UNIVERSITIES have again been urged to review their links with Chinese Communist-funded teaching centres amid new international fears over academic freedom.
Critics have long argued that Scotland’s Confucius Institutes (CIs) – and their related school outreach programmes – are fronts for Beijing propaganda and soft power
Now a major report from America’s National Association of Scholars (NAS) has called for the US to join universities, including Stockholm, and sever relations with CIs.
The conservative group said it had discovered pressure on US academics to “self-censor”.
Referring to Tibetan and Taiwanese independence, it added: “Chinese teachers hired, paid by, and accountable to the Chinese government face pressures to avoid sensitive topics.”
NAS’s findings come after groups such as Free Tibet urged the Scottish Government and Scottish universities to rethink CIs in the light of a global backlash.
Universities have always denied any threat to academic freedom.
MSP Ross Greer, the education spokesman for the Scottish Greens, said he would be writing to universities asking for evidence behind such reassurances in the light of what he called the “alarming” NAS report.
Mr Greer said: “It is outrageous that Chinese government-funded institutions continue to operate within schools and universities across the world, including here in Scotland, with little scrutiny.
“Academic freedom is essential to a free society and I can think of few other countries that are studied on terms set by the government of that country and certainly not governments with such a long and violent history of crushing dissent, abusing human rights and forbidding free speech.
Mr Greer is deputy convener of the Scottish Parliament’s cross-party group on Tibet. Its chairman, SNP backbencher Linda Fabiani, said: “Our group has previously expressed concerns about Chinese political influence on CIs. We have had assurances from the relevant universities that academic freedom and integrity are maintained.
“Vigilance should always be maintained – politically and academically. If politics is to be discussed within CIs then it is crucial a balanced programme of fact and opinion is put forward to students.”
A UK professor told the NAS a CI should be judged on its ability to discuss Tibet. Earlier this year Norman Baker, president of the UK Tibet Society, told Ms Fabiani’s group that CI texts on Tibet “potentially contain bias”.
Back in 2015 the head of the Communist Government body in charge of CIs confirmed in a BBC interview staff would confirm currently independent Taiwan belongs to China.
University bodies were unavailable yesterday. Edinburgh has previously insisted its CI allowed “open and critical debate”.
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