In an effort to curb Western influence, China’s leaders have reportedly banned the discussion of seven subjects in university classrooms, including press freedom, universal values, and the historical mistakes of the Chinese Communist Party.
Chinese professors and political analysts said a recent directive from Beijing to universities indicated an awareness among the country’s leaders that the government is losing its ideological grip over students and younger faculty members.
While many faculty members said they had not been briefed by university administrators about the taboos, and in some cases had never heard of them, several professors said university leaders had instructed them at the beginning of May to avoid the subjects in class. According to academics who have been told about the list, the other taboo topics are judicial independence, economic neoliberalism, the wealth accumulated by top government officials, and civil society.
The list was reportedly issued in May and has not been publicly released or discussed by the government. Some professors posted news of the taboos on social media, but their posts were quickly deleted, most likely by censors. The orders were part of a broader directive from Beijing that told local officials to “study the situation in China’s ideological sphere” and to “understand the dangers posed by views and theories advocated by the West,” according to The New York Times. References to the larger document, which is titled “Concerning the Situation in the Ideological Sphere,” were removed from Chinese news and government Web sites last week.
Strong Resistance Expected
While discussions of the seven topics have long been scrutinized in China, some academics do appear to be broaching them in Chinese classrooms. Students at universities in Beijing, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, and Shanghai said they had lecturers who criticized the party in class and talked openly about government corruption. In one class at Shanghai’s Fudan University, students said a professor taught them how to use software that would enable them to breach the country’s Internet fire wall, which is used to keep out ideas unwelcome to the authorities.
“This is the first time for the party to issue such a request clearly and in such specific detail concerning what should be not be taught on campus,” said Zhang Xuezhong, a law professor at Shanghai’s East China University of Political Science and Law who was briefed about the orders during a staff meeting on May 8. “This comes at a time when the propaganda orchestrated by the party and the government is not that influential in an era when new technology and new communication methods have emerged.”
“I am not surprised,” Zhang Lifan, a Beijing-based historian and political commentator, said. “Now on campuses, college professors are also discussing the truth with students and not just following textbooks. The seven taboos are measures the government is taking to try to prevent them from talking about stuff that is the opposite of mainstream ideology.”
Zhang Lifan said this was not the first time in recent months that the Communist Party had seen a need to re-instill leftist values, including Maoism, Marxism, and socialism with Chinese characteristics, in society.
Last July a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences published an article in a party magazine on six challenges facing ideology construction. And Xi Jinping, China’s new president, has mentioned the issue himself. On May 7 Guangming Daily, a Communist Party newspaper, published an editorial reporting that, during a January meeting with party members, Mr. Xi said the party would not have been able to survive if it had completely repudiated Mao Zedong after the Cultural Revolution.
Zhang Lifan said that even if the directive was carried out on campuses, he anticipated strong resistance from professors. “I don’t think it will be possible for the government to push forward the seven taboos on a large scale,” he said. “If it is carried out, the rights of speech of public intellectuals will be deprived.”
A Beijing-based professor who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly on an issue that might threaten her job said it was not uncommon for administrators to warn faculty members not to discuss “sensitive” topics. But she said students were still able to get access to information even if it was not discussed on the campus. “I have to point out that students are much more complex than before,” the professor said.
Little Concern at Western Universities
There appeared to be little concern about the seven taboos among administrators of Western universities with branch campuses in China.
Jeffrey S. Lehman, vice chancellor of New York University’s Shanghai campus, which is slated to open this fall, said that the university had not received a copy of the orders and that “it shouldn’t have any impact on us.”
Before moving to NYU, Mr. Lehman helped to establish the Peking University School of Transnational Law, which has been teaching U.S. law to Chinese students for five years in Shenzhen, a coastal city in southern China. “In my own experience, there is an ongoing push-pull in China between those authorities who worry that speech will be destabilizing and those who worry that speech restrictions will be destabilizing,” Mr. Lehman said in an e-mail to The Chronicle. “The fruit of that push-pull tends to be a tapestry of standards applying in different contexts.”
Mary Brown Bullock, executive vice chancellor of Duke-Kunshan University, which is expected to begin academic classes in 2014, said Duke University officials also had “not received any written or verbal decree from the Chinese government.”
“We have received assurances from our partners and authorities that Duke-Kunshan University will be accorded the highest level of academic freedom,” Ms. Bullock said in an e-mail.
While administrators at Western educational outposts in China may not be overly concerned about the taboo-topics list, some Chinese professors said they were worried.
“If the policy is carried out, red horror will blanket the society,” Zhang Ming, a professor of politics at Beijing’s Renmin University, said. “We are worried we will go back to the Mao era.”
“After the document was issued, the government has not come out and acknowledged it,” Zhang Ming said. “It seems the top leadership hopes to shake up the party and the government but does not want the outside world to know.”
Juan Wang contributed to this article.
