张俊华 for DW：From "world class universities" to one voice: can an intolerant CCP possibly coexist with #academicfreedom on any level? Even @HuXijin_GT recently acknowledged the need to protect "academic space" (学术空间）for inquiry 从一流大学到一种声音 p.dw.com/p/44aMQ?maca=z…
On 17 Dec., XJP presided over the 23rd meeting of the Central Committee for Comprehensively Deepening Reform, which reviewed & approved several documents emphasising #China's need to build world-class universities with top-class disciplinary divisions...
The mtg overlapped w/news of the firing of Song Gengyi, a lecturer at Shanghai Aurora Colleage, allegedly for "causing a serious teaching incident that resulted in severely bad social impact." Song had pointed out...
in a lecture that the names and identities of all of the estimated 300,000 victims of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre were in fact lost to history such that the true death toll may never be known.
In February 1946, the Prosecutor's Office of the District Court of the then Capital (Nanjing) undertook an investigation of the incident, and concluded that 295,517 people in Nanjing had been massacred by the Japanese army.
Historian Lloyd Eastman, in a contributing chapter to the Cambridge History of #China, described the Nanjing Massacre as one of the most shameful interludes in the history of WWII; claiming that, "during the 7 weeks of atrocities, at least 42,000 Chinese were brutally killed."
Song Gengyi's mere mention of the data discrepancies, secretly taped by a student and reported to the administration, led not only to Song's dismissal, but also to the remanding of a pregnant colleague who had defended Song to a mental hospital for treatment & observation.
One month earlier, Professor Li Jian of the School of Marxism at Hunan City University, was reported by students for having observed that "Japanese people strive for excellence" in class; Li was not fired for the transgresson, but was transferred to work at the school library.
张俊华 points out that, as a country seeking to maintain first-class universities, #China should reject individuals & groups that are intolerant. This is what Karl Popper called the "paradox of tolerance":
If we are not prepared to defend a tolerant social order & oppose intolerant attacks, then tolerant people will be destroyed & even tolerance itself will also be destroyed. Zhang asks, with no protected space for free inquiry, can #China possibly host world-class universities?
As it turns out, when the full tape of Song Gengyi's lecture was released, it was clear that the student had edited the clip he reported to school authorities; in retribution, a "human flesh search engine" leaked the identity of the student, deriding him as an "informant"
#China's Global Times immediately weighed in with an editorial that claimed the student was "not a despicable 'informant' (告密者), but is instead a 'whistleblower' (吹哨人) opposing historical nihilism." 震旦学生不是“告密者”，而是“吹哨人” m.huanqiu.com/article/462Utm…
Readers lauded the student as a "sentry for national security, a hero!" 对于国家安全，他就是哨兵，他就是英雄！, and "righteous" 学生是正义之举. One reader claimed that "it is only because we have such youth who can clearly see right from wrong that #China has a future!"
But perhaps one of the more interesting twists in this debate came from @HuXijin_GT, who, in a #Weibo post the previous day, agreed that those who leaked the identity of the student were wrong to have done so-- because "they undermined the very tolerance they preach;" he also
admitted that although secretly taping a class discussion is "very controversial & sensitive," it is the university that must take final responsibility for deciding every such case according to rules & regulations, because "confrontation is easy to foment in the public square"
While 老胡 concedes that public opinion casts "disputed persons as either villains or heroes" & that he has enjoyed playing in the mud himself, Hu concludes "that 'academic space' that should be protected *must* be protected” 该保护的学术空间必须保护 weibo.com/1989660417/L6v…
As a former target of 环球's mud-flinging for protecting the #academicfreedom & #freespeech of my students in the politics of #China in Sept 2020 (做贼心虚？英媒：牛津大学要求学生匿名提交涉华作业，以“防范研习中国议题时受香港国安法惩罚” world.huanqiu.com/article/404zco…), I just want to say
that I'm actually happy to stand with 老胡 on this one point: 该保护的学术空间必须保护. Critical thinking, open debate & reflective inquiry are only possible once #academicfreedom has been secured.
邓聿文 for DW weighs in on the case of Li Tiantian, who was committed to a mental hospital by local police after proposing on #China's social media that Song Gengyi ought not have been fired #academicfreedom 李田田事件是一个愚蠢政权为自己制造的“枷锁” p.dw.com/p/44tf6?maca=z…
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