[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
IS ACADEMIC FREEDOM THREATENED BY CHINA'S
INFLUENCE ON U.S. UNIVERSITIES?
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 25, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-87
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
MATT SALMON, Arizona KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California
PAUL COOK, California ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas GRACE MENG, New York
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
RON DeSANTIS, Florida TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
TED S. YOHO, Florida ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
CURT CLAWSON, Florida BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
TOM EMMER, MinnesotaUntil 5/18/
15 deg.
DANIEL DONOVAN, New YorkAs
of 5/19/15 deg.
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and
International Organizations
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina KAREN BASS, California
CURT CLAWSON, Florida DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, AMI BERA, California
Tennessee
TOM EMMER, MinnesotaUntil 5/18/
15 deg.
DANIEL DONOVAN, New YorkAs
of 6/2/15 deg.
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
WITNESSES
Mr. Jeffrey S. Lehman, vice chancellor, New York University-
Shanghai....................................................... 10
Ms. Susan V. Lawrence, Specialist in Asian Affairs, Congressional
Research Service............................................... 23
Mr. Robert Daly, director, Kissinger Institute on China and the
U.S., Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars......... 32
Mirta M. Martin, Ph.D., president, Fort Hays State University.... 43
Ms. Yaxue Cao, founder and editor, China Change.................. 61
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Mr. Jeffrey S. Lehman: Prepared statement........................ 14
Ms. Susan V. Lawrence: Prepared statement........................ 26
Mr. Robert Daly: Prepared statement.............................. 36
Mirta M. Martin, Ph.D.: Prepared statement....................... 47
Ms. Yaxue Cao: Prepared statement................................ 64
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 98
Hearing minutes.................................................. 99
The Honorable Dana Rohrabacher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of California: Letter submitted for the record....... 100
Mr. Jeffrey S. Lehman: Appendices to testimony................... 102
The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress
from the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on
Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International
Organizations: Statement of Dr. Dawood Farahi.................. 106
IS ACADEMIC FREEDOM THREATENED BY CHINA'S INFLUENCE ON U.S.
UNIVERSITIES?
----------
THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2015
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
Global Human Rights, and International Organizations,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:05 p.m., in
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H.
Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Smith. The subcommittee will come to order.
And I want to welcome all of our very distinguished
panelists and guests to this hearing this afternoon.
And I would like to begin with an opening statement, and
then I will yield to my two distinguished colleagues if they
would like to make any opening statements.
This hearing is the second in a series probing the question
of whether maintaining access to China's lucrative education
market undermines the very values that make American
universities great, including academic freedom.
This hearing is timely for three reasons: The growing
number of satellite or branch campuses started by the U.S.
universities in China; the record numbers of Chinese students,
275,000 estimated, enrolling in U.S. universities and colleges
in China in each year, bringing with them nearly $10 million a
year in tuition and other spending; and the recent efforts by
the Communist Party of China to regain ideological control over
universities and academic research.
Official Chinese Government decrees prohibit teaching and
research in seven areas, the so-called seven taboos or seven
silences, including universal values, press freedom, civil
society, citizen rights, criticism of the party's past neo-
liberal economics, and the independence of the judiciary. All
of these so-called seven taboos are criticized as Western
values, which begs a very significant and important question:
Are U.S. colleges and universities compromising their images as
bastions of free inquiry and academic freedom in exchange for
China's education dollars?
Some may defend concessions made as the cost of doing
business in an authoritarian country or dictatorship, such as
in China. Maybe a university decides that it won't offer a
class on human rights in China. Maybe they won't invite a
prominent dissident, a fellow, or visiting lecturer. Maybe they
won't protest when a professor is denied a visa because of his
or her work that is critical of a dictatorship. Maybe such
compromises are rationalized as necessary to not offend a major
donor or for the greater good of maintaining access.
If U.S. universities are only offering Chinese students and
faculty a different name on their diploma or paycheck, is it
worth the cost and the compromises and the concessions?
Perry Link, the eminent China scholar, argued during our
last hearing in this room just a few months ago that the slow
drip of self-censorship is the most pernicious threat to
academic freedom, and it undermines both the recognized brands
of our major universities as well as their credibility.
Self-censorship may be the reason why NYU terminated the
fellowship of a world-class human rights activist and hero,
Chen Guangcheng. As NYU faculty said in their letter to the
board of trustees, the circumstances surrounding the launch of
an NYU satellite campus in Shanghai and the ending of Chen's
residence created a ``public perception, accurate or otherwise,
that NYU made commitments in order to operate in China.''
Again, begs another question: Did NYU make any commitment or in
any way fashion their response to Chen's staying at NYU?
Let the record show that we had invited NYU's president or
faculty some 16 times to testify before this subcommittee
without success. However, we are very, very pleased that
Jeffrey Lehman, the vice chancellor of the NYU Shanghai campus,
is indeed here with us today.
On a personal note, I spent a considerable amount of time
with Chen Guangcheng when he first came to the United States
and have continued that friendship ever since. Though NYU
offered him important sanctuary, he was, in my opinion, treated
very rudely at times, particularly when it was clear that he
would not isolate himself on campus. And that included times
when I invited him to join Speaker Boehner and Nancy Pelosi at
a joint press conference to hear from Chen Guangcheng about his
beliefs about human rights in China, and it was a totally
bipartisan effort, and yet that was not looked at very
favorably.
Though NYU offered NYU officials and others worked hard to
cordon off access to Chen, even on the days that he came. I was
literally moved to the side so I wouldn't be able to have
access to him. And that is after holding four hearings,
including two in this room, when we got him on the phone when
he was in a hospital in Beijing and hooked him up right here at
this microphone, and he made his appeal to the American public
and to the press that he would like to come to the United
States.
Reuters and The Wall Street Journal also reported that
there was concern that Chen was too involved with so-called
antiabortion activists, Republicans, and others, which would
fit me as a description because I am very pro-life.
We may never know if NYU experienced persistent and direct
pressure from China to oust Chen from his NYU fellowship or
whether they sought to isolate him in order to keep Chen's
story out of the 2012 Presidential election, as Professor Jerry
Cohen had said in an interview at the time. Certainly, there is
some interest here, as Hillary Clinton spent a whole chapter in
her book detailing the events of Chen's escape and exile in the
United States, which, when Chen Guangcheng's book came out,
certainly was not the same story being told by both. Or maybe
there wasn't any pressure at all, just self-censorship to keep
in Beijing's good graces during the final stages of opening the
NYU Shanghai campus.
While we are not here to exclusively focus on the sad
divorce of Chen Guangcheng and NYU, but his ousting begs the
question: Is it possible to accept lucrative subsidies from the
Chinese Government, or other dictatorships for that matter, and
operate campuses on their territory and still preserve academic
freedom and other values that make America's universities
great?
I am sure there are those here today who say they can and
reference the assurance they receive from the government or any
agreement they sign, which is often kept secret with the host
government. The real answer appears to be much more murky.
Foreign educational partnerships indeed are important
endeavors for students, collaborative research, cultural
understanding, and maybe even for the host country. The U.S.
model of higher education is the world's best. American
faculty, fellowships, and exchange programs are effective
global ambassadors. We must all seek to maintain that
integrity, and it is in the interest of the United States to do
so, and particularly when it comes to China.
Nevertheless, if U.S. colleges and universities are
outsourcing academic control, faculty and student oversight, or
curriculum to a foreign government, can they really be the
islands of freedom in the midst of authoritarian states or
dictatorships? Are they places where all students and faculty
can enjoy the fundamental freedoms denied them in their own
country?
These questions we ask today are not abstract at all. The
Chinese Government and the Communist Party are waging a
persistent, intense, and escalating campaign to suppress
dissent, purge rivals from within the party, and regain total
ideological control over the arts, media, and universities.
The campaign is broader and more extensive than any other
in the past 20 years. Targets include human rights defenders,
the press, social media and the Internet, civil rights lawyers,
Tibetans, Uyghurs, and religious groups, the Falun Gong, NGOs,
intellectuals and their students, and government officials,
particularly those allied with former Chinese leader Jiang
Zemin.
Chinese universities have been targeted, as well. The
recently issued Communist Party Directive Document 30
reinforces earlier warnings to purge Western-inspired notions
of media independence, human rights, and the criticism of Mao
Zedong.
In a recent speech reported by The New York Times,
President Xi Jinping urged university leaders to ``keep a tight
grip on . . . ideological work in higher education . . . never
allow singing to a tune contrary to the party center, never
allowing eating the Communist Party's food and then smashing
the Communist Party's cooking pots''--his words.
Will anyone at NYU or Fort Hays or Johns Hopkins or Duke,
for that matter, be allowed to smash any Chinese Communist
Party cooking pots? It is a serious question, because if your
campuses are subsidized by the Chinese Government, if your
joint educational partnerships are majority-owned by the
Chinese Government, aren't you then eating the Communist
Party's food and then subject to its rules just like any
Chinese university?
I remember almost 10 years ago when Google, Yahoo,
Microsoft, and Cisco here testified in a hearing about
censorship and raised their hands and gave their oath that they
would tell the truth. The persistent response to their
censorship and their opening up of their personally
identifiable information to the Communist dictatorship in China
was that they were just following Chinese law. And many great
people, like activists, particularly in the media area, were
imprisoned because of that complicity, because they were
enabling it.
I will never forget showing pictures of Tiananmen Square on
Google which showed nothing but nice pictures--that is the
Chinese version--and then if you went to Google, obviously the
one that we have access to, you got millions of hits of tanks
in the Square and young students being killed.
There are nine U.S. educational partnerships operating in
China. The New York University Shanghai campus opened its doors
to students in September 2013; Duke; the University of
California, Berkeley's School of Engineering; Kean College,
which is located of course in my own State of New Jersey. In
addition, there is Fort Hays State University out of Kansas,
and there are a couple of others as well.
I would point out to my colleagues that we have also
asked--because this is the second in what will be a multiseries
of hearings on this--the Government Accountability Office, and
they have agreed, to study the agreements of both satellite
campuses in China and the Confucius Institutes in the United
States.
I know some agreements are public while others are not. In
fact, some schools made their agreements public after our last
hearing, and we are very grateful for that. We are looking for
complete and total transparency, and we will be asking all the
universities and colleges to make their agreements with the
Chinese Government public.
We need to know if universities and colleges who are
starting satellite programs in China can be, again, islands of
freedom in China or in other parts of the world. We need to
know what pressures are being placed on them to compromise and
backstop them, knowing that the Congress and the U.S.
Government is behind they being unfettered in their ability to
have academic freedom.
These are important questions. Can they be handled by the
universities and faculties and trustees themselves, or are
there things that the U.S. Congress and State Department and
the White House need to be doing to protect these freedoms?
I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague Mr.
Sherman for any comments he might have.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am not ranking member of this subcommittee. I am not even
a member of this subcommittee. Karen Bass asked me to sit in
and promised that I could leave at 2:45, which I will need to
do. But I am the ranking member of the Asia Subcommittee, which
I believe is somewhat relevant to this discussion.
As an interloper to this subcommittee, I want to commend
the chair and congratulate the chair and Ranking Member Bass of
the passage of AGOA today on the House floor.
When it comes to the greatest human rights deprivation by
China, it is probably the enormous trade deficit they run with
the United States. We are now engaged in this strategic and
economic dialogue. All the bigwigs from China are here. The
entire State Department is dedicated to them. Hundreds of pages
of pronouncements are being generated. I can't find one that
actually mentions that we have a $343 billion trade deficit
with China.
And I would point out that, while there are dozens and
dozens of meetings, none of them are with Members of Congress,
except for the administration has created this Potemkin village
situation where Members of Congress are invited to participate
only if they do not speak to anyone from China. God forbid the
Chinese find out that there are people in the United States,
unlike, perhaps, the administration, who care about that I
mentioned the $343 billion trade deficit.
Now, as to the matter at hand, we have to focus on what
effect these educational relationships have with free speech in
the United States and free speech in China. One other issue
that is mentioned is, are we just cheapening the brand,
independent of human rights and politics? Are we sending people
over--are the Chinese learning mathematics the same way they
would learn at the home campus here?
That, I think, is a little outside of government's purview.
You know, there are Buicks being sold in China, and if GM wants
to make a Yugo and put a Buick nameplate on it and sell it to
the Chinese, that is their business, and it will hurt their
business. The universities have a lot tied up in the value of
their name, and I think that will at least assure that good
mathematics is taught by those good universities that establish
branches in China.
But the question is, what is the effect of this
relationship on free speech there and free speech here? As to
free speech there, I think that American campuses in China are
doing a better job of honoring American values of free speech
than any other campus in China. So our presence there does
raise the standard, to some degree.
Even better, from a free-speech standpoint, is when Chinese
students come here. I guarantee that every Chinese student that
comes here will have a chance, often, to see the cooking pots
of the Communist Party of China smashed. It will be a good
experience for them.
But, as to those who are taught there, we would want to
have the highest standard of free speech, the highest standard
of political inquiry and tough Socratic questions. My guess is
that we will not be able to reach American standards.
I am also concerned about the effect this all has on free
speech here. For example, AMC--I believe it is the second-
largest owner of movie screens in the United States--is now
Chinese-owned. Is Richard Gere going to be in a movie about
Tibet that is made in the future by some studio that feels that
being on movie screens in the United States is not relevant to
the success of the movie? I don't know. But we do know that
such a movie will not be on Chinese screens and may have
difficulty being on Chinese-owned screens here in the United
States.
More attuned to academia, I have seen Turkey try to buy
chairs of genocide denial by endowing chairs of history, and I
would be concerned about China endowing chairs at our
university.
They have a program worldwide of teaching Confucianism. I
think China should be very proud of Confucian philosophy and
what it has added to the world. The world could learn more
about Confucianism. But I have fear that, if it is up to the
Chinese Government, the version that you will learn will
involve not breaking the cooking pots of the Chinese Communist
Party.
We do have to worry about the influence of money.
Universities are not exempt from this, and there is a ton of
money. We already see the enormous political power China gets
from our corporations. The easiest way to make money is to make
something for pennies in China and sell it for dollars in the
United States. A lot of people are in that business, and they
are a powerful force here in Washington and in the general
political circles. And, of course, the money that our
universities make on the Chinese enterprise, whether it be
campuses there or students coming here, may very well affect
what is taught, what stances are taken, who does the teaching.
