Webinar Clip: Q&A

Yeah, well, that's a there's always something to hide. I wrote a book on money laundering. The people people find ways of hiding stuff. So to kind of switch to the Q&A, there are a few questions. Some of some of the stuff we've talked about. But this question goes to to Cynthia and Emily. Has there been any major allies of yours on campus that have sort of offered moral intellectual support, such as the National Association of Scholars? I'd like to hope that my presence here as moderator kind of answers that one. But on campus, is there has there been any other support for you from organizations that you might not expect, perhaps? When I was hosting some events in Texas. So in Texas, there's like a really large population of Asian students and Chinese students in particular, like second generation Chinese students. And so actually, there's another organization just called the Chinese Students Association, not affiliated, not a Chinese proxy. It's just second generation Chinese students who, you know, gather around, talk about culture. And so that organization, as well as the Taiwanese Hong Kong organizations were the main ones that I turned to when it came to like promoting events or, you know, doing collaborations or having these even like festivals like Lunar New Year festivals or Mid-Autumn Festival. A lot of these were done in collaboration. And I think there was a lot of shared values between especially like the second generation, because a lot of them, you know, born and raised in America, and they are very aware and clear about the, you know, CCP threat. So I found a lot of support in those organizations. What about students or any organization that's not necessarily connected or embedded within the diaspora community? Have you found support from from other campus organizations that maybe face similar issues or are just generally supportive and natural allies? For me at Penn, in short, no. But I would like to think that, you know, at other universities, there is some sort of support. Actually, when this all happened, Athena Institute was a really great resource. So I did turn to them to speak with them. But at Penn for this specific event, you know, we did feel sort of marginalized and like like I said, we felt a little isolated that we didn't have anyone to turn to returning to administration. And administration wasn't really giving any support either. But I would like to see, you know, more of that collaboration. I think there are at other universities, you know, diaspora groups that are supportive. We don't have a students for a free Tibet at Penn, or I think there may be some Hong Kong groups or Taiwan groups. But I don't believe, you know, at Penn specifically for this instance, they, you know, responded or publicly showed any support for for this instance. Do you think why do you think that is? Does it fear or do you think that it's just sort of closed off because onlookers who may be critical of China kind of just see it as maybe this is just a specific issue? It has nothing to do with me. I think maybe a little bit of both. I know that we did extend invitations to all of our human rights film screening events, but I think there is a little bit of reluctance, you know, to get involved because they know the potential backlash that can happen. You know, it happens with pro-democracy events. You know, they know that human rights film screening events like specifically on China might elicit this sort of pushback. So I think it's a little bit of both that you mentioned. OK, so I have another question here. This kind of it'll manifest differently on how you answer it. But I want I want all three of you to address it. Has there been any support or pressure being brought to bear on the business community? Maybe either related to investing in China? This is a Q&A that came in regarding transnational repression from your organization, or has there been more broadly? How is the business community been involved with transnational repression internationally? That's probably for Grady. But this is kind of maybe at the local level, if you're talking about campuses, you could think about, you know, alumni or donors or anything like that. Well, when it comes to universities, like donors and stuff, exerting pressure, I don't I haven't really come across many instances of specific threats of withholding funds or anything to a university because of this issue. It may it may have occurred, but I just I haven't seen that yet. I don't know if that's because of the lack of awareness or a lack of just will at this point. But I haven't. I think when it comes to the wider issue, it's a matter of oftentimes we see the issue obliquely addressed. For example, there's been legislation when it comes to forced labor and that involves Uyghurs in China. And I think that although this isn't necessarily directly related to transnational oppression, many a lot of the. A lot of Uyghurs who have fled China are fleeing the system as a whole. So I think that in a way, this sort of legislation that addresses the domestic concerns regarding this forced labor and this may apply to other countries also, but I'm mainly thinking of China right now. It does acknowledge the fact that a whole community is being targeted by with unfair business practices, or I don't I don't even want to call it that. But yeah, I think that I don't necessarily think it can. A thing that's that is discouraging is that oftentimes countries will come out against their adversaries and not address similar issues, similar instances of transnational oppression perpetrated by allies such as, let's say, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia or U.S. and Egypt. They're less willing to address that, whether it be in terms of economic relations or business relations. So I think in general, it would be good to see more of a wider response to the issue when it comes to cases perpetrated by a variety of countries instead of just China and Iran and Russia, let's say. Yeah. On the topic of if you think of the university as a business and how a lot of the universities actually have branches inside China, like NYU Shanghai, you know, the University of California system. What we've seen just from, you know, the student side is that a lot of the students are concerned and have experienced being photographed or, you know, different forms of surveillance. So like just overall from our survey, we found seven out of 30 students were, you know, reported one incident of suspected physical or digital surveillance. And while this is going on simultaneously, there was actually on August 14th, a dean