Thread by @SheenaGreitens

Happy Tuesday! Lots of debate and opinions recently on how scholars are responding to pressure from China - but until now, no data/systematic evidence. To change that, @rorytruex and I did a survey of 500+ academics who work on China. Here's what we found: /1

Repression of foreign scholars doing research in China is rare, but real. Here are the stats:
18% have had a publication censored in China;
26% have been denied access to an archive;
9% report have “invited for tea” to explain their work to the authorities. /2

~5% have had trouble getting a visa; temporary visa “difficulty” or one-off denial is more common than long-term blacklisting, which has happened to 1-2% (~10-12 ppl). /3

Faced with that environment, researchers employ several tactics:
48% had adapted how they describe a project to continue doing it;
25% changed a project's focus;
15% had discontinued a project bc of concern for sensitivity/feasibility. /4

Important note: these "adaptive tactics" are more common among Chinese citizens, women, junior faculty, and scholars with family living in the PRC -- in other words, people who are simply more vulnerable to pressure applied by the Chinese political system. /5

The majority of scholars reported not asking for or getting any help from their home universities in dealing with this, and expected none. Most thought their institutions would not have the capacity or knowledge to help. /6

Researchers take self-censorship seriously; 68% were concerned about it. BUT they had thought a LOT about what was ethical here and not. Namely:
- Prudent caution in the field: ethical/appropriate). Changing research conclusions bc of political unpopularity: not. /7

Self-censorship to protect people in China: tough, but often the only ethical choice. Self-censorship bc of self-interested careerism: not ok. /8

Self-censorship in published research: generally not acceptable. Opting not to take a high-profile stance in op-eds, etc, esp. if topic is outside your research area? More debate/disagreement on this one. /9

Also: it's more common for a Chinese colleague to get warned abt a sensitive project than the foreign scholar being warned directly. That complicates things by displacing risk onto people who work and live in (& sometimes can't leave) China. Induces caution in researchers. /10

We asked experienced scholars to offer advice. They said:
- Listen to Chinese colleagues; they navigate these issues all the time.
- Have backup plans & alternate projects, in case one data source/project becomes impossible.
- Become tech savvy to protect data & people. /11

Note: the paper doesn't try to compare experiences of scholars based abroad to people living & working every day in China. We wrote it to try to bring some real data to bear on a question that the the scholarly community has recently spent a lot of time talking about. /12

We're grateful to all respondents who took time to respond to the survey, and to readers who offered comments on early drafts. Thank you! We hope these results are helpful.
Full paper available here: ssrn.com/abstract=32430…