So, in conclusion, I think that having our campuses there
helps free speech in China--though it doesn't help it as much
as if we were able to obtain the levels of purity and free
discourse that I would like to see--but we can do better. And a
hearing like this will push people like you to move in the
right direction.
I yield back.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Rohrabacher?
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, first and foremost, I would like to
thank our witnesses for coming today, and I would like to thank
the chairman.
Chairman Smith has been a stalwart example of what I think
Americanism is supposed to be all about. We are supposed to
stand for other things rather than simply corporate profit and
making money. I am not against making money, and I am for lower
taxes, but that is not what our Founding Fathers had in mind,
just a place where selfish people could come and make a load of
money and not care about any other values.
No, instead, it is very clear that our Founding Fathers
believed that there are certain rights that are granted by God
to people everywhere, every individual has rights that are
granted by God, and that as Americans we should lead the way
and hold out basic values so that the world--we don't have to
go to war with everybody, but at the very least we should be an
example to the world and an inspiration to people of China and
everywhere that would like to have their freedom, as well.
I think the moment of truth, Mr. Chairman, came--and it was
very sad; we were defining ourselves--in 1989 when the Chinese
military poured into Tiananmen Square and slaughtered the
democracy movement.
Let me just note that when I was working with Ronald Reagan
in the White House for 7 years we prided ourselves that we
brought down the Soviet Union without an actual military
confrontation between our two societies. But we did that by
supporting and financing and bolstering the efforts of those
people who were struggling for freedom in their own country, in
the Soviet Union, and in those countries that the Soviet Union
was trying to dominate.
And, in 1989, the moment came for China to reverse its
course from dictatorship and totalitarianism. And we let them
down; we let ourselves down. We let ourselves down because that
cowardice that we showed in not confronting the Chinese
leadership was something that we are now beginning to
experience the negative side of that decision.
People said, well, what would you have done to back them
up? Ronald Reagan, who I worked for for 7\1/2\ years, was not
President at the time. Had he been President at the time, there
would have been a phone call as soon as he got an intelligence
report that the Chinese Army was going into Tiananmen Square,
and that would have said, ``I am sorry, if you destroy the
democracy movement in China, the deal is off. No open markets,
no technology transfers, no interaction and cooperative efforts
and social interaction. It is all off. Don't destroy the
democracy movement.''
George Herbert Walker Bush's telephone call, it went like
this: There was no telephone call. And after they invaded
Tiananmen Square and slaughtered the democracy movement, there
was no price for the Communist Party of China to pay. And we
continued having policies that enriched them and their control
over their country.
China's evolution stopped that day, and, since then, there
has been no democratic reform in China. Although, we have been
told, even after Tiananmen Square, if we just have this
interaction, economically and socially and like the education
programs we are talking about today, China will evolve into a
better country. I have always called that the ``hug a Nazi,
make a liberal'' theory.
And there has been no evolution toward political freedom in
China. But we have seen an enrichment and an empowering of an
elite, a despotic and brutal and belligerent elite, in China.
And it is now becoming very evident that this new China that is
emerging poses, at least in the future, not only as a symbol of
repression to their own people but as a belligerent threat to
the rest of the world.
When we don't stand up for freedom and those people
struggling for freedom in these countries, we pay the price in
the end. And that is what is happening.
And we have seen all of these proposals, like we are going
to discuss today, with interaction on education. And there have
been lots of these various programs that, supposedly, we are
going to make China evolve toward a freer direction. We have
instead enriched them and empowered them in the economic arena.
And, Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit for the record,
at this point, a letter that I have just sent out describing
and alerting our Government to the fact that--a major American
company has brought this to my attention--that the Chinese have
a predatory strategy when it comes to business. And,
especially, they are trying to get control of the chip
manufacturing, get control or at least have a dominating
influence on the manufacture of computer chips.
And, with your permission, I would like to submit for the
record a letter that I have just sent today alerting our
Government to that fact.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay.
Now, this was brought to my attention by an American
company there. And I have the letter--it is to the Secretary of
the Treasury--right here, right now. And I hope that we pay
attention to that predatory and that negative strategy on the
part of the Communist Party of China.
However, what we talk about today, I think, has--where that
is an immediate threat, this idea that we are having--and I
disagree with my friend Mr. Sherman on this, and we usually
agree on things. I do not believe that we need to bring Chinese
students over here and train them in our technology schools. If
they want to come over and take some courses in social studies,
I think maybe that is okay.
But I would like to hear from the panel today. I understand
many of these students that are coming over are taking
graduate-level classes in the sciences, number one, which puts
them in a position to out-compete us, but puts us in jeopardy
in terms of knowledge that we have spent billions of dollars
trying to develop in our scientific research. That should not
be just shared with individuals from another country if they
are going to take it home to that country.
So we need to start using, number one, a moral system to
guide our decisionmaking in terms of countries like China, but
we need to be courageous, and we need to make sure that we are
honest with ourselves about what these policies are
accomplishing.
Thank you again. Thanks to the witnesses for alerting us
what is going on with our universities, how that is impacting
this whole dynamic at play.
So thank you very much.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Chairman Rohrabacher.
You underscored--and I think most members of the panel know
this, that Mr. Rohrabacher was a speechwriter for Ronald
Reagan. And the opposition to what George Herbert Walker Bush
did, especially in sending Brent Scowcroft soon after Tiananmen
Square to assure the dictatorship that they had nothing to fear
from the United States, was one of the most infamous betrayals,
in my opinion, that is only paralleled by, not exceeded or
matched but paralleled by, President Clinton, when he de-linked
human rights and trade, infamously, on a Friday afternoon, when
the Chinese took the measure of the United States of America
and said, profits trump human rights.
And the Executive order, which I had lauded--held press
conference after press conference thanking President Clinton
for--only to find out it was a ruse. That was when they
realized that America, at least the administration, cared only
about making more money, at the expense of human rights
activism. And none of the matriculation from dictatorship to
human rights protections have occurred.
Mark Meadows, the vice----
Mr. Sherman. If I could----
Mr. Smith [continuing]. Chairman of the----
Mr. Sherman. Mr. Chairman, since the gentleman from
California mentioned me. I was simply saying that Chinese
students here in the United States will learn our systems of
free expression. I never weighed that benefit to our values
with the technological progress that they might be able to
furnish to their government. And so you would have to weigh one
or the other.
And I join with the gentleman in feeling that those who
study sociology, political science, and history in the United
States are more of a pure plus for our values.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
The chair recognizes Mr. Meadows.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be very, very
brief.
Thank each of you for your willingness to testify here
today, for illuminating an issue that, if we do not talk about,
becomes a bigger and bigger problem. And so your testimony is
not only important, but it is also one that hopefully will make
a change.
The chairman has been a champion for human rights, freedom
of speech and freedom of religion, unparalleled by anybody else
here in Congress. And so it is an honor to serve with him.
It certainly is one that we would love to know what
legislative things or what pressure can be brought to bear for
us to truly address that. And coming from the great State of
North Carolina, we have a lot of institutions of higher
learning, and I enjoy a good relationship with many of those.
And so, Mr. Chairman, this is a fly-out day, and there are
not many members, and so I wanted to be here to show that it is
not only a priority for the chairman but a priority for many of
the others of us in Congress. So thank you for being here.
I yield back.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Meadows.
Let me begin first by introducing our first distinguished
panelist, Mr. Jeffrey Lehman, who is the first vice chancellor
of NYU Shanghai. He has previously been chancellor and founding
dean of the Peking University School of Transnational Law,
president of Cornell University, dean of the University of
Michigan Law School, a tenured professor of law and public
policy at the University of Michigan. He has also been a
practicing lawyer in Washington, DC, a law clerk, including
being a law clerk to Associate Justice John Paul Stevens of the
United States Supreme Court.
Welcome, Mr. Lehman.
We will then hear from Ms. Susan Lawrence, who is a
specialist in Asian affairs at the Congressional Research
Service, a unit of the Library of Congress that provides the
U.S. Congress with research and analysis. She covers U.S.-China
relations, Chinese foreign policy, Chinese domestic politics,
Taiwan, and Mongolia. She joined CRS after a career spent
largely in journalism in which she worked in Beijing for 11
years and reported from Washington, DC. Immediately prior to
joining the CRS, Ms. Lawrence managed public health advocacy
programs in China for a Washington, DC-based NGO.
Then we will hear from Mr. Robert Daly, who has directed
the Kissinger Institute on China and the U.S. at the Wilson
Center since 2013. Previously, he was at the University of
Maryland, where he served from 2007 until 2013. And, prior to
that, he was American director of the Johns Hopkins University-
Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies for
6 years. Mr. Daly began his work in U.S.-China relations as a
diplomat, serving as an officer in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.
He has taught at Cornell, Syracuse, and has worked on TV and
theater projects in China as a host, actor, and writer.
We will then hear from Dr. Mirta Martin, who was appointed
the ninth president of Fort Hays State University in 2014. Dr.
Martin is the first female president in the 113-year history of
Fort Hays State University and the first Hispanic president in
the more-than-150-year history of the entire Kansas Regents
system. Dr. Martin's career involves work in both public and
private sectors, including special expertise in organizational
behavior, management, institutional advancement, and workplace
development. She has worked as a senior banking executive, held
numerous positions in higher education, and was appointed by
the former Governor of Virginia to serve on the Virginia
Council on the Status of Women.
Then we will hear from Ms. Yaxue Cao, who was the founder
and editor of ChinaChange.org, an English language Web site
devoted to news and commentary related to civil society, the
rule of law, and human rights activities in China. The site
works to help the rest of the world understand what people are
thinking and doing to effect change in the PRC. Reports and
translations on China Change have been cited by The New York
Times, Time Magazine, The Guardian, Telegraph, The Washington
Post, and The New Republic, among others, and of course has
been included in many congressional reports. Ms. Cao grew up in
northern China during the cultural revolution and studied
literature in the United States.
Mr. Lehman, if you could proceed.
STATEMENT OF MR. JEFFREY S. LEHMAN, VICE CHANCELLOR, NEW YORK
UNIVERSITY-SHANGHAI
Mr. Lehman. Chairman Smith, other Members of Congress, I
thank you for the opportunity to testify this afternoon.
I have submitted detailed written testimony concerning my
experiences in China. Because of time constraints, my oral
testimony will only touch the key points.
I moved to China in 2008 because the president of Peking
University asked me to help his university create the first law
school outside the United States to offer a true J.D. Program
taught in the American way. I hesitated at first, but people
like Justice Anthony Kennedy stressed my patriotic duty as an
American to help develop the rule of law in China. And so I
agreed to go, but I insisted that I be given absolute control
over the school's curriculum and faculty appointments and that
the school operate according to fundamental principles of
academic freedom.
Peking University has fully honored those promises. For
example, the students there study American constitutional
principles with the legal director of the American Civil
Liberties Union of Southern California, and they learn about
international courts from the chair of the American Bar
Association Human Rights Advisory Council.
That law school is part of a government-supported effort
inside China to experiment with new approaches to higher
education, and so is NYU Shanghai, which began teaching in
2013. NYU Shanghai is a degree-granting campus of New York
University, whose work must be accredited by both the Middle
States Commission on Higher Education in Philadelphia and
China's Ministry of Education in Beijing.
The trustees of New York University award degrees to its
graduates. Therefore, NYU agreed to participate, on the
condition that it would operate under principles of academic
freedom. NYU has exclusive and final responsibility over
faculty appointments, student admissions, curricula, academic
policies and procedures, et cetera.
Half of NYU Shanghai's undergraduates come from China, and
half come from the rest of the world.
NYU Shanghai delivers an undergraduate liberal education in
the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences,
promoting the skills of critical and creative thinking. All of
our undergraduate students pursue a core curriculum in Shanghai
for 2 years and then spend their junior year studying at other
campuses within NYU's network, which now spans 14 cities around
the world. And then they return to Shanghai to complete their
degrees.
We at NYU choose the faculty who teach our courses, and I
am proud to say that we have recruited a remarkable group of
stars who do not diminish the brand and who are listed in
Appendix 1 to my written testimony.
Financially, NYU does not profit from its activities in
Shanghai. NYU Shanghai sits as a tub on its own bottom. So why,
you might ask, has NYU taken this on? Two reasons stand out.
First, NYU Shanghai advances NYU's bold redefinition of how
a university can be structured. In the 21st century, the
phenomena of globalization and modern information and
communications technologies have created new challenges and new
opportunities for humanity. In order to more effectively
fulfill its academic mission, NYU expanded to become a global
network of campuses and academic centers in important cities.
Students can enter NYU through the degree-granting campuses in
New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai, and they can study away in
11 other cities.
Shanghai is a superb location for NYU to have established a
degree-granting campus. China is an extraordinarily important
and rapidly changing country, and Shanghai is New York's
natural counterpart.
Second, NYU Shanghai provides NYU with an essential
opportunity to reflect deeply about what knowledge, skills, and
virtues this generation of students requires in order to lead
lives of satisfaction and contribution. NYU Shanghai is a place
where NYU can experiment with new ways of developing those
qualities.
For example, because it is so important today that each of
us know how to see the world through the eyes of others, NYU
Shanghai requires every student to live with a roommate from
another country.
I personally teach the course that all students are
required to take during freshman year, an intellectual history
course which I teach using the Socratic method, in which
students engage a set of great books by authors such Aristotle,
Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, Adam Smith, and Friedrich Hayek.
These are the same readings I would use if I were teaching the
course in New York, and I included syllabi from the course as
Appendix 2 to my written testimony.
NYU Shanghai is a pioneering university, and we receive
dozens of visitors to our campus every week. We would be
delighted if any members of this subcommittee or their staffs
would come to visit us.
People who have not visited us in person occasionally
suggest that NYU Shanghai should not exist. Sometimes they
argue that American universities should stay away from any
authoritarian country. Sometimes they say that China presents
unique risks that render academic freedom impossible. While I
appreciate the good motives of these individuals who speculate
about our university from afar, I do not believe their
conclusions are well-founded.