from the University of California school system visited Shanghai. And, you know, she connected with students, alumni, industry partners from her post, and she's incredibly excited to be back there. You know, delighted to reopen the USC community in Shanghai and in China. And she had basically three other paragraphs about fostering collaboration with China and the, you know, wonderful future that they'll have there. And I feel like having these two cases side by side is really is really telling. And kind of you can see how while the students who are marginalized are experiencing one reality, the deans of the school are really chasing after another goal that it's not to protect the students. And I feel like there's a really like miscommunication or not enough of a, you know, round table discussion or overall awareness about this situation, because there are students, international students in the UC system, who've told us that their family was called regarding their whereabouts, that, you know, they get photographed whenever they hold Falun Gong events. And it's really a lot of pressure for them because they're going to go back to China, potentially face detention or what have you. And the deans of the school are, you know, traveling on these, you know, luxury business trips, really having like such a close connection with the Chinese Communist Party. And I feel like that's something that should be stopped. These collaboration and these business ties, because it's, it's really kind of, you know, completely blind to what the students are actually facing and what they're worried about. Right. Here's a question. So Harvard recently shifted their Chinese language partnership from mainland China to Taiwan. Has there been any effort or assistance or collaboration with organizations in Taiwan that have been beneficial on campus or maybe to Grady with transnational repression from China? Has Taiwan been of any assistance to those fleeing transnational repression from China? Well, I think actually we we've seen some cases in the past involving it's a tricky subject because the, the, of the way China considers Taiwan to be a part of its territory. So we've seen cases in that regard. I do think neighboring states are aware of the issue. That doesn't mean that they've necessarily done done anything to address it. In fact not so much Taiwan, but I would like to reiterate that countries that have strong economic interests and ties with China don't want to jeopardize those for the sake of protecting certain diaspora groups. So it's a tight rope that some of these countries are walking. But yeah, I think the law of democracies have brought this issue up at things like the summit of democracy and other high profile events. It's just that some countries have, I guess they would think more to lose when it comes to dealing with this issue. I guess I can add like a little bit to that. It has a little bit to do with the question that you asked in about the money and then also the point that I forgot earlier. But I think you know, the Chinese international student population at Penn and a lot of these universities is so broad. It's it's huge. And I think like Grady mentioned, like Cynthia mentioned, you know, and also that's mentioned in in the name of Confucius, the documentary, it's this issue of self censorship. You know, does it really matter that we're, you know, having this Confucius Institute if we just don't talk about the bad stuff? You know, we just talk about the good stuff. We're not censoring, you know, we're, we're just not acknowledging that these bad things exist. You know, does it really matter that there are, you know, marginalized groups on campus if we just don't talk about them? You know, it's like, like Grady said, it's like you don't want to risk this huge financial investment of students, of money that these universities get from China, from, you know, foreign governments, you know, does it really matter that this small minority on campus may be suffering, you know, may feel marginalized if this, this benefit, it sort of outweighs that risk of like making this group feel marginalized and vulnerable on campus. Right. Does it really matter? Right. There's a, cause we're running out of, we're running short on time here. I want to kind of open it up to a bigger question. There's been some data that indicates that there's growing discontent in China itself, particularly among younger Chinese. And you brought up the issue of self-censorship. And one of the reasons that authoritarian regimes, they tend to spy, and this is coming from political science literature, is because of the authoritarian nature. What happens is there's no feedback mechanism for populations to express their discontent with policy or, or aspects of life. There's no elections, there's no freedom of press, et cetera. So as a result, the government doesn't really know what anyone's thinking. So that increases the incentive to spy and crack down further. And then there's this feedback effect that kind of cycles until you would get increasingly totalitarian. But nonetheless, there's this growing sort of discontent. And I'm wondering if this incentive to self-censor or falsify preferences among China within China itself, do you think that that's changing at all based on what you're hearing in the Asper community or the data that you're seeing at Freedom House, Grady? I'd like to open that up to the big sort of bookend question. Just as a, I guess, within my microcosm, within my community, because I'm from Houston, Texas, so there's a rather large Chinese diaspora community there. Because of, I guess, several events, including anti-espionage laws and things like that, there are more Chinese, especially like the elderly relatives who are able or like wanting to come to America and stay here. And then within China, a lot of our relatives have, you know, developed a sense for circumvention tools and for all of these VPNs. I know some organizations work with like Siphon or others that actually help citizens, you know, receive free internet, receive all of this information. And I feel like that has become an opening for a lot of the information and a lot of more freer dialogue to occur. And I feel like that's actually lessened that fear of, you know, being caught or that self-censorship. And there's actually a joke that, you know, there's like 50 security cameras on every single, you know, pole in China. But since it's made in China, most of them probably don't work. So that's the general consensus. You know, just what I've seen. I think something that I would like to point out that we have found, I