A PhD student in Switzerland was removed from his program in 2020 after he began to tweet critically about #China and his advisor sent him an email, terminating their relationship and told him his tweets may cause her not to get a visa to China. nzz.ch/english/swiss-…
"The professor had written that she had received «angry emails from China.» Gerber was accused of spreading «neo-Nazi-like content» on Twitter. She said that was dangerous, even for her."
«Ultimately, it may even turn out that I won’t be able to get a visa to China because of you. This is definitely going too far, and I would have to end our advisory relationship,» she wrote.
She asked him to «tone down his political expression immediately», she added. She had «no desire to receive emails like this because of one of my doctoral students.»
He had been tweeting for just 10 days, and had fewer than 10 followers. No question, he had been harshly critical of the Chinese government.
For example, on March 21, he had posted, in English: «#CCP made fighting #COVID-19 plan B. Only to be executed if Plan A – covering it up – fails. Those are the actions of paranoid cowards. They neither deserve my respect nor gratitude #ChinaLiedPeopleDied».
He was sure there had been a misunderstanding. He replied at 11:11 p.m., wanting to know who the «angry emails from China» were from.
He asked if his professor had even read the tweets, and accused her of having been «taken in by Chinese government’s increasingly aggressive censorship.» Still, he deactivated his Twitter account.
He didn’t hear anything more for almost 48 hours. Then the professor got back to him. Her tone was distant, and she didn’t respond to Gerber's questions. She had copied his second doctoral adviser on this email, writing that she wished him good luck with his «Chinese studies».
However, there was at that time «no supervisory relationship between you and us,» the message read. It was the last email Gerber would receive though his St. Gallen account.
The next day, he found he couldn’t access his messages. An IT technician told him on the phone that his account didn’t exist. «It felt like I had been purged overnight,» Gerber said.
However, Gerber's case demonstrates that China's aggressive foreign policy can in fact influence how academics in Switzerland publicly express themselves, and how they deal with critical comments from their students.
Gerber accuses St. Gallen of kicking him out because of his critical tweets. The NZZ has copies of these tweets, as well as Gerber's correspondence with the professor and other St. Gallen representatives.
They largely support the position taken by the former Ph.D. student. However, the University of St. Gallen insists on a different version of events. According to this telling, Gerber himself decided to terminate his studies at the university.
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