First of all, the benefits of engagement are enormous. Our
universities in America nuture skills and values that we
believe are important to their wellbeing as individuals and to
their societies. We are all better off if Chinese students,
American students, and students from around the world have the
chance to study at institutions like ours. And we would all be
better off if countries all around the world developed
institutions like ours that could provide those benefits to
large numbers of their citizens.
China is in the middle of a period of astonishing change.
Within Chinese society, there is heated debate about what
direction change should take over the next two decades and
about what goals should take precedence over others. This
debate is more likely to go well if the participants can point
to the positive impact of schools like NYU Shanghai on Chinese
students.
The challenge of engagement in foreign lands is real, but
it does not come close to offsetting those benefits. American
universities themselves grew and prospered in a flawed country
with serious human rights problems like slavery, but our
universities have been durable institutions and have made
important contributions to America's progress.
To be sure, we have to be vigilant. A university such as
ours cannot function if students and faculty are not free to
ask questions and to entertain arguments that might be
disruptive and even offensive to others. Norms of civility may
be imposed, but they must not cut off genuine and rigorous
inquiry. If it would become impossible to operate with academic
freedom, NYU would close down its Shanghai campus.
Last weekend, I told a Shanghainese friend that I would be
testifying here today. He asked why, and I explained that some
people who value the free exchange of ideas believe American
universities should not be present in China. His response was
crisp and, I believe, quite apt. He said, ``If someone is truly
committed to the free exchange of ideas here in China, they
should want to see more schools like NYU Shanghai, not fewer.''
I believe in my heart that this is a noble project. It is
not without risk, but it has the potential to benefit all of
humanity.
In my written testimony, I suggest that Congress consider
creating a scholarship program to ensure that students from
families of modest means are able to study abroad at programs
like these. I hope that you will take that proposal seriously.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lehman follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Mr. Lehman, thank you very much for your
testimony.
I would like to now ask Ms. Lawrence if she would proceed.
STATEMENT OF MS. SUSAN V. LAWRENCE, SPECIALIST IN ASIAN
AFFAIRS, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE
Ms. Lawrence. Chairman Smith, Congressman Rohrabacher,
Congressman Sherman, Congressman Meadows, thank you for this
invitation to testify today.
China's Ministry of Education indicates it has so far
approved 11 U.S. universities and 1 U.S. individual to work
with Chinese partners to run cooperative education institutions
in China, essentially joint campuses. The Ministry has granted
three of these institutions independent legal person status,
which may give them some greater autonomy in their operations
than those without such status. Those three are NYU Shanghai,
Duke Kunshan University, and Wenzhou-Kean University.
In addition, the Chinese Ministry of Education has approved
a broader set of U.S. universities to work with Chinese
partners to offer degree programs on campuses operated solely
by Chinese partners. More than 80 U.S. universities are
involved in partnerships to offer undergraduate degrees, and
more than 30 U.S. universities are involved in partnerships to
offer graduate degrees in China. In all, universities from at
least 36 of the 50 U.S. States appear to be involved in
approved cooperative educational institutions or programs in
China.
In the case of high-profile partnerships to establish new
joint campuses, U.S. universities cite benefits in the forms of
generous funding from the Chinese side, typically covering all
campus construction costs and some or all operating costs;
opportunities for new global research collaborations; and
opportunities for students from the universities' home campuses
to broaden their education through study abroad.
Critics of U.S. educational collaborations in China have
focused on several areas of concern. The most prominent relates
to the compromises U.S. universities may be forced to make with
regard to academic freedom--the subject of this hearing.
Educational institutions in China, including those with
U.S. partners, are subject to an array of Chinese laws and
administrative regulations and guidance documents. The key
national laws include the 1995 Education Law and the 1998
Higher Education Law.
Several provisions of the Higher Education Law have
implications for academic freedom on campuses with U.S.
partners. As I will discuss later, however, not all of these
provisions appear to be uniformly enforced.
Article 10 of the Higher Education Law stipulates that the
state ``safeguards the freedom of scientific research, literary
and artistic creations, and other cultural activities in
institutions of higher learning according to law,'' but it also
says that such creations and activities should abide by law,
potentially limiting such freedoms.
Article 39 of the law outlines the leadership role of
Communist Party committees in state-run higher education
institutions. It states that Communist Party committees
``exercise unified leadership over the work of the
institutions'' and that the committees' duties are, among other
things, to guide ideological and political work and moral
education on campuses and to make key personnel decisions.
Article 51 of the law stipulates that ``the basis for the
appointment, [or] dismissal'' of faculty and administrative
personnel should be ideology and political performance first,
followed by professional ethics, professional skill, and actual
achievements.
Similarly, Article 58 of the law stipulates that students
should be permitted to graduate if they, first, ``are qualified
in their ideology and moral character,'' and, secondarily, if
they have ``completed the study of the courses required and
have passed the examinations or got all the credits required.''
Finally, Article 53 requires that students of institutions
of higher learning should ``build up their physiques and the
concepts of patriotism, collectivism, and socialism; diligently
study Marxism, Leninism, Mao Zedong thought, and Deng Xiaoping
theory; have sound ideology and moral character; and grasp a
comparatively high level of scientific and cultural knowledge
and specialized skills.''
In 2003, China's State Council promulgated regulations
specifically addressing collaborations with foreign partners in
education. The regulations bar foreign partners from
involvement in military academies, police academies, and
political education. They also bar foreign religious
organizations, religious institutions, religious colleges and
universities, and so-called religious workers from involvement
in cooperative education efforts in China, and they bar joint
campuses from offering religious education or conducting
religious activities.
The regulations require that Chinese foreign educational
collaborations ``not jeopardize China's sovereignty, security,
and public interests''--a broad requirement that Chinese
authorities could use to rule out academic discussion related
to Taiwan, Tibet, Uyghurs, electoral reform in Hong Kong, the
Falun Gong spiritual group, and other topics.
It appears that, in practice, the Chinese Government has
been willing to relax some of these requirements, particularly
in the case of jointly operated institutions with independent
legal person status and significant numbers of non-Chinese
students, such as NYU Shanghai and Duke Kunshan University, a
partnership among Duke University, China's Wuhan University,
and the Government of Kunshan Municipality in China's Jiangsu
Province.
On the role of party committees, a 2013 article in the
Global Times, a tabloid affiliated with the Chinese Communist
Party's paper of record, the People's Daily, cited unnamed
educators as saying that ``unlike Chinese universities, where
administrative interference is considered one of the biggest
problems with the education system, the Party committees in
these branch campuses usually don't have a say in academic
affairs.''
NYU Shanghai's chancellor, Yu Lizhong, told a Hong Kong
newspaper in 2012 that the NYU Shanghai campus would be run by
a board of directors rather than by a Communist Party
committee. And the NYU Shanghai Web site contains no reference
to a party committee.
Public reports of the Communist Party activities of NYU
Shanghai staff relate to their participation in party bodies
and activities not at NYU Shanghai but at NYU Shanghai's
academic partner in the NYU Shanghai campus, East China Normal
University. NYU Shanghai's head of human resources, for
example, is identified on East China Normal University's Web
site as serving concurrently as the head of the party branch of
East China Normal University's Chinese-Foreign Cooperation
Office.
In contrast, one of the three campuses run jointly by Fort
Hays State University, Henan Province-based Sias International
University, openly lists information about its Communist Party
Committee on its Chinese language Web site. The Web site lists
the school's Party Secretary and Deputy Party Secretary as
among the nine members of the school's leadership group and
includes an organization chart showing party structures across
the university, including party groups in the university's
business school, law school, school of international education,
and nine other schools.
On the scope of permitted expression, U.S. media reports
indicate that academic discussions on campuses in China jointly
operated by U.S. partners do sometimes stray onto topics that
would be taboo on other campuses in China, especially when the
joint campuses include significant numbers of non-Chinese
students.
Such campuses may also have arrangements allowing their
students unfettered access to the Internet, including to sites
that are usually blocked in China, such as Google, Gmail,
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Such allowances may contribute
to greater levels of overall academic freedom on such campuses
than China normally tolerates.
The legal guarantees underpinning such zones of free
speech, however, remain ambiguous, raising questions about the
long-term sustainability of such zones. Some observers have
also noted that, because joint campuses in China tend to be
heavily subsidized by the Chinese Government, the government
may have significant leverage if serious disputes over academic
freedom issues should arise.
My fellow panelists are the experts on how their
institutions operate within the broad legal and regulatory
framework for institutions of higher learning in China and
within the context of their individual partnership agreements
and their legal person status. I look forward to learning from
them.
Thank you again, Chairman Smith, for the opportunity to
testify about these issues. As an employee of the Congressional
Research Service, I am confined to speaking about the technical
and professional aspects of the issues under discussion in this
hearing and to answering questions within my field of
expertise. With that understanding, I look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Lawrence follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Ms. Lawrence, thank you very much for your
testimony.
And, without objection, your full statement and that of all
of our distinguished witnesses will be made a part of the
record, but I thank you for it.
Now, Mr. Daly.
STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT DALY, DIRECTOR, KISSINGER INSTITUTE ON
CHINA AND THE U.S., WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR
SCHOLARS
Mr. Daly. I would like to thank the chair and the other
members of the committee for the chance to discuss a very
important set of issues with you today.
These are issues that I have worked on from within
government and academia for almost 30 years. And I can tell
you, Mr. Chairman, that all of your concerns are very well-
founded, and they require constant attention from the
practitioners in the field who are working with China. There
are no easy answers to this. It requires balance.
Many of my Chinese colleagues and friends would be
surprised to hear that there was a discussion today about
Chinese influence on American universities, because, in their
experience, the influence has flowed almost entirely in the
other direction since 1854, when the first Chinese earned a
degree from an American University.
In fact, the very idea of the university, the modern
university in China, was introduced from the West and primarily
from the United States by people like John Leighton Stuart, by
Johns Hopkins University, Oberlin, Yale, and Harvard, who
brought the idea of the academic disciplines at university
degrees to China in the first place. And the model for China's
universities, their structures, their degrees, their
governance--with the exception of the involvement of the
Chinese Communist Party, which is pervasive, as you suggest--
this model comes primarily from the United States.
Even today, Chinese universities are adapting American
academic standards and models to suit China's needs, and
Chinese scholars seek partnership with American experts and
publication in American journals. Furthermore, young Chinese,
as you have mentioned, now comprise 29 percent of all foreign
students in the U.S., and approximately 2 million have pursued
degrees here since 1979.
On the other side of the equation, American academics
rarely seek publication in Chinese journals, most of which are
of low quality and many of which deal in plagiarized and faked
research. And few American students pursue degrees from Chinese
universities. Most Americans students who visit China--and I
support them to do so, I believe strongly in the value of study
abroad, but most of these students go for short-term language
and cultural classes as part of U.S. degree programs. So
Chinese education, as such, holds very little allure for
Americans.
So there can be no question that American universities have
far greater impact on China than China has on them, just as
there can be no question that American soft power in China
overall--our influence on Chinese institutions, the
aspirations, tastes, and values of the Chinese people--while
they are not what we would like them to be, dwarf China's soft
power here. I think that that fact has to be kept clearly in
mind, because calls for reconsideration of our policy of
engagement with China are growing more strident.
Still, yes, as you note, China does exert influence on
American universities, and that seems to be growing. And it
comes, I believe, primarily from American colleges' and
universities' need for and their fear of losing Chinese sources
of financing, although it doesn't come only from there.
We should mention, too, that while we are talking about our
concerns about Chinese impacts on America, we should recognize
the contribution that educational exchanges with China have
made to the United States. This is not just a story about the
flow of Chinese money into American universities. Even more
beneficial has been the flow of Chinese talent and energy into
American society.
Many of the Chinese students who study here remain in the
U.S. after graduation, and this new generation of immigrants,
like their predecessors, is providing a vital infusion of
expertise into every professional field and academic discipline
in the United States. So we should recognize today that when we
speak of Chinese students, this is not to demonize them; we are
also speaking of our American neighbors, colleagues, and
friends, and they are making a big contribution to this
country.
We should also note that money isn't the only thing that
American universities want from the PRC. They also cooperate
with China in order to fulfill their academic missions.
American scholars, if they are to be leaders in their field,
need access to Chinese archives, data, and research sites. They
need to interview Chinese experts and survey Chinese
populations. They need study-abroad opportunities for American
students. American students now cannot be leaders in their
field unless they have knowledge in China.
In short, because the PRC is now central, whether we like
it or not, to nearly every global issue, be it strategic,
economic, technological, environmental, public health, U.S.
universities cannot do their work, they cannot be universal,
unless they engage with China to some degree.
This is a new situation not only for American universities
but for American corporations, professional institutions,
American filmmakers, American subnational governments. They now
have China interests, China relations, and China policies. This
is a positive development, I believe, in the main, but it has
its dangers.
American universities fear ill repute in China. They fear
being cut off from China. They fear the loss of Chinese tuition
and fees. And this fear does give China leverage, and China
knows it.
We should, furthermore, be worried about how China will use
the leverage. As the chairman has mentioned, Document 9 and
following documents make very clear that issues like
constitutional democracy, civil society, neoliberal economics,
and Western ideas of journalism cannot be discussed openly in
Chinese universities or in the Chinese media.
Earlier this year, China's Minister of Education, Yuan
Guiren, told a meeting of Chinese academic leaders in Beijing
that they should reduce the number of Western-published
textbooks in their classrooms and ``by no means allow teaching
materials that disseminate Western values.''
The reason for this prohibition was provided by the state-
run Global Times paper that Susan mentioned. They wrote,
``Young students and teachers are the major groups used by
enemy forces to penetrate and divide China.'' This is the
attitude.
So Yuan's statement sounds like a direct order to Chinese
universities and a direct threat to American schools that offer
American degrees on Chinese soil. If Western textbooks, as
China claims, are vectors that infect young Chinese minds and
weaken the country, are not Western faculty members and
universities more dangerous still?
And it is this situation, I think, that has compelled this
subcommittee to ask the question about whether academic freedom
can be maintained while working in and with a country such as
the PRC.
Despite these difficulties, however, I would argue that
there is a way forward under the current set of circumstances.