want to specifically look at universities right now, is that it's related to this question of espionage. I'm not talking about espionage in terms of diaspora members reporting on diaspora members, but rather espionage for the purpose of gaining intelligence or this foreign intelligence gathering. I think that one problem that we've noticed is that often on university websites or whatnot, the practice of transnational oppression is conflated with this, these foreign intelligence gathering efforts. Indeed, I would say that in most of the cases, these universities almost focus exclusively on protecting intellectual property from foreign governments like China and safeguarding research integrity. I actually think that we think that the security driven approach operates to the detriment of a more rights-based emphasis on academic freedom and free speech on behalf of these students. I think that this sort of security-based response can actually wind up marginalizing these foreign scholar communities and students instead of protecting their rights. I mean, we should always focus on protecting the rights of scholars and students from countries like China or just, or any other country that we may focus on for these intelligence gathering operations. This is the best way to secure campus against foreign interference in general, I think, and to maximize the free speech rights of these students. So as we are quickly running out of time, is there anything any of you would like to sort of leave the viewers with as sort of closing thoughts? If I may add one more recommendation, I think Emily did a good job of discussing solidarity and what Cynthia pointed out about like the use of certain textbooks and stuff. It's interesting and troublesome. As I said, raising awareness of the issue is the first step in terms of responding adequately to the issue. And I think something that universities could do at the most basic level, I guess, I mean, it would require resources and time, but it shouldn't be too much of a drag for these administrators to realize, would be to add some sort of tutorial or session at orientation, campus orientation on transnational oppression and what it is, talking about trends, cases, maybe invite experts, civil society experts to discuss the matter. Oftentimes students who are coming from other countries are adjusting to a new community and may not even be aware of this practice or they may know what it is, but may not know, may not be able to put a name to it or may be frazzled when it comes to actually reporting cases. So ideally universities would talk to students about this to send a message that this is not okay. But to also make it be known that they are ready to address the issue, hopefully. And I think Cynthia has brought this up in her research, but kind of establishing some sort of reporting mechanism once this orientation is in place so that students can use this knowledge to protect themselves if they see it necessary and to make the campus community a better place in general. And then the next step after the reporting mechanism would be the university has to figure out a contingency plan because this has happened for way too long for them to be just unaware and, Oh, what's that? Like, Oh, someone's being monitored. Oh, I don't know what to do. You know, like Emily was faced with a month long reprisal campaign that was targeted towards her and her club members. Like, Oh, we don't know what to do. We'll just talk about it and then not include her in the conversation. It's just, it's long past those excuses. And I really think they should have a contingency plan, stick to the code of conduct, have best practices, and really, really stick to that every single time that something like this happens. And I think for me, one thing I'll mention is that sort of one of the complaints that I found really interesting you know, that we received from the students, like in one of the complaints, what this student said was you know, we recognize the free speech of Falun Dafa on campus and we don't mind if they do it in their own space. But we, you know, sort of we don't want this to be promoted. We don't want it, like, we don't want this speech outside of their own space. You know, we don't care if they talk about this within their own space, but like don't have it on a university level. So I think in that sense, the university can do better in helping us feel supported in that. Like we don't have to like, why should we have to confine this discussion to our own groups? What is the purpose of raising awareness within our own groups when we all know what's happening? The purpose is to raise awareness across the university and have university admins sort of take a proactive approach in helping support our voice, right? Why are we, why should we be confined to our own little room, to our own little space so that nobody else can hear what we're saying? You know, it's supporting free speech, but it's not really free speech because you're keeping us within our own little bubble. So like I mentioned, I think there was a lot that UPenn could have done to help us feel supported. Like even so much as just saying, you know, there will be differences in like opinion, but you know, go about it in a civil way. You know, we support students as long as they're following the university policies, as policies, as long as they're following the code of conduct, you know, there should be this no discouragement of students freely expressing. I think something as simple as that, or even just like an email and support, right? Like I feel like we didn't even get so much as that. But I think overall, you know, there's just not that support there. It's sort of like a brush it under the rug. You know, this will blow over eventually these students will be gone in like four years. So it's not really a big deal. So that's, that's kind of just my sense. And I think universities can take that step to just be a little bit more proactive and helping us feel supported. Well, that brings us to our close. I appreciate everyone for tuning in and a special thanks to Cynthia, Emily, and Grady for the work that they do. And this has been Beijing's influence on American university campuses, the Falun Gong case study and beyond Beijing's influence on American university campuses. I'm from the NAS. All the, everyone here is doing amazing work on bringing awareness to this issue and what the CCP is doing on college campuses. And I'm sure they'd be happy to answer any questions you may have after the event, if they, if they reach out to you. So please, please do keep in touch and thanks for attending.