Hong Kong security law challenges free speech in U.S. classrooms
By Caleb Hampton, UC-Davis Enterprise
When UC Davis students enroll this spring in professor Eddy U’s class on inequalities in contemporary China, they’ll be given the option to conceal their identities during Zoom discussions and submit work under a secret alias. Still, some students told The Enterprise the course may be too risky for them to take. A law passed this year by the Chinese government threatens harsh punishments — up to life in prison — for broadly defined crimes related to criticism of the Chinese Communist Party. Introduced to crack down on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, the national security law applies to offenses committed anywhere in the world, including in the United States.
A former British colony, Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” agreement that allowed the city to retain civil liberties like free speech and due process that are not protected in mainland China. Over the past year, tensions between Hong Kong and Beijing have escalated, with the Chinese government exerting more control over Hong Kong and millions of Hongkongers protesting. Since passing the security law in June, Beijing has used it to arrest activists, journalists, professors and politicians who are critical of the Chinese government. Others have fled the country to escape prosecution.
While the security law isn’t specific to academia, it has significant consequences for universities around the world. “The law is designed to be a tool of censorship inside and outside the classroom,” said U, who teaches sociology at UC Davis. In response to the law, UC Davis East Asian Languages and Cultures Chair Michael Dylan Foster drafted a disclaimer for professors in the department to use, which advises students that the content of a particular course “might be deemed sensitive or illegal by certain governments.” Similar measures have been taken this fall at other universities, including Harvard and Princeton.
Those in the U.S. likeliest to be targeted by the security law are students from Hong Kong or China — roughly a tenth of the UC Davis student population — who plan to return there. Anyone found to have violated the law while abroad could be arrested upon their return to Chinese jurisdiction. “Even if I’m studying in the U.S., I cannot speak freely,” said W., a former UC Davis student from Hong Kong who transferred to UC Berkeley this quarter. In the spring, W. wrote a paper about the Chinese government’s abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang for a human rights class she took at UC Davis. “I would hesitate to write that kind of essay now,” she said.
UC Davis students from Hong Kong said they are especially wary of class discussions. Last year, they faced aggressive backlash on campus over their support for the Hong Kong protests. Classmates from mainland China — who saw the protests as an affront to their national identity — cussed them out, tore down posters, interrupted rallies and persistently filmed the group. The local chapter of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) contacted the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco about the group of students from Hong Kong and said, according to a notice circulated by CSSA, that they were waiting on the consulate for a “resolution” to the situation.
For students from Hong Kong, those incidents have loomed larger since the enactment of the security law. Some of them have already witnessed the consequences of the law up close. S., a UC Davis graduate student from Hong Kong, was there this summer when the law was passed. As a show of solidarity, he joined other activists in attending bail hearings for the first people charged under the new law. ‘They did not receive fair hearings in my opinion,” S. said. Other students described the law’s effect on daily life. “I’ve been in Hong Kong for six months and it’s just getting more stressful,” H., a UC Davis undergraduate, told The Enterprise in September. She spent the summer interning for a pro-democracy political party. When the law was passed, some of her friends associated with the party fled the country. Four UC Davis students from Hong Kong agreed to talk to The Enterprise, but only using an encrypted video conferencing software and on the condition that the audio recording of the conversation be deleted after it was transcribed. “Everybody is scared to talk about politics in Hong Kong now,” S. said.
A blow to student activism
Last fall, UC Davis students from Hong Kong formed a student organization, called Davis4HK, and held demonstrations on the Quad in support of the pro-democracy movement, making local and national headlines. They worked with the Associated Students, UC Davis, the student government body, to pass a resolution condemning Chinese censorship and received praise from U.S. Congressman John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove, as they advocated for the Hong Kong Human Rights Bill. The security law has put many of those activities off limits, especially efforts pushing for action from the U.S. government or local entities. “Those actions can be interpreted as collusion with foreign forces against the Chinese government, which constitutes a violation of the national security law,” U said. Jimmy Lai, an outspoken Hong Kong media mogul, was charged this week for violating that portion of the law. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
According to experts, it isn’t an accident that sections of the security law prohibit actions often taken by student activists. “One of the main purposes of the law is to control the overseas narrative of China by demobilizing student movements,” U said. The students said they are caught between deeply held convictions and the knowledge of how dangerous it now is to act on them. “I love Hong Kong,” W. said. “I will try to protect myself, but if something wrong is happening, I’ll have to bear the risk. I’m prepared.” Multiple students said that after their activism abroad they are afraid to return to Hong Kong. “The difficulty they’re confronting is in trying to do something meaningful and at the same time keeping themselves safe,” U said. “After the passage of the law, that is a very difficult line to walk.”
The law has yet to be addressed at an institutional level by either UC Davis or the University of California. “In consultation with UC’s International Students and Scholars directors, faculty members have been deciding how to best and most appropriately address the matter in the classroom,” UC Office of the President communications strategist Stett Holbrook told The Enterprise. “As this process unfolds, we will continue to monitor and determine if systemwide measures are necessary.”
According to UC Davis spokesperson Melissa Blouin, various campus units are working on any “support that might be needed related to this new law.”
Tough choices for faculty
Students aren’t the only ones at risk. Any faculty who “openly teach China in an uncompromising way” could run afoul of the law, U said. And unlike students, who can be somewhat shielded by classroom accommodations like aliases, especially while classes are remote, “there is no way to protect the identity of the faculty,” he said. No matter how committed a lecturer might be to truth and ethics, the law forces them to make hard choices. Professors who regularly travel to China for research or have family in China or Hong Kong must tread carefully. “We can expect the law to have a chilling effect [on criticism of the Chinese government],” U said. “Scholars have careers to maintain. They have to consider how to proceed in light of the boundaries being established by the Chinese government.”
U, who immigrated to the U.S. from Hong Kong in 1987, said he doesn’t plan to change his course material. “I won’t be watering down or changing the content of my class,” he said. On the contrary, U has proposed teaching a first-year seminar course titled “Democracy and Authoritarianism in Hong Kong” in the spring. “I feel an urgency to teach students about what is going on in Hong Kong precisely because of the passage of the law,” he said. On the topic of his own safety, U said, “I’ll put it this way: I don’t have plans to go to China.”
===
Several students interviewed for this story asked to be identified by their first initial only, citing fears of persecution by the Chinese government.
===
No comments:
Post a Comment