Now, circumstances could change, and there is definitely a time
to pull out tent stakes and say that, yes, while the perfect
may be the enemy of the good, China is imposing conditions on
American universities that they cannot meet, as you mentioned.
There could be a time to leave, but we are not there yet.
And the reason, I think, is that, despite Xi Jinping's
ideology campaign and despite the political character of
Chinese universities, American universities have been able to
find ways to interact with Chinese counterparts that do not
threaten academic freedom.
How can this be done? Is there room for honorable maneuver?
I think there is because, as Susan has suggested, Xi Jinping's
campaign and Yuan Guiren's pronouncements against American
textbooks haven't meant much in practice yet on campuses. There
is an atmosphere of hesitancy and fear in Chinese academic,
cultural, and media circles that we haven't seen since the
aftermath of the Tiananmen massacre, but, to date, there have
been no reports of Chinese faculty being required to revise
their reading lists or of Chinese colleges altering their
curriculum. There has of yet been no systematic implementation
of this very backward and draconian ideological campaign.
Many Chinese students and scholars within China,
furthermore, question and mock openly Yuan Guiren's call to
restrict Western textbooks, and they do this in state-run
media. So it is hard to keep track of what all this means in
China.
The president of Tiankai University wrote in the Communist
Party flagship paper, the People's Daily, ``I have read people
on the Internet saying that the ranks of academics must be
cleansed, purified, and rectified. I can't agree with this.
This was the mentality of 1957,'' the violent anti-rightist
campaign, ``or 1966,'' which was the launch of the cultural
revolution. Other Chinese critics point out gleefully that
Marxism is itself a Western idea and that this campaign is,
therefore, self-contradictory and incoherent.
So we don't yet know where this is headed. There is space
that is in play. And it may be that Beijing is only paying lip
service to rectification on Chinese campuses because Beijing
remains conflicted about the influence of the West. We still
lead, we, the West, with the United States at the fore, lead
the world in nearly every field of academic inquiry.
And Xi Jinping surely knows that, despite demonizing
Western culture, China cannot meet his reform goals unless it
masters Western learning. His desire to make China a leader in
the international knowledge economy and his demand that Chinese
universities produce more innovative students are at odds with
his calls for ideological purity. And everyone in China knows
that his own daughter is a graduate of Harvard University, so
it makes it hard to be too loud about these issues.
So lastly, I would just like to make a few specific
recommendations going forward to universities that want to work
with China.
One is, I would suggest that all memoranda of understanding
with Chinese universities state clearly that any relationship
or program can be concluded at any time by either party if its
standards of academic freedom, academic integrity, or academic
rigor are compromised. This clause will serve as a warning to
both sides and a reminder of first principles, and it will
protect American partners if Xi's ideological agenda is
actually put into practice, at which point these programs do
become untenable, in my view. MOUs should also, as the chair
suggests, be made public, as any practices that fall short of
full transparency will fuel a reasonable skepticism, the
skepticism that American faculty, students, and other
university stakeholders rightly have.
American faculty, furthermore, and having worked in Hopkins
and other universities I have seen this in practice, American
faculty should be consulted at every stage in the planning of
cooperative ventures with China, and faculty should vote to
decide whether projects meet their standards of academic
quality. This is essential because university administrators
have to consider financial and political matters while faculty
loyalty is to their discipline, to their departments, and to
standards, so faculty need to lead.
U.S. colleges and universities should not allow the Chinese
Government or any other national government, or its agencies,
to appoint faculty or instructors on American campuses, to
violate U.S. fair hiring laws, or to dictate program conditions
that violate U.S. best practices.
And lastly, the U.S. Government, you asked what the
government can do, we should ask regularly in our
representations, ask Beijing to clarify its opposition to
Western culture and its policies restricting foreign NGOs.
China does not shy away, as you know, from accusing American
media of bias against China. We shouldn't be reticent about
asking why Beijing has a formal campaign demonizing our values.
But in closing, even as we remain vigilant, I think that we
must remember that our educational institutions, culture, and
ideas have vastly more influence in China than China has here.
That influence is made possible by our policy of engagement.
Curtailing engagement would cut off our influence, which would
serve neither American interests nor those of the Chinese
people.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Daly follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Mr. Daly, thank you so very much for your
testimony.
We are joined by Eliot Engel, who is the ranking Democrat
on the full Foreign Affairs Committee.
Mr. Engel.
Mr. Engel. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
for calling this hearing. Thank you for your leadership. We
have discussed this together for many, many years. Thank you
for your concern about academic freedom, especially when it
comes to American institutions operating in the People's
Republic of China.
Let me welcome our witnesses. Thank you for sharing your
time and expertise. We really, really appreciate it.
I want to give a shout-out to Vice Chancellor Lehman. NYU
is near and dear to my heart. I am very proud to have that as
one of the wonderful institutions in New York City. And while
you are not in New York City, you are certainly an extension of
that wonderful, wonderful campus. And so welcome. And I also am
told that you are a native of Bronxville, New York, which is in
my district. So that is two good things. And I know you have
come a long way to be with us today, all the way from Shanghai.
I am so grateful to see you.
I support these things. I think academic exchanges are a
very critical tool to building relationships between Americans
and people around the world. I was a teacher myself. Before I
ever got a law degree, before I ever went into politics, I was
a classroom teacher. I have seen firsthand how new ideas and
new perspectives can transform a student's understanding of the
world and of themselves. And when students from around the
world sit in our classrooms, or when American academics teach
and research abroad, I really believe it helps to spread
knowledge and understanding. And these person-to-person ties
are the foundation of strong engagements between countries and
governments. And that is why I think these exchanges are a
priority and should remain so in our foreign policy. So thank
all of you for what you do.
The United States and China have a troubled relationship in
many ways, but have a long history of educational exchange. And
as Mr. Daly testified, the U.S. has had far more influence on
China as a result of these educational exchanges than China has
had on the United States. So we should put aside the question
of whether these exchanges should take place, the value, as far
as I am concerned is clear, but we should be asking how they
take place. We need to make sure these educational agreements
continue to benefit students and teachers, and also to advance
American interests.
We have heard that NYU has worked hard to maintain full
academic freedom on their campus in Shanghai. So far the
Chinese authorities, I am told, haven't interfered with course
material or classroom discussions. So to me, it seems that the
NYU Shanghai campus is resulting in more freedom and a greater
exchange of ideas, not less. To be sure, NYU needs to stay
vigilant in protecting these freedoms, and I expect that will
be the case.
Another issue is whether financial arrangements between
university partners could prejudice the academic freedom of
U.S. institutions. Fort Hays State has established two campuses
in China that issue U.S. bachelor's degrees to Chinese
students, one through a partnership with Sias International
University, and one with the Shenyang Normal University.
Dr. Martin, I guess, will testify in your written testimony
that the faculty have voluntarily chosen to avoid the topic of
the Tiananmen Square massacre. The issue is considered too
sensitive for discussion in China. I think we need to take a
hard look at this sort of self-censorship and how it relates to
the academic freedom of American institutions, and I look
forward to a rich discussion.
So I am going to end by again thanking the chairman for
having this very important hearing and thanking our witnesses
for giving their unique perspectives. That is how we in
Congress learn. We talk to ourselves too much. We like to learn
by talking to people who are experts in what they do.
So thank you all, and I appreciate you coming here today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Engel.
Dr. Martin, please proceed.
STATEMENT OF MIRTA M. MARTIN, PH.D., PRESIDENT, FORT HAYS STATE
UNIVERSITY
Ms. Martin. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and distinguished
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Thank you for
affording me today the opportunity to come before you and to
provide you with testimony. In the interest of time, and with
your permission, Mr. Chairman, I will provide you a summary of
those comments since you have the full spectrum in your
possession.
Fort Hays State University was established in 1902 when the
U.S. House of Representatives decommissioned the U.S. Army
Base, Fort Hays, and gave the land to form a state university.
Since then, Fort Hays State University has evolved and is now a
regional comprehensive university serving close to 14,000
students through three modalities: On campus, where we serve
approximately 4,800 students; the Virtual College, which
delivers online education to about 5,800 students located in
Kansas, nearly all 50 States, and the U.S. Armed Services
personnel internationally; and in China, where we have
approximately 3,100 students.
In March 1999, Fort Hays State University was introduced to
a private university in China, Sias International University, a
university that had previously been approved by the Chinese
Government. Sias affiliates with the prestigious Zhengzhou
University, located in the Henan Province of China, which is a
sister province to the State of Kansas. Fort Hays State
University's profile was presented to the Ministry of Education
in China, who approved the request to deliver courses leading
to a bachelor's degree. This partnership came under the Chinese
regulation of Sino-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools, and
the initial agreement was signed in May 2000.
In the fall of 2000, Fort Hays State University delivered
its first courses to 40 students. Fort Hays State University
does not have a satellite campus in China; rather, it operates
through a partnership agreement to deliver courses leading to
bachelor's degrees which are dual in nature. These courses are
taught by faculty hired by Fort Hays State University, many of
whom live on the campuses of our partner institutions, and Fort
Hays State University has labeled the delivery of these courses
cross border education.
Soon after offering Fort Hays State University's first
courses, we were asked by the Chinese Government to provide the
syllabi, textbooks, and other instructional resources, as well
as the faculty credentials for the courses offered to Chinese
students. All materials requested were forwarded to the Chinese
Government, and soon thereafter we were approved to deliver
bachelor's degrees in China. There was no censorship of the
content of any course by the government, nor by the university
partners. The Chinese Government has never asked again to
review our curriculum, to review our content, or to review the
faculty credentials.
In 2010, Fort Hays State University's two partners, Sias
University and Shenyang Normal University, which was approved
in 2004, were selected by the Ministry of Education to conduct
a self-study related to the quality and performance of the dual
degree programs. Other universities through the world that fell
under the regulations, entitled Sino-Foreign Cooperation in
Running Schools, were also selected. The work was not
inconsequential and the results identified Fort Hays State
University's practices as a model for other universities. As a
matter of fact, 50 percent of the partners operating in China
at that time failed this regulation, and as a result their
partnerships were canceled.
The guarantee of teaching quality is the sole
responsibility of Fort Hays State University. Faculty teaching
in China report to international coordinators and department
chairs who are located on the campus of Fort Hays State
University, just like any other faculty would that teach on our
campus. All faculty teaching in China are required to attend a
week-long training in Hays, America, conducted by the Fort Hays
State University academic units prior to even setting foot in
China. The Chinese Government, as a matter of fact, has been
rather impressed that Fort Hays State University spends
significant financial resources and time to train our faculty
and to ensure academic rigor and academic consistency.
Faculty have had total control over the design and content
of the curriculum. The textbooks and other circulor materials
are selected only by our faculty. The partners purchase these
materials from import-export companies and the students are
required to refer to them in the classroom. Rarely, the
administration of the universities or the party secretary visit
the Fort Hays State University courses.
At this time, Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I would
like to brief you very quickly on the programs offered by Fort
Hays State University in China. All Chinese students enroll in
an academic program offered by Fort Hays State University and
they take English Composition sequence 101 and 102, as would
our students here in the United States. The sequence provides
the foundation for introducing Chinese students to Western
values and the Western educational system.
One of the most important goals of these courses is the
development of critical thinking and analytical skills. These
English courses mirror the courses offered on campus at Fort
Hays State University, although they are augmented with English
for foreign language learners strategies to accommodate the
foreign students' abilities as English learners. Chinese
students are held to exactly the same standards of academic
integrity as our U.S. students, and classroom practices, such
as group work, collaboration, and active participation, which
foster Western educational values. The Department of Leadership
Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences has offered a
bachelor of science degree at Sias University and Shenyang
Normal since 2008.
Despite the academic freedom enjoyed by faculty teaching
the curriculum, Fort Hays State University has experienced some
instances where the faculty of the partner school has been
complacent in undermining academic integrity, but Fort Hays
State University has met with the partner institutions'
leadership team to work through solutions to these issues
surrounding academic integrity, and requests by Fort Hays State
University have been met with great support. I will say that
more faculty and more student training, the use of student
identification cards, and enforcement of policy need to be
fully implemented to augment the progress in this area.
As a whole, Fort Hays State University has dealt with
issues of academic integrity by taking the stance that we own
the curriculum and that our standards of academic rigor and
academic excellence will not be sidetracked. Collaboration
between Fort Hays State University and the Department of
Political Science has been extremely positive. We have
experienced absolutely no efforts to infringe the academic
freedom or integrity of our Political Science: Legal Studies
program. All universities have been respectful, transparent,
and collaborative with each other. Learning about the American
system of government and law has been the key learning
objective of this program.
In the decade of teaching American law and government at
two institutions in China, Fort Hays State University has never
encountered any resistance in teaching Western values or
political structure. Through the political science curriculum,
the students receive extensive exposure to the U.S. democratic
system of government and rule of law. In courses such as the
American Government, Introduction to Law, and Constitutional
Law, faculty spend a significant amount of time discussing the
issues of civil liberties, and civil rights, including the
concepts of due process, equal protection, freedom of speech,
freedom of the press, freedom of religion and assembly, and the
rights of criminal defendants. In essence, we discuss our Bill
of Rights.
The predominant programs at Fort Hays State University's
College of Business and Entrepreneurship, such as the Bachelor
of Business Administration in Management and the Bachelor of
Administration in International Business and Economics, by
their nature, typically do not involve subjects that are
sensitive or political in nature. However, our faculty have
always had access to Western academic databases, albeit
limited, and have never been prevented from sharing Western
scholarship in the classroom setting.
Every semester Fort Hays State University conducts student
and faculty evaluations, and the results of these are used by
the academic departments on the campus of Fort Hays State
University to modify and improve quality and the performance of
students overseas. Fort Hays State University faculty display
principles of academic freedom and transparency in their
teaching, research, and discussions with the students in China.
Discussions regarding learning objectives for degree programs,
majors, and individual courses have all been given and accepted
in an atmosphere of transparency.
China's new leader, Xi Jinping, has made no secret of his
ambitions to revitalize China and increase her influence on the
global stage, as you have stated earlier, Mr. Chairman.
