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Extracted Text (OCR)
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For their part, American universities and US scholars have also engaged in China during
this period, although in far fewer—but not insignificant—numbers. (For example, in
2015-2016, 11,688 American students and scholars were studying in China.)® For those
in the field of Chinese studies, it is de rigueur to study and do research in Chinese
universities. Professional collaboration among faculty—mainly in the sciences and
medicine—has also flourished. Some US universities—notably Johns Hopkins School
of Advanced International Studies (Hopkins-Nanjing Center), New York University
(NYU-Shanghai), and Duke University (Duke-Kunshan)—have gone so far as to
establish campuses in China, while others have opened centers (e.g., Stanford, Virginia,
Chicago, Yale, Harvard, Columbia). Many more American universities have forged
collaborative exchange programs with Chinese counterparts.
While US-China exchanges in higher education have primarily been a success
story, as in many other dimensions of the Sino-American relationship, clouds have
appeared on the horizon.’ American students have become less keen than in the past
to study in China due to concerns about pollution, lack of open internet access, and
expanding political controls. American scholars trying to conduct research in China
have run into an increasing number of restrictions and impediments since 2010, due
to a broad campaign against “foreign hostile forces” and an increasingly draconian
political atmosphere that has cast a shadow across Chinese society, especially over
higher education. Whole subject areas and regions of the country are now off-limits
to American and other foreign scholars for fieldwork; previously normal interactions
with Chinese scholars are now often heavily circumscribed; many Chinese scholars
have become reluctant to meet with American counterparts; a growing number of
libraries are off-limits; central-level archives have been closed, and provincial; municipal
archives are increasingly restricted; interviews with government officials (at all levels)
are more difficult to arrange; public opinion surveys must be carried out with Chinese
partners, if they can be conducted at all; simple eyewitness social research in rural and,
even some urban areas, is considerably more limited than previously. In short, normal
scholarly research practices permitted elsewhere in the world are regularly proscribed
in China. These restrictions also include the inability to hold open and uncensored
public scholarly discussions, conferences, and other kinds of events. Meanwhile,
Chinese students and scholars enjoy unimpeded access to all of these activities in the
United States, resulting in a severe asymmetry in Sino-American scholarly exchange.
This contravenes the spirit of the bilateral US-China educational exchange accords.
At the same time, storm clouds are also gathering on American campuses with respect
to another aspect of this important relationship, namely, growing concerns about
unfair Chinese “influence-seeking activities” in the United States.
Universities
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