European Association of Chinese Studies

The European Association of Chinese Studies (Chinese: 歐洲漢學學會/欧洲汉学学会 Ōuzhōu Hànxué Xuéhuì; EACS) is an international scholarly association representing China scholars from Europe. It was founded in 1975 and is registered in Paris. The Association is governed by a Board and its daily activities are managed by its President, Secretary-General, and Treasurer.

2014 conference censorship

An international incident occurred at the 20th biennial EACS conference, held 23–26 July 2014 at the University of Minho in Braga, Portugal, when Hanban director Xu Lin ordered pages torn out from the official program the night before the conference, to remove any reference to Taiwan institutions.[1][2][3] The reason for the censorship was apparently concern that the publicity for independent Taiwan institutions cast doubt on China's claim to Taiwan.[4] The association protested in the strongest terms and reprinted all the deleted materials to distribute to all conference members.[5]

The evening before the conference, Hanban Vice-Minister Xu Lin (许琳), who is Director-General of the Confucius Institute Headquarters (CIH), ordered that pages to which she objected be torn out of the conference abstract and program.[6][7] Roger Greatrex, President of the EACS, subsequently issued a Report on the deletion of pages from conference materials and a public Letter of Protest at Hanban interference at the conference. The report detailed the timeline of events concerning Xu Lin's censorship.[8]

Sun Lam, conference co-organizer at the University of Minho and director of the Confucius institute there,[9] had applied for funding from the Confucius China Studies Program (CCSP), which is administered by the Confucius Institute, and had received €28,040. The Taiwanese Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange was another sponsor of the conference, as it has been for 20 years.

The money from the CCSP included the €7,000 cost for printing 400 copies of the conference abstracts; it did not include the cost of printing the conference program, which was paid for by EACS members. The CCSP international conference funding application states, "The conference is regulated by the laws and decrees of both China and the host country, and will not carry out any activities which are deemed to be adverse to the social order." Dr. Lam submitted a draft copy of the program to the CCSP for approval on 4 July 2014, and was told that it looked "splendid" (piaolang 漂亮).

Conference registration began on 22 July 2014, and about 100 participants received complete copies of the abstracts and program, which comprised 89 pages plus cover and front matter, printed double-sided on 48 pages. However, after Xu Lin arrived that evening, she "issued a mandatory request that mention of the CCSP sponsorship be removed from the Conference Abstracts", and ordered her entourage from Confucius Institute Headquarters to remove all conference materials and take them to the apartment of a local Confucius Institute employee. When the remaining 300 participants arrived for conference registration on 23 July, they did not receive the printed abstracts or programs but only a brief summarized schedule. After last-minute negotiations between Xu Lin and conference organizers to ensure conference members received the program, a compromise was made to allow the removal of one abstract page that mentioned the CCSP support of the conference.

On the morning of 24 July, the remaining 300 conference participants received their materials, which were now missing four printed pages: the frontispiece mentioning CCSP sponsorship in the conference abstract, and three pages from the conference program. These expurgated pages contained information regarding:

When Roger Greatrex, president of the EACS, learned of this censorship, he ordered that 500 copies of the original program immediately be printed and distributed to participants.[10] He later wrote, "The seizure of the materials in such an unauthorized manner, after the conference had already begun, was extremely injudicious, and has promoted a negative view of the Confucius Institute Headquarters". The EACS letter of protest said this had been "the first occasion in the history of the EACS that its conference materials have been censored." It concluded, "Such interference in the internal organization of the international conference of an independent and democratically organized non-profitable academic organization is totally unacceptable."[11]

Tseng Shu-hsien (曾淑賢), director-general of the National Central Library, stated that EACS officials and members had spoken out against Xu during the opening ceremony.[12][13]

The U.S. online university site Inside Higher Ed quoted Marshall Sahlins, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago and a leading critic of the Confucius Institutes, who said that this incident illustrated the Confucius Institutes provision that programming they fund must abide by Chinese laws, including those restricting speech; "Moreover they’re going to enforce them the way they do in China, which is not so much by going to court... but simply by fiat."[14] Taiwan's cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council issued a reproach over the censorship incident, saying, "The mainland should deal with Taiwan's participation in activities on international occasions pragmatically. If there is no respect for each other, the development of cross-strait relations will be seriously hurt."[15]

References

  1. ↑ Peter Cai, "China fails the soft power test", Business Spectator, 6 August 2014..
  2. ↑ "China hurts Taiwan's feelings at academic conference in Portugal", "Pakistan Defence" website, 4 August 2014
  3. ↑ The Wall Street Journal", "Beijing's Propaganda Lessons: Confucius Institute officials are agents of Chinese censorship", 7 August 2014.
  4. ↑ "The Undoing of China's Soft Power", "The Diplomat", 8 August 2014.
  5. ↑ The "Braga Incident" Timeline with Links to Articles and Comments, European Association for Chinese Studies, 20 August 2014
  6. ↑ Shih Hsiu-chuan, EACS to protest Hanban’s academic meddling: source, Taipei Times, 31 July 2014.
  7. ↑ China's obstruction at conference hurts cross-strait ties: Taiwan, Focus Taiwan News Channel, 28 July 2014.
  8. ↑ Roger Greatrex, Report: The Deletion of Pages from EACS Conference materials in Braga (July 2014), European Association for Chinese Studies, 1 August 2014.
  9. ↑ European Association for Chinese Studies conference 2014 website, "The organisers", July 2014.
  10. ↑ 20th Biennial Conference EACS Program, original uncensored version.
  11. ↑ Roger Greatrex, Letter of Protest at Interference in EACS Conference in Portugal, July 2014, European Association for Chinese Studies, 1 August 2014.
  12. ↑ European Association for Chinese Studies Offers Formal Apologies to Us, National Policy Foundation, 29 July 2014.
  13. ↑ Shih Hsiu-chuan, Foundation angry over EACS brochures, Taipei times, 29 July 2014.
  14. ↑ Elizabeth Redden "Censorship at China Studies Meeting", "Inside Higher Ed", 6 August 2014.
  15. ↑ "China's Obstruction at Conference Hurts Ties", "The China Post", 29 July 2014.

External links

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