President Xi has made it clear that he wants to build an
innovative society with strong tech firms that compete
internationally. Fort Hays State University was selected and
approved to deliver the first American bachelor's degree to
Chinese students on mainland China, and I believe that because
of that and because of the strength of our curriculum we are
highlighting to China and the students all that is great in
America.
The challenges that we have faced have been addressed
together with our Chinese partners under the auspices of their
respective education commissions, and we have protected the
academic freedom and integrity of our programs. I believe that
the greatest outcome of the relationships are our Chinese
students' expanded knowledge of the world and the United
States. The Chinese students have similar aspirations to those
of the U.S. students: To be engaged in their communities, to
own their own businesses, to be successful leaders and role
models for their families, and to improve our world.
Tom Friedman in his book, ``The World Is Flat,'' writes
that students who have the facility of two languages, have a
cultural experience in another country, and use technology to
communicate worldwide are true citizens of the world. They are
equipped and ready to change the world in a positive way.
As I conclude, I would like to leave you with some final
thoughts. From the early days of our Republic, our forefathers
recognized the value of a widely and highly educated citizenry
to the success and stability of our Nation. Indeed, we have
created a system of public and private higher education that is
the worldwide standard for academic excellence. As an immigrant
to this country, sir, I submit to you that we, as a Nation,
need to go back to those roots. We need to return to the
guiding principles established by our Founding Fathers that
support and deliver a superb education because it is essential
to the common good.
This year the Chinese Government mandated that English be a
required course in middle school. They are committed to
educating the citizenry to do business in the global
marketplace. We need to do the same. We need to look beyond our
current status and recognize that knowing how to do business in
the East, that knowing how to do business in the world will be
a determining factor in the prosperity of our children and the
success of our Nation. Fort Hays State University stands ready
to continue to build bridges that connect and educate our
world.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, distinguished Members
of the House of Representatives.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Martin follows:]
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----------
Mr. Smith. Dr. Martin, thank you so very much for your
testimony. And your full statement as well, I think I mentioned
this earlier, as well as anybody else, will be made a part of
the record, and anything you want to add to it, any extraneous
materials.
Ms. Cao.
STATEMENT OF MS. YAXUE CAO, FOUNDER AND EDITOR, CHINA CHANGE
Ms. Cao. Dear Congressman Smith and the members of the
subcommittee, I am pleased to speak today about the Chinese
Government's policy on joint higher education ventures, its
mechanisms of controlling them, the Communist Party's presence
in these ventures, and the regime's suppression of academic
freedom in Chinese universities.
China first set the rules for the joint-venture higher
education programs in 2003. In 2010, China issued the National
Plan for Medium and Long-Term Education Reform and Development
that devotes a chapter, Chapter 16 that is, to these ventures.
The purpose of these joint ventures is to bring the best
international higher education resources to China. This
includes bringing world-class experts and scholars to China to
engage in teaching, research, and management, conducting joint
research with the best universities in the world, all to
advance the science and technology, and encouraging foreign
universities to use their intellectual property as their share
of investment in these ventures.
When entering WTO in 2001, China promised to open its
education sector to foreign universities, allowing ``foreign
majority ownership,'' but China has had no intention to deliver
that promise. Instead, it set up joint ventures with the
Chinese Government being the controlling party. The rules
stipulate that the board of these joint ventures must have a
Chinese majority and the president must be a Chinese citizen.
Courses and textbooks must be filed with the authorities. These
programs must provide courses known as political thought
education to the Chinese students.
The most insidious part of the control mechanism probably
lies in the finance of these joint-venture universities. It is
also the least transparent part. Financial dependence on the
Chinese Government, even if it is partial, puts foreign
universities in the vulnerable position where they may feel the
need to conform to China's expectations, not only on the joint-
venture campuses, but also on home campuses.
The 2,000 also joint-venture programs in China are mostly
focused on advanced technology. Thirty-seven percent of them
are engineering, while literature, history, and law are less
than 2 percent each.
China is also bringing its quest for knowledge to the U.S.
soil. Last year, China's elite Tsinghua University, the
University of Washington, and Microsoft launched the Global
Innovation Exchange Institute in Seattle that focuses on
technology and design innovation. In the Chinese press this
institute was described as, ``An important step in the
milestone of Tsinghua University's international strategic
deployment.'' China is seeking to invest in the research
triangle in North Carolina and also establish innovation
platforms elsewhere in the U.S. with Chinese investment and the
research expertise from American universities.
Another component of China's strategy is theft. Reports on
this abound. For example, in May, Penn State University
disclosed that its engineering school had been invaded by
Chinese hackers for more than 2 years. Penn State develops
sensitive technology for the U.S. Navy.
China's intentions are probably best illustrated in two
incidents involving UC Berkeley. In November 2014, Peking
University gave the president of UC Berkeley an honorary
professorship, and they expressed the desire in ``cooperation''
on big data processing technology, which has wide applications.
Three months later, a labor rights center in Guangzhou jointly
established by UC Berkeley and the Sun Yat-sen University was
forced to close as part of a systematic suppression of rights
activities and civil society in recent years.
Reports in the Chinese press confirmed the CCP presence on
joint-venture campuses as well. From the Ministry of
Education's review of joint-venture programs in 2014, I quote:
``Joint-venture universities have established the party
committees so that there would be a party organization
wherever there are party members, achieving the party's
no-blind-spot coverage on the grassroots level. Some
universities have also established the overseas party
cells to ensure that the party's work remained
synchronized with its work at home when students study
abroad.''
In China's current political system there has never been
academic freedom as understood by Americans, though the level
of repression has fluctuated. Since early 2013, a CCP order
known as Document No. 9 has shut down what little academic
freedom was enjoyed before. The Christian Science Monitor
reported recently that professors were fired or pressured to
quit their jobs for exposing liberal ideas and teaching them in
the classroom. Trips to academic conferences were cut or
constrained. Student reading lists were vetted for ideological
content. On some campuses classrooms are monitored by
surveillance cameras.
Over the last 30 years the Communist regime has benefited
enormously from the unprecedented transfer of knowledge from
Western countries, much of it through joint business ventures
and through theft of intellectual property. Many such relations
have soured in recent years and the trend is likely to worsen.
Now it seems that the Chinese Government is duplicating the
successful model in higher education while pursuing an agenda
to stamp out the Chinese people's demand of freedom.
I have no problem with the free exchange of knowledge, but
I have a problem with freely providing knowledge to the
Communist regime and to strengthen its grip on power. I have a
problem with our institutions of higher education looking the
other way as terrible suppression of freedoms and civil society
take place in the country.
On a personal level, for the 3 years I have been an
activist of human rights in China, all the peoples, I mean all
the peoples have been in jail now. Some of them left the
country for political asylum, but almost all of them are in
jail.
The U.S.-China relationship for the last 3 years has
operated on the premise that the U.S. should engage with China,
help her grow economically, and the economic development will
lead to the Chinese Communist Party's embracing human rights
and democratic values. Instead, today we have a monstrous
combination of state capitalism, the kleptocratic marriage of
power and money, and the broader and harsher suppression of the
Chinese people and their legitimate demand for political and
civil rights. Internationally, we are witnessing an
increasingly aggressive China, a rising threat to the peace and
security of the world and a challenge to the existing world
order.
One can argue about all the defects of the current order,
but I assure you with absolute certainty that you do not want a
global regime set up and dominated by the Chinese Communist
Party. The CCP has mastered the game of taking advantage of a
free society like ours. It is sad to see how easily our
universities can fall prey to the party's scheme. It is my wish
that American universities are able to see the full picture,
where they fit into it, and what end they are serving when
entering joint ventures with the Chinese Government.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Cao follows:]
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----------
Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much for your testimony and
your research.
Let me first begin the questioning first with Mr. Lehman,
if I could. Is it your testimony that the Chinese Government
officials have no say whatsoever in hiring, firing, promotion
of NYU personnel, including your professors and teachers?
And when it comes to admissions, how is that determined?
For example, can a son or a daughter of a dissident be accepted
to NYU? What is the cost? What is the tuition, fees, and all
when you add it all up together for an academic year for a
student? How much of that is paid for by the Chinese
Government? I mean, getting to who actually owns NYU Shanghai,
is it a partnership where 51 percent is you or them? We just
don't know on this side of the aisle.
But, again, how much are those student fees and tuition is
subsidized by the government? And if they don't have a say in
who is admitted to NYU, I mean, do they just give you the money
and then you decide who it is that comes in?
I do want to thank you for the invitation offered broadly
to Members of Congress. I accept. I would very much like if you
could provide me with an invitation to speak on human rights. I
would love to give a lecture on religious freedom and other
human rights issues.
This is my 53rd hearing on human rights in China. I have
chaired probably close to 500, if not more, human rights
hearings covering from human trafficking, to forced labor, to
issues of every kind. The students and professors might find it
of some interest. So I would hope, if you could extend that to
me when we are not in session, I and my staff will be there.
Let me also ask you too, and I know I am throwing a number
of questions right out first, but how do you vet NYU teachers
there to ensure that--the Chinese Government, as we all know,
is extraordinarily effective in placing people in positions,
they do it in business all the time, that keep a very sharp eye
on others to ensure conformity to what the party wants. How do
you ensure that the people you are hiring are not agents or
people reporting back and surveilling both other teachers and
others, personnel, as well as the students?
I yield.
Mr. Lehman. So thank you, Chairman Smith, and I will try to
answer all of the questions. If I miss one of them, please feel
free to remind me and I will do my best.
I will start at the end and the beginning, which was the
question about faculty appointments and how they work. So
faculty appointments at NYU Shanghai are the same as they are
at NYU New York. That is to say, they are led by a provost on
our campus, who is Joanna Waley-Cohen, who is seated behind me
today. She was the chairman of the History Department at NYU
for many years. She was on the NYU faculty for decades before
coming to NYU Shanghai.
The process is, we announce that we are holding a search.
It is a global search, and the search is for the best people in
the field. The searches are done by discipline. Because we are
starting out, we don't have a large established faculty in
Shanghai, and so we rely on faculty from NYU's campus in New
York to help us to conduct the search. And the search is all on
the academic merits.
It is a very rigorous and extensive process. Potential
faculty members' publications are reviewed by the search
committee. A small group of finalists are then brought in to
give what are called job talks, where they have to give a
lecture, effectively conduct a class in the way that they
should, and then ultimately offers are extended.
You can see from Appendix 1 to my testimony the list of the
people who are teaching at NYU Shanghai. They are
extraordinarily distinguished people. They did their academic
training at the finest universities in the world. They did
postdocs at the finest universities in the world. We also have
visiting faculty from New York who are members of the National
Academy of Sciences, the American Academic of Arts and
Sciences. This is an extraordinary group of faculty. People who
have held endowed chairs at institutions like Cornell and
Northwestern University have come to teach with us.
The Communist Party has no say, the Chinese Government has
no say, no voice in this process at all. East China Normal
University, which is the partner to NYU in this process, has no
voice in this process. Our graduates get degrees from New York
University. They get degrees from the trustees of New York
University. They do not get degrees from East China Normal
University. So NYU is responsible for the education that they
receive and the quality that they receive.
In terms of the admissions process, again, it is completely
controlled by NYU. The process is complex. So half of our
students come from China and the other half come from the rest
of the world.
Mr. Smith. And that is what, about 2,000? What is the
number that you will build out to?
Mr. Lehman. When we are full grown, it will be 2,000
undergraduates. That is to say, 500 per year, 251 from China in
each entering class, 249 from the rest of the world. In the
startup period, we have had only 300 students in each entering
class, so 151 from China, 149 from the rest of the world.
The students who apply from the rest of the world follow a
process that is the same as for NYU New York, NYU Abu Dhabi,
the common application, they submit essays. They indicate which
campus they would like to go to, and they are free to select
Shanghai or New York or Abu Dhabi or any two or all three as
their preferences, and they can rank what their preferences
are. The process is a little bit more intensive than it is in
New York because we are small. So our admissions office in New
York is able to actually conduct video interviews with
finalists who are applicants in New York.
Mr. Smith. Can I ask you, while you are answering, can a
Falun Gong practitioner be admitted to NYU and also be hired as
a professor?
Mr. Lehman. Sure. I mean, they could.
Mr. Smith. Do you have any?
Mr. Lehman. No, we don't have any. I don't know that we
have received any. We don't ask people about their religious
preferences when they apply for application.
Mr. Smith. But you believe you would be free enough that if
a Falun Gong practitioner said, ``This is my expertise,'' has
the academic gravitas to take on that position, you would be
able to do it?
Mr. Lehman. Yeah. If they were the most qualified
applicants we could hire them, absolutely.
Mr. Smith. But is there any fear of self-censorship where
you believe that could hurt your standing with the government?
You would have no such concerns?
Mr. Lehman. We came on a condition, and the condition was
that NYU would be NYU. And the government said: Good, that is
what we would like. If they were to change their mind, then we
would leave. But so far, so good.
So as the other witnesses have testified, China is a
constantly changing place. And it is as Mr. Daly testified
right now, there are mixed signals all around us. We hear
different voices all the time. And so we don't know what
tomorrow will be like. But I would be very surprised if the
government of Shanghai were to say: Well, sorry, we don't want
you anymore. But they could. That is their prerogative.
Conversely, they could try to go partway and say: Well, we want
you, but you can't have academic freedom. And if they did that,
then NYU would leave.
Mr. Smith. Well, can I ask you then in followup, there was
a letter dated September 3--I am sure you have seen it--2013 to
the NYU Board of Trustees signed by five members of the
faculty, including Andrew Ross, the president of NYU AAUP, and
they wrote, ``We are obliged to record some grave concerns
expressed by our members about the prospects of academic
freedom in China and at the new campus.''
They speak to the seven silences and whether or not those--
and I mentioned in my opening universal freedoms, press
freedom, and the like--would be able to be spoken about,
discussed, inquiry in an unfettered way. And they also said how
concerned they were, and this is their words: ``Under such
circumstances, self-censorship of instructors and students is
certain.'' They didn't say it is a probability, they said it is
certain. How do you respond to that?
Mr. Lehman. Well, they are entitled to their opinion, but
that opinion is not correct. That letter was written just as we
were starting to begin teaching, and I think it was perhaps
appropriate at that time for them to have had some concerns
about how things would play out. But as things have played out,
we have enjoyed full academic freedom on our campus.
