This panel will explore the diverse ethical challenges that may arise when teaching and researching about China from outside China. Concerns about ethical field research and censorship pressures are not new but have been heightened by China’s authoritarian turn and recent events in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Not since the Vietnam War has China scholarship been so politicized. At the same time, visiting students and scholars from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the PRC on Western campuses are increasingly at odds with each other and vulnerable to censorship and doxing on social media. The pandemic has added a new dimension as classroom lectures, and discussions on digital platforms are easily recorded, making professors and students concerned about their remarks being shared beyond the classroom and taken out of context. Many PRC students at Western universities are taking their classes remotely from inside China’s firewall, raising concerns about surveillance and censorship. China scholars are faced with a never-ending series of decisions that could have important implications for their own careers and those of their students. One possibility is that students are deterred from specializing in China, reducing the ranks of expertise at a time when more, not less, knowledge about China is needed.
This event is part of the Timothy A. Gelatt Dialogue on the Rule of Law in East Asia