global consequences of the Chinese government’s system of censorship, surveillance and criminalisation of speech. It is terrifying, but all too logical that American academics are developing ‘code names’ and content warnings in order to shield their overseas students from being prosecuted by Chinese authorities.

“The campus classroom – even a virtual one – must be a place where students can engage in open expression and debate, free from fear. Any law or policy, from any government, that undermines the safety of students to speak freely is a dagger in the heart of academic freedom,” Friedman said.

“It is alarming to hear college professors say they feel unable to protect their students. If professors feel they cannot do anything, university leaders must step up.

“US college administrators must do all they can to push back against these threats, including by publicly recognising the risk that China’s criminalisation of free speech poses to the over 350,000 mainland Chinese and Hong Kong students studying at US universities,” Friedman said.

Truex said while at the moment most measures have been put in place by individual professors, he expected universities to come up with policies of their own in the next few weeks.

AAS urged universities to draw up policies. It said: “In today’s globalised academic ecosystem, academic freedom is not something that applies solely to people within the physical boundaries of a given education institution.

“Rather, it is a protection that a university has the obligation to extend over its academic activities wherever they occur, whether on its domestic home campus, on a foreign branch campus, in the pages of a journal, or online.

“The issue of security and reliability of video-conferencing and other course software, therefore, is not a matter simply for university administrators or IT technical staff to address: it affects the very heart of academic endeavour and should concern every member of the university.”