And so I don't know all five, I don't recall all five of
the signatories to that letter, but certainly one faculty
member from New York who was quite vocal in expressing her
concerns about how things would play out in Shanghai has talked
with us and has gone back and told people: No, there is
academic freedom, absolutely, at NYU Shanghai.
I would actually direct your attention, there is a blog
published by a professor called PrawfsBlawg, and in it there
was a submission by a member of our faculty who talked about
his course at NYU Shanghai. He is a member of the law school
faculty at NYU New York, and he was visiting with us.
And in his course, he says, in response to something that
he had read: ``I could not speak for anyone else at NYU
Shanghai, but I, myself, am teaching exactly what I want with
the usual lack of oversight enjoyed by any professor teaching
at NYU in Washington Square,'' in his course. ``As an example
of my unhindered freedom, my course requires the students to
compare U.S. and Chinese constitutional rules and concepts, and
as background for this comparison I assign so-called
`sensitive' documents such as the infamous Document Number 9.''
This is the kind of classroom that we have at NYU Shanghai
today. And I do believe it is important that we have classrooms
like this in order to be true to our mission as NYU.
Mr. Smith. Just so I am totally clear, it is your testimony
that the seven taboos or seven silences--universal values,
press freedom, civil society, citizens' rights, criticism of
the Communist Party's past, neoliberal economics, and
independence of the judiciary--can all be taught in an
unfettered way on your campus without any fear of retaliation?
That is what happening?
Mr. Lehman. That is my testimony. It is absolutely true.
That is the case. And I should say, one of the interesting
points about the seven taboos--and this is just an example of
how complicated China is today--one of them I think that you
mentioned is on neoliberal economics as a banned topic. If you
go in Shanghai to the Tsinghua book store and look, you will
see a display of two of the most prominent books right now
there, and one of them is the speeches of Xi Jinping, and the
other one, next to it, is a Chinese translation of a book by
Professor Ned Phelps called ``Mass Flourishing.''
Professor Phelps is a professor at Columbia University. He
won the Nobel Prize in Economics. And ``Mass Flourishing'' is
about the way in which modern capitalism is essential to
enabling humans to flourish in a society that values what he
calls vitalism. That is Shanghai today.
And so, yes, on the one hand, there are these seven
taboos--never given to us, never given to NYU Shanghai, I
should say, but I have heard about them. I have never seen
them. But I seen them referred to widely. So there is that
document out there.
And I should say Premier Li Keqiang has spoken about Mr.
Phelps' book and has spoken about its importance. Premier Li
Keqiang gave a talk in February in which he talked about Adam
Smith's ``Theory of Moral Sentiments'' and it is importance to
their thinking about how the economy should develop.
There are mixed signals everywhere in China today. We at
NYU Shanghai operate consistent with our principles and no one
has told us not to.
Mr. Smith. Not to belabor the point, but how much of a
student's cost, total costs are borne by the government? And
does that have any impact as to how you bring students in,
admit students into the school?
Mr. Lehman. Sure. So the tuition for NYU Shanghai is the
same as the tuition at NYU in New York. It is about $45,000 per
year.
Mr. Smith. Is that in keeping with other colleges or
universities in China? Is that parallel to or far in excess of?
Mr. Lehman. You mean other Chinese universities?
Mr. Smith. Yes.
Mr. Lehman. Wildly in excess. Wildly in excess of what it
is. And I believe that that is reflected in the nature of the
education that we provide. The kind of education we provide is
very labor intensive and it is very expensive. And I believe
that it is actually reflected in the difference in the quality
of the education that we provide.
Now, that level of tuition would be unaffordable to many of
the best Chinese students. And therefore one of the important
conditions of opening NYU Shanghai was that there be a subsidy
from the government of Shanghai that would enable Chinese
students to pay 100,000 Renminbi per year, which is about
$17,000, instead of $45,000. So that works out to about a
$28,000 per-student subsidy for all Chinese students, not only
ones----
Mr. Smith. Who actually pays that, the central government
or the Shanghai----
Mr. Lehman. Shanghai, city of Shanghai.
Mr. Smith. City of Shanghai.
Mr. Lehman. City of Shanghai.
And so if you look at the overall structure of our budget,
as I said, NYU Shanghai is a tub on its own bottom. So no
profits are distributed to NYU in New York and no subsidy is
demanded from New York. Our budget is self-contained.
So when we are full grown, when we have 2,000
undergraduates, the plan for the budget is that about 60
percent of the total cost of operating the campus will come
from tuition, about 25 percent will come from government
subsidy, and of which about 14 of that 25 percent is going to
be going to financial aid for Chinese students.
Mr. Smith. Again, the tuition would be 60 percent. A large
part of that is from the government as well, so----
Mr. Lehman. No, no, no. The 60 percent is what is sometimes
referred to as sticker price tuition. So that is tuition.
Financial aid reduces that cost for--is part of the
expenditures against which that operates.
So another way to think about it, I guess, would be to say
the total budget will be about $200 million a year. About $60
million of that, $55 million of that, will be going to
financial aid. So that means there is about $145 million left
for operating costs. So I am talking about percentages of the
$200 million.
About 60 percent of that $200 million comes from tuition,
about 25 percent will come from government, and the last 15
percent will come from private philanthropy, and to the extent
we operate executive education programs that are able to
produce net surplus, that will be part of the last 15 percent.
Mr. Smith. Just one final question on the admissions.
Mr. Lehman. Yes.
Mr. Smith. Are the students the children of the elite, are
they just any child, any young person, I should say, who
aspires and has the academic credentials to make it? And when
the decisions are made by your local board, are there Chinese
nationals on that board who are influencing this or is it done
exclusively by NYU coming out of New York?
Mr. Lehman. Exclusively by NYU.
Mr. Smith. New York, I mean.
Mr. Lehman. NYU New York. I mean, we have local staff.
Mr. Smith. But my question is about the vetting before. Who
are the local staff? I mean, how do you know they are not
clandestinely part of the government apparatus?
Mr. Lehman. Well, I could be wrong, I suppose. I mean, I am
not experienced at spotting----
Mr. Smith. I mean, to shell out $28,000, you would think
the government would want to have a main say in who it is that
gets admitted.
Mr. Lehman. I don't believe so. The mission here is for us
to have the best and the brightest in China studying with us.
So we have students who turned down Peking University, turned
down Tsinghua University, turned down Fudan, turned down
Berkeley, turned down Cornell for the opportunity to be a part
of this very special academic experience.
The concern both at NYU and, honestly, by the city of
Shanghai, was that at $45,000 a year it would simply be a
playground for children of the rich and that would not be
acceptable. So it was necessary from the beginning to structure
this to make NYU Shanghai affordable. Now, some students can't
afford 100,000 Renminbi either, and so we have need-based
financial aid as well, in addition to sort of the flat
reduction to 100,000 RMB.
The process, we have thousands and thousands of applicants
from all across China for these 150 seats. And so the process
that is followed is they send us their high school grades,
their letters of recommendations from principals, their essays.
And that written portfolio is reviewed first by our staff in
Shanghai, then by our staff in New York, and a group of about
500, the top 500, are invited to come to our campus for what we
call Candidate Day.
And in Candidate Day, they are in batches of 125. They have
one-on-one interviews with us. They have sample classes. They
write essays. We want to be sure that they are ready to study
in the kind of academic environment that we provide, that their
English is good enough. And after that Candidate Day process,
we then identify the top 150 or so, to whom we extend
conditional offers of admission.
Now, the condition is that they then have to take this
Chinese examination known as the gaokao, which I am sure you
are familiar with, which is the national admissions exam in
China. They then have to score in the top tier on the gaokao in
order for their offer of admission actually to be effective.
Almost all of them do, but every year, unfortunately, some of
them do not.
This process, I will say, Chairman Smith, I have complete
confidence in. It is not an ideological screen. It is not
controlled by the government. You asked me to speculate why the
government would give us money to subsidize this if they don't
get to control admissions.
Mr. Smith. Or even influence.
Mr. Lehman. Or even influence admissions. I will give two
partial answers to that.
Most of our financial aid in the United States in American
universities is underwritten by donors, by private
philanthropists who make gifts, and that accounts for the
ability to give financial aid. And the question is, why do they
make these gifts if they don't get to influence who they are
supporting? And the idea is there is a sense that you are doing
good if you are opening up access on the basis of merit rather
than on the basis of financial capacity. And I honestly believe
that that is a big part of the motivation here.
Separately, I would say, because we are so small, if there
were ways for the government to influence who came, to say,
okay, there is a special side door for children of privilege,
that would destroy our reputation in China immediately. I mean,
word would get around in a flash. The social media in China
today are an unbelievably powerful force. Mr. Daly spoke about
the comments, about Minister Yuan's comment, alleged comment.
And I think everyone in China knows that this is all very, very
visible.
And so, again, we haven't received that kind of effort to
influence yet, but if it were to come, we will be vigilant.
Mr. Smith. Can I ask you, Dr. Martin, did you receive that
kind of subsidy or anything close to it?
Ms. Martin. No, sir. Our program is a little bit different,
obviously, because it is an undergraduate program conducted at
two universities. Sias University, as I shared earlier, is a
private university, whereas SNU is a public university.
Normally students who come to the campuses pay for their
degree.
As you know, there are two types of students in China:
Those who are termed planned, which as was stated earlier,
achieve a certain high percentage in the gaokao examination,
and then those who are unplanned, which means that they did not
fall within the auspices of those examinations.
The planned students are subsidized normally by the
government, whereas the unplanned are not. And so for many who
are unplanned students at the private universities, the
education and the degree that they obtain through the courses
and the program at Fort Hays State University is their only
chance to have access to an education in China.
Mr. Smith. Any of our distinguished witnesses, if you want
to chime in or speak out on anything you hear, please.
Yes, Ms. Cao.
Ms. Cao. I just want to add a few points, because I was the
one who did this research on ``NYU Shanghai: What's the Deal,''
in February. So I know a few things from--almost all my sources
are from the Chinese language sources when I posted this, and
several NYU faculties wrote me thinking it is very, very
helpful, and the fact that they knew it is a joint venture, but
what it means really was lost to most of the faculty members at
the NYU here.
Now, just pick Professor Lehman's comments. I want to point
out, at least at the early stage, at least that, that may or
may not be the case now, that at least at the very early stage,
NPR, when the Shanghai campus opened in 2013, right, NPR had
the article, interviewed a half-dozen also American students,
all of them received generous tuition from NYU Shanghai. And
some were even paid with their plane tickets.
So where does that money come from? All of them were given
huge tuition fees that cost--let me read from the original NPR
report--that one of the students was offered a deal worth
$228,000. That is huge. And, quote from the NPR report, ``The
half dozen others with whom NPR spoke said that they got either
generous discounts or free tuitions.'' So that is one comment I
want to make.
Another comment is about the philanthropy part of NYU
Shanghai. There was an article I found in Chinese that
described this newly found foundation called the Education
Development Foundation at the NYU Shanghai. NYU President
Sexton referred to the three distinguished people on this
foundation, and I was amazed to find that two of them were
high-ranking Chinese party officials, retired.
And these are officials, in the Chinese culture parlance,
they are called the tui ju er xian de guan bu, which means,
``Communist cadres working on the second front,'' meaning that
they work in the nongovernment sector to exert government
control.
So I just find the word ``philanthropy'' is misleading in
here because of exactly where does the money come from? It
could still come from the government, even it is labeled as
fundraising philanthropy. I don't know. I am just saying
because this foundation is led by former high-ranking
officials. One of them was a former member of the CCP Central
Committee. That is very, very high ranking. I mean, you have
what, 1,000, a few hundred CCP Central Committee members across
the country?
And also just on a more playful note, the Chinese elite
privileged kids, guess what? They don't want to go to NYU
Shanghai. They all come here, to Harvard, to Princeton, to
UPenn, and they come here. So that is my comment.
Mr. Smith. If I could, Mr. Lehman, maybe ask you another
question, whether or not discussions about--and, Dr. Martin,
this would be to you as well and any others who would like--can
there be a robust discussion about the Dalai Lama?
I led the congressional effort to nominate Liu Xiaobo, Chen
Guangcheng to get the Nobel Peace Prize, went there when they
had the big, empty chair, which is one of the most
heartbreaking scenes ever. And of course Liu Xiaobo's wife is
not doing very well, and she is under a kind of house arrest.
Here is a Nobel Peace Prize winner. We are going to hold
another hearing on Liu Xiaobo very soon to try to keep the
focus on a Nobel Peace Prize winner who is languishing in
prison. And my question would be, can you discuss his work? Can
you do it? Dr. Martin, as well, and Mr. Daly, do you want to
speak this, or anyone else?
And, again, in an unfettered way, because the crackdown
there was so complete they even threatened the Nobel Peace
Prize Committee and the host country for having the audacity to
raise his issue, as they did so well in nominating him or
selecting him.
Let me also ask with regards to religious freedom, can
Bible studies exist? Can, again, Falun Gong practitioners
engage in their spiritual exercise on campus?
Internet freedom. We know how the Internet is absolutely
abridged by the great China firewall that is in place. So,
again, your students--I am not sure there is much anyone can do
about that except if we keep the pressure on worldwide--but
they are getting a very filtered set of facts and information
via the Internet.
But let me ask you as well, in 1983, 1984, I offered the
first amendment that passed the U.S. House of Representatives
on the greatest human rights violation of women's rights ever,
in my opinion, and that is the egregious one-child-per-couple
policy that makes brothers and sisters illegal. It requires
forced abortion by policy. There has been talk since 1985 that
it is relaxing, and it never seems to bear fruit. It is usually
proffered for international consumption and to garner a
headline somewhere that somehow they are relaxing the policy.
And, frankly, with the implosion that is imminent in China
because of the missing girls, we had a hearing just a few weeks
ago, and the number of missing daughters is incalculable. It
might be as many as 100 million or more, leading to sex
trafficking and a disproportionality of males to females that
is causing huge problems for the country. Hopefully, the
government realizes their self-interest in eliminating such a
ban on children, making children illegal.
I asked in this room the head of the Foreign Affairs
Committee, when she was visiting with a delegation from China,
how they deal with the fact that 600 women per day commit
suicide, nowhere else in the world is female suicide more than
male, except China, and the fact that there is such a terrible,
terrible toll and a lot of it. We don't know how much.
But that comes for the Centers for Disease Control--theirs,
not ours. They challenged my number. We brought down the facts
and figures and she walked out. That was the end of that
conversation. That is a loss of women's lives that is, again,
unparalleled anywhere else in the world, 600 per day.
My question would be, with regards to the one-child-per-
couple policy, and Dr. Martin as well, in one of my trips to
China I asked a number of businesses whether or not they were
implementing the one-child-per-couple policy, whether or not
workers can snitch--and that is the word they used--on a women
who is pregnant without the birth permitted coupon and
authorization given by the government. And most of the
businesses told me yes. These were American businesses. Some
didn't know what I was talking about, but those that did said:
Sadly, it is part of Chinese law and we follow it.
And I am wondering what happens to an unwed mother, one of
your students--and again they are not even allowed one child,
all unwed mothers are compelled to abort or face ruinous
fines--what is the university or the college's response to
that? Are you in any way complicit in enforcing the one-child-
per-couple policy? Do you have a health clinic?
My hope is that you are in no way involved, directly or
indirectly. But what is the case with regards to that?
Mr. Lehman. So we are in no way involved. We have a clinic
on campus. It is a health and wellness area. It is very popular
with our students. The mission of the health and wellness
clinic is not to enforce the one-child policy. We are not
charged with enforcing or implementing the one-child policy.
Mr. Smith. But if a woman is or a young student is
pregnant, how does that get--I mean, we have had--we have
worked--I have worked personally, as well as my staff, on many
cases of women who had a second-order baby, including talking
to the Ambassador, travelling to Beijing, just to say: Please,
cease and desist, don't kill that baby simply because the
authorization wasn't given out.
What does the clinic do? Do they inform government
officials? Do they try to hide it?
Mr. Lehman. So our clinic does not provide abortion
services. To my knowledge, none of our students have gotten
pregnant. If one of our students got pregnant, we would have
absolutely no role in enforcing the one-child policy. We are
not an arm of the government, Chairman Smith. We are a
university.
Mr. Smith. I understand. But my hope would be that you
wouldn't--I mean, that woman is immediately at risk, and she
will be forcibly to be aborted. And a student, obviously
marriages are not even allowed to occur until 25. I read your
Statement of Labor Values. You have a section on protecting
women's rights.
Mr. Lehman. Yes.
Mr. Smith. You do put in provided by PRC law should be
protected, talking about pregnancy, childbirth. But, again, the
dark side of Chinese law when it comes to women and children
is--one of them--is this terrible one-child-per-couple policy.
If you could check to see what happens if a woman presents,
same with Dr. Martin, so that we are no way complicit.
[The information referred to follows:]
Written Response Received from Mirta M. Martin, Ph.D., to Question
Asked During the Hearing by the Honorable Christopher H. Smith
Fort Hays State University (FHSU) has partnerships with one public
and one private University in China. Faculty are hired by FHSU to teach
in China on the campus of the partner Universities. As such, they are
FHSU employees and they are responsible only to FHSU. They have no
reason to report any situation to Chinese authorities.
Mr. Lehman. I will certainly check, Chairman Smith.
Mr. Smith. Because that is, you know, there is a child's
life and a mother's life at risk.
Mr. Lehman. I will check and confirm that we are in no way
complicit.
Written Response Received from Mr. Jeffrey S. Lehman to Question Asked
During the Hearing by the Honorable Christopher H. Smith
I have double checked and, as I testified, there is no requirement
that NYU Shanghai report pregnancies to Chinese officials.
Mr. Smith. That would be very good. I appreciate that.
Ms. Martin. Mr. Chairman, unlike NYU, of course, you
realize that Fort Hays State University partners with the
institutions. So the program is owned in its totality by the
institution, but it is delivered on a host campus, so to speak.
So there are other students on that campus. As a matter of
fact, Sias International University has about 30,000 students
on its campus, and only a very small minority of those students
are actually part of the program.
So to the extent that the communications take place within
our faculty and our students, their ability to discuss anything
has never been an issue. The scholarship, their willingness and
ability to discuss things, as you have discussed, from the Bill
of Rights all the way up to more sensitive issues, have never
met opposition by any of the government.
And to that extent, one of the things that we feel very
privileged to be able to do is to expand the mind of the
students. I said to somebody the other day: If you understand
why people do what they do and you understand the human nature
of people, then you are able to put them in context and not
judge them as bad or good, but rather create a system whereby
you can expand your view of the world. And that is what our
faculty try to do in China, and they do it very well.
And addressing your statement about spiritual or religious
freedom, they are very well able to practice their religion.
Clearly there is not a Catholic church that they can go into in
their neighborhood, but they are able to practice their
religion within their own homes.
Mr. Smith. Before going to Mr. Sherman, I do have some
other questions that I will finish with. But under number five,
protecting women's rights, NYU's Statement of Labor Values, it
says: ``Women's rights during pregnancy, childbirth, and
nursing period will be protected as provided by PRC law.''
That is the problem, the PRC law, which is outrageously
unethical, immoral, and out of any human rights norms, even
according to U.N. principles, Cairo Population, ICPD, or
anything else, because it is forced, it is coerced. And so what
does that mean, ``as provided by PRC law,'' in your statement?
Mr. Lehman. I wasn't part of the drafting of that, but my
understanding, at least the way I understand it, is under
Chinese law, after you give birth you are entitled to paid
leave. And I don't know, I think it may be 4 months. And so I
think this is guaranteed paid leave.
Mr. Smith. But it does say during pregnancy as well. PRC
law during pregnancy makes that child at the gravest risk of
extermination at any time during their life on the planet.
Mr. Lehman. I believe, Chairman Smith, that that provision
is intended--I think it is framed in terms of protecting the
rights of the woman, I believe. And so I think what that is
intended to do is to say to the extent that Chinese law creates
a floor under the rights of the woman, those will absolutely be
respected. And that is not only by NYU Shanghai, but by anyone
who deals with NYU Shanghai.
Mr. Smith. Okay. But, again, we are talking the rights of
the women here would be coercive population control, including
forced sterilization and forced abortion, which is so
egregious, at Nuremberg, at the Nazi war crimes tribunal, it
was construed to be a crime against humanity, which it is.
Twice the U.S. Congress has called it a crime against humanity.
So my point is, if you could clarify that for us, what do
you mean by that? Because if it just means enforcing--and this
is what I have gotten from many businesses operating in China,
it is what we got from Google when we talked about the issue of
censorship, a different issue, of course, that they were just
following law as promulgated by the PRC.
Mr. Lehman. So the point of the Statement of Labor Values,
and it is comparable to the one that I believe was praised by
Human Rights Watch as it was applied in Abu Dhabi, the point of
this is to ensure that workers on projects associated with NYU
Shanghai have their labor rights respected and enforced. And
you are pointing at number five. I believe it is 13 paragraphs.
Is that right?
Mr. Smith. Fourteen.
Mr. Lehman. Fourteen paragraphs of rights in different
areas. And the point is to say that in each of these areas,
including worker safety, including guarantees that they will be
paid, that their rights will be respected and enforced. Because
sometimes, as you know, in many countries, including in China,
there will be times when there are rights on paper that are not
respected.
Mr. Smith. But it is precisely at the workplace where the
one-child-per-couple policy is implemented. So whether these be
contractors or whatever, that is the point of contact where
they have their greatest means of compliance, and that is where
the snitches come in, fellow workers, who are rewarded or
penalized if they do not bring to the attention of the family
planning cadres that so and so is pregnant without being given
the ability--without getting the authorization from the
government.
Mr. Lehman. Yes, Chairman Smith, I understand that. We will
get back to you.
Mr. Smith. So that would be both from the worker's point of
view, as well as from the student's.
Mr. Lehman. Exactly.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Sherman.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
I would point out that while fining a woman for having a
child seems a deprivation of human rights, Mr. Lehman points
out that in other cases China provides 4 months of paid leave.
A woman seeking 4 months off in the United States faces a fine
equal to 4 months pay.
Mr. Smith. Not everywhere. Not in New Jersey.
Mr. Sherman. Well, everywhere in the United States there is
no paid maternity--there is paid maternity leave in New Jersey?
Mr. Smith. State government.
Mr. Sherman. Oh, if you are an employee of the State
government. Okay. Well, the vast majority of my constituents
are not employees of any government, and it is good to see that
the State is generous to its own employees. It would be nice to
see how we can work that out for all employees.
Let's see. Mr. Lehman, if one of your students is sitting
in your library in Shanghai and they Google ``Tiananmen Square
1989,'' and they do it on Google.com, what do they see? Do they
see what I see or do they see what everybody else in Shanghai
sees?
Mr. Lehman. They see what you see.
Mr. Sherman. So you get around the Great Firewall of China?
Mr. Lehman. We are part of NYU's global network.
Mr. Sherman. Gotcha.
Mr. Lehman. And so in order for us----
Mr. Sherman. Let me move on.
Ms. Lawrence, first, thank you so much for all the guidance
you provide to my staff and myself. Second, how much money is
China throwing into these Confucian Institutes here in the
United States or otherwise in order to give free services,
professorial and otherwise, or cash to U.S. universities? Is
this a big thing?
Ms. Lawrence. I am afraid I don't have a number. I could--
--
Mr. Sherman. I mean, are there a dozen or several dozen
professors fully paid by the Chinese Government here in the
United States?
Ms. Lawrence. My understanding is that usually the Hanban,
which is the organization in China that manages Confucius
Institutes, provides a certain amount of money per Confucius
Institute to get it set up. And it can be up to, I think, about
$500,000, somewhere between $100,000 and $500,000, but I think
it depends on the university. Robert may have more information
there actually.
Mr. Daly. Well, in addition to those arrangements, you are
right, the Hanban has also started to propose endowed
professorships to universities. The test case on this a few
years ago----
Mr. Sherman. So this would be the chair in----
Mr. Daly. Chair, faculty member.
Mr. Sherman. Okay. These faculty would teach the nine-dash
line is----
Mr. Daly. No. The test case was in Stanford a few years
ago. In fact, I testified in 2011 before Congressman
Rohrabacher's committee on this. And there was a fight at
Stanford, there was concern because the faculty got a say about
the constraints that the Chinese side would put either on the
specialty of the faculty member or teaching. Stanford won that
argument, and they took the money for the chair sans
conditions, and it was all designed by Stanford University, and
the money still came through----
Mr. Sherman. I know at least one major university has
turned down the money or pulled out presumably because they
didn't get that.
Mr. Lehman, you suggested that the Federal Government pay
money to U.S. students at your university and elsewhere. All I
can say is nice try. This would be basically a lottery ticket
in the sense that there are 1 million American students that
would want it, and five or ten would get it, and I am not going
to cut cancer research in order to send you students. You are
going to have to get those on your own.
Let's see. Ms. Lawrence, Chinese students studying here in
the United States, are they studying STEM, science and
technology, engineering, math, or are they studying business?
Kind of give me a vague breakdown. Humanities versus business,
business law versus----
Ms. Lawrence. Traditionally, the Chinese students coming to
the United States in the early wave of students came to do
graduate study and often were studying STEM subjects, in part
because they didn't require such strong language abilities. If
you were studying mathematics you didn't have to have
incredibly fluent----
Mr. Sherman. What do we see now?
Ms. Lawrence. But now we are moving into an era where there
are many Chinese students now starting to come over actually at
the undergraduate level too. I was recently in Beijing and
hearing that one of the best high schools in Beijing----
Mr. Sherman. But you may have heard the exchange with Mr.
Rohrabacher. If they are here learning the technology that will
strengthen China, that is one thing. If they are here learning
American values, that is something else. Are they here reading
the works of Chairman Smith on human rights in a humanities
course or are they here learning how to beat us at technology?
Ms. Lawrence. I think that now the new wave of students who
are coming not just at the graduate level but now also at the
undergraduate level, I think they are starting to study rather
more diverse subjects than the first wave.
Mr. Sherman. What about the institutes that we are
basically focusing on in these hearings, the Chinese campuses
of U.S. universities, are they teaching STEM, or are they
teaching business and law, or are they teaching humanities, or
mostly one, mostly the other?
Ms. Lawrence. There is a wide range of models for these
U.S. universities that are operating in China. So NYU Shanghai
is one model, and it is a joint campus. It is a joint venture
between NYU and East China Normal University, with East China
Normal University as the majority partner, and it is providing
a liberal arts education.
The number of joint campuses is very small. There are three
U.S. universities that have been given this independent legal
person status, which Vice Chancellor Lehman could explain more
what the implications of that status are.
There are only 13 U.S.-partnered institutions that China
recognizes and approves as collaborative education
institutions, but there are more than 100 other U.S.
universities that are involved in offering degree programs on
Chinese campuses.
And so it kind of varies depending on the model, but I
would say that the bulk of the degrees that are being offered
by U.S. institutions in China, a lot of them are business,
engineering degrees, some English degrees. There are a few
unusual degrees. There is one U.S. university that is offering
a music degree. There is another U.S. university that is
offering a dance degree. But for the most part it is more STEM,
business.
Mr. Sherman. Chancellor Lehman, if I got you right, you
testified that you are not aware of any of your students being
pregnant. That is the first time a chancellor of a non-all-male
university has ever said that here in Congress. Obviously then
you are not focused on that, but the chancellor of UCLA has
never said that.
I will ask Ms. Lawrence first, but perhaps others as well.
What does the Chinese Government do to insulate the students
that it sends to the United States from the wrongful influences
of those who would want to break the pots of the Chinese
Communist Party? What do they do to prevent the students they
send here from bringing back American political values?
Ms. Lawrence. The Chinese Government does allow, does
encourage a lot of the students now to come and study in the
United States. There are Chinese student groups on a lot of
campuses which have very close relationships with the Chinese
Embassy, the Chinese consulates.
Mr. Sherman. Are they spying on the Chinese students in
what they are saying and doing?
Ms. Lawrence. I wouldn't know whether they are spying on
them, but I think they do coordinate with the Embassy. You see
when major Chinese leaders are visiting, often there will be
groups organized by these Chinese student groups to take
Chinese students studying in the U.S. to come and join welcome
parades and that sort of thing for visiting officials.
Mr. Sherman. Let me ask, Ms. Cao, if someone was interested
in commemorating the events of Tiananmen Square in 1989, would
it be wise for them not to cause the Chinese students
organization described by Ms. Lawrence, take steps so that they
wouldn't be aware of that effort? Or would you walk into one of
these Chinese student groups with a big ``remember Tiananmen''
badge on and feel just comfortable?
Ms. Cao. You will feel uncomfortable. There is evidence of
that, there is incidences of that. And the associations of
Chinese students and scholars on larger American campuses, like
Columbia University, MIT, there is strong evidence supporting,
showing that there is very close cooperation and influence from
the Chinese consulates and the Embassies.
And in the UK, in Cambridge, there was an example--well, I
can only quote examples that are in the paper, that is how we
get to know. But I have no reason to assume that was an
isolated incident.
Now, a couple years ago in Cambridge University, the
university authorities actually cancelled the Chinese student
association because of the Chinese Embassy's influence on who
will become the president of that association, because these
associations are called on, for example, when Chinese leaders
are visiting, they are called on to wave the flags, and they
are paid the meal and money to do that. And when the Tibetans
protest, these students are organized, these associations at
the behest of the Embassy or consulate are going to do the
counter protest, things like that. There are a lot of incidents
like that.
Mr. Sherman. Ms. Lawrence, if you are an agent of a foreign
government or paid by a foreign government, aren't you supposed
to register? I realize that we heard a description of what went
on in England, but assuming that there are Chinese student
organizations being subsidized by and the officers being
selected by the Chinese Embassy, should those students be
registering as agents of the PRC?
Ms. Lawrence. I have to refer you to another branch of CRS
which handles U.S. domestic law. I focus on China, so I am
afraid I am not familiar with----
Mr. Sherman. Okay. Get those folks to give us an answer.
Ms. Lawrence. Sure.
[The information referred to follows:]
Written Response Received from Ms. Susan V. Lawrence to Question Asked
During the Hearing by the Honorable Brad Sherman
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Mr. Sherman. I don't know who else----yes, Ms. Cao, you
have a----
Ms. Cao. Just a few weeks ago, very recently, the Chinese
student association at Columbia University was shut down by the
university and the reason they gave is that, well, they broke
some rules. And I recently, just last week, I talked to a
Reuters reporter, I urged him to dig deeper, because I believe
it is likely, very likely there is something else, not just
leaving food after their events or something like that.
Mr. Sherman. That is so unusual at an American university.
If you were to shut down the Albanian students organization at
UCLA, the whole campus would erupt.
Mr. Daly, what can U.S. campuses do to ensure that Chinese
students are not only protected from this intimidation or
observation, but are actually encouraged to break the pots of
the Chinese Communist Party?
Mr. Daly. They can do very little directly. There have
always been organized----
Mr. Sherman. Well, let's back up a little bit. They send
the kids here to study STEM. Can we require at all our
universities, if you are here to study STEM, you have to take
one or two courses where you may read the writing----
Mr. Daly. American universities all have distribution
requirements, they have general education requirements. What
American campuses can do is be American campuses. Where is our
confidence? Yes, there are attempts by the consulates and the
Embassies to infiltrate Communist Party cells----
Mr. Sherman. So you don't have U.S. universities saying:
Hey, we really want the Chinese money. We will let students
come here. We will give them some sort of certificate. They can
take nothing but math and science.
Mr. Daly. American universities provide the opportunity,
the environment, and all of the stimuli that are the best
antidote to everything the Chinese Communist Party is
attempting to do.
Mr. Sherman. Unless they are willing to provide programs
designed with the interests of the PRC in mind. Are there
universities that, regardless of the breadth requirements they
have for their U.S. students, either have some certificate
program or degree program designed to teach STEM to Chinese
students without exposing them? I see Dr. Martin is saying no.
I realize no for your own campus. Does that apply to every
campus you are aware of? Is there any university in this
country that is saying: Come here, bring your Chinese dollars,
study math and science and technology, and you can leave, and
you don't have to take a course in politics, humanities,
anything like that?
Ms. Martin. Sir, I don't have the vast knowledge to be able
to answer.
Mr. Sherman. But have you heard of any such example?
Ms. Martin. However, every single institution of higher
education is governed and accredited by a regional accrediting
body to whom we have to answer. And as such, we provide this
accrediting body a list of all of our programs and they approve
it. Within those programs, as was stated earlier, there are the
general education programs that include your English, your
sciences, your mathematics, your humanities, your social
sciences.
Mr. Sherman. So there is no certificate somebody can earn
without those breadth requirements?
Ms. Martin. A certificate is a specialized series of
courses in a specific area. And so the answer would be,
certainly it could be designed, but I am not aware. It wouldn't
be a degree.
Mr. Sherman. Let me just make a comment. I am concerned
with Chinese money influencing American thought. I think the
number one problem is the corporate sector where hundreds of
billions of dollars are made and lobbyists for the benefit of
China descend upon this place and descend upon the media,
particularly the business cable channels, with an amount of
power that far exceeds our influence in China.
I know some of you said we have got the soft power way
beyond what they do. That is true if you just ignore money,
lobbying, and the effect of money on cable television and think
tanks. If you just ignore money and focus only on the academia,
then you would say that we have got the soft power and they
don't.
And then finally, as I mentioned, when China controls a big
chunk of the movie theaters in the United States, they control
or influence what studios will choose to make, and those of you
who are looking for a second Gere movie on Tibet will have to
look at just some movie that is, like, made for cable. It will
not be a theatrical run.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for these hearings. I
know that you have some additional questions.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Sherman.
Ms. Martin. Mr. Chairman, if I could just say something.
While I am not able to speak on behalf of every single
institution of higher education as to what course of study they
may or may not have or what certificate they may or may not
have, I believe that I can speak on behalf of every institution
in this country to the fact that the academic integrity of our
programs highlight and dictate who we are as an academic
institution. And speaking for them, and certainly on behalf of
Fort Hays State University, no amount of money will ever be
able to be given to me to sacrifice the name or the credibility
of my institution or those of higher education in the United
States.
Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Just a couple of final questions, and again I
thank you for the generosity of your time as well this
afternoon.
Mr. Lehman, I am encouraged when you say the seven taboos,
there is not a concern. I think I am concerned that
surveillance can be very, very ubiquitous. It could be
everywhere.
When Frank Wolf and I made our way over to the PRC, to
Beijing, immediately prior to the Olympics, we brought with us
a prisoners list that the Congressional-Executive Commission on
China, which I chair, had put together, a very extensive list,
as you know, that really goes to great depth. It is one of the
best prisoners lists I have ever seen. It is updated
constantly, combed to make sure that it is accurate.
And while Congressman Wolf and I were in the Embassy van,
it is the only time we talked about this, we talked about,
kiddingly, going to Tiananmen Square, because we were on our
way to another meeting, and unfurling a banner that called for
human rights. Twenty minutes to twenty-five minutes later the
U.S. Embassy got a phone call saying that if Smith and Wolf
unfurl the human rights banner at Tiananmen Square--which was a
fiction, we were talking to each other, and we did make one
phone call in which we mentioned it as well--we would be
immediately escorted to the airport or worse, and the Embassy
was very concerned. This was right before a big showcase
Olympics.
And the ability to embed surveillance equipment and the
like in the classroom when the Embassy van may have been
compromised, I don't know that, but my own and my
subcommittee's computers have been compromised at least once
and the PRC hacked into them. So I am concerned about when
someone does go beyond or says Tiananmen Square.
I mean, Chi Haotian, as we all remember, when he came into
town during President Clinton's tenure in office, was given a
19-gun salute. He was the butcher of Beijing, as you know, was
the operational commander, and then at that point when he was
in town was the Defense Minister, he said nobody died at
Tiananmen Square. We put together a hearing 2 days later. We
had people who were there on the square, including
correspondents, and someone from the People's Daily, who said
people died and they died in large numbers.
I mean, the ability of this government in Beijing to do
unbelievably nefarious things and to lie in broad daylight, I
mean, here he was in Washington at the Army War College saying
nobody died at Tiananmen Square. I thought Mr. Clinton did a
terrible thing in honoring him. He should have been on his way
to The Hague for crimes against humanity. But that said.
So I am concerned, and I completely accept your sincerity
and the fact that as a very learned man you believe this is the
case, and I absolutely hope it is true.
But I do want to ask you a question. The whole episode with
Chen Guangcheng, and Jerry Cohen was one of my witnesses
earlier on, so it is not like I have any animus toward NYU, and
I want that clear and unmistakable. And we held hearings, like
I said, I had worked on his case for about 5 years when he
first was put behind bars. And the way that I was treated, you
know, who cares. The way Chen was treated was what really
concerned me. But even as he was flying into Newark
International Airport, huge efforts, including Under Secretary
Kennedy, who I was on the phone with, ensured that I did not
meet him at the airport. He was ushered, when he came in, we
were at the gate, and I know because the man who ran the Port
of Authority used to be my intern and he couldn't believe the
great lengths and hoops being jumped through to ensure that my
wife and I were not there at the gate to greet him. I thought
it was a bit bizarre, frankly. But that said.
We made our way over to the NYU. I was pushed to the side,
and I mean literally brought to the side by someone working for
NYU, and if it wasn't for Chai Ling yelling, as he got out of
the van, ``Chris Smith is here,'' he perked up and walked over
to the direction of what she said, and I shook his hand, that
was the end of it, and I was shunted to the side again.
The meetings that we had with him were always, particularly
in the early days, and we tried hard to have meetings, they
were hostile. And I was bewildered by it, and I mean
bewildered. Then I heard from Mr. Chen how he repeatedly was
admonished, maybe threatened, but admonished may be a kinder
word, about coming to Washington, testifying before our
subcommittee. He never got the answer from the administration
or from anyone else about the agreement, which it turns out
probably was just oral, it was never written, with the Chinese
Government about looking into his case. So more subterfuge
there.
And then when he came down, as I said in my opening before,
to an event that we suggested with former Speaker Pelosi and
Speaker Boehner, which I think was a great success, that was
frowned upon. And then he was told the day after he testified
here, and it took almost a year to get him here because of
these obstacles, that he was gone.
Whether it be Lech Walesa or Nelson Mandela or any other
world-class human rights leader, not to treat Chen with that
kind of--the respect, I mean, if it was my university, you are
here for as long as you want to be. And he was even told: See
what your right-wing friends like Smith can do. And thankfully
I was able to with phone calls within an hour of his ouster, or
information about his ouster, to set up for him to become part
of a three-part sponsorship, including Catholic University of
America, the Lantos Foundation, and the Rutherford Institute.
So it has been a very strange episode. I don't have the
answers for it. I read his book. He had concerns about how he
was treated, especially by the U.S. Government.
So a very specific question, and it is done in the hopes of
just clearing the air. Did the PRC officials in any way
pressure, advise, or convey any message to NYU personnel
concerning Chen Guangcheng's case? And if so, how were those
messages conveyed? And was Chen's situation perceived by NYU as
a threat to NYU's Chinese programs, including at Shanghai
campus?
I know that he was admonished many times not to go into
certain directions. I mean, he was incarcerated and tortured,
as was his wife, because he brought up the one-child-per-couple
policy and in Linyi tried to defend women who were being
horribly abused. And to suggest he ought to talk about
corruption and rule of law generically and esoterically without
getting into details was, again, mind-boggling. You wouldn't
say to Nelson Mandela: By the way, don't bring up apartheid.
You just wouldn't do it. That is why he was singled out for
punishment.
So if you could answer that question, I would appreciate
it.
Mr. Lehman. So the simple answer to the question is no. The
Chinese Government did not attempt to influence NYU's dealings
with Mr. Chen. I should say I was in China at the time. I was
not in New York. No one spoke to me ever.
Mr. Smith. But that is just you. I am talking about NYU
personnel.
Mr. Lehman. NYU personnel in general, I mean, I will say it
should be remembered that when Mr. Chen sought refuge in the
Embassy in Beijing and Harold Koh was there and was working to
trying find a solution so that he could leave China, to my
knowledge NYU was the only university that offered a fellowship
to Mr. Chen to enable him to leave. Other universities were
approached and they refused.
And this was at the time that NYU Shanghai was being
negotiated. This was before there was any agreement to create
NYU Shanghai. And so NYU was not worried about the possibility
that they might lose NYU Shanghai. This was not a motivating
factor at all.
Mr. Smith. With total respect, at that point I agree
completely. It was as he came here and as his time in the
United States began to unfold that the pressure seems to have
been applied.
Mr. Lehman. I don't believe there was any pressure applied.
I have spoken with people who worked with--I have never meet
Mr. Chen, but I have spoken with people who worked with him. I
have spoken with people who worked closely with him while he
was here. None of them ever felt any pressure whatsoever. And I
believe, Chairman Smith, if NYU Shanghai was being used as a
lever, I would have been told.
Mr. Smith. Would anybody else like to say anything before
we conclude?
Yes.
Ms. Cao. I just want to quickly make it, because this
matters a lot, the Internet freedom on these campuses. My
research on the Chinese sources, my impression is that the
situation varies from campus to campus. On the campus like NYU
Shanghai where you have half of the students are American
students, it may very well be the case that they have free
access to Internet.
But I just read an article on Hong Kong's Ming Bao that
reported that on the Shenzhen campus of the Chinese University
of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong university invested the capability
of using their own VPN, which is completely free, like on their
Hong Kong campus, but the university, the students, in the end
were not allowed to use the Hong Kong university's VPN. Instead
they have a domestic VPN that has the Great Firewall of China.
So my guess is that from these joint programs their
Internet freedom probably varies. If the student body is
entirely Chinese the likelihood is that they won't have
complete Internet freedom.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. Again, I want to thank you for your
leadership, your generosity. This has been a long hearing.
And without objection, I would ask that Dr. Dawood Farahi,
the president of Kean University's testimony be included in the
record. We did invite Dr. Farahi to be here. We will invite him
again for a future hearing. But without objection, his
statement will be included in the record.
This hearing is adjourned, and thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 4:50 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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