I’ve been taking some time going through December articles and posts on a few of my favorite sites and ran across the case of Yang Shiqun, a political science professor whose critical comments of Chinese culture and the government incited his students to report him to the authorities. Articles relating to the case can be found on EastSouthWestNorth and David Bandurski has a good overview at China Media Project.
Personally I was taken by something Professor Yang wrote on his own blog where he invokes a comparison similar to one I made last year between the current academic/intellectual climate among students in the PRC and that of the May Fourth Period.
According to Professor Yang:*
I was summoned to speak with my leader today. He said that some students in my <Ancient Han Language> course have denounced me to the Public Security Bureau and the City Education Committee for criticizing the government. An investigation is being conducted. I did not know whether to laugh or cry at the idea that students at the East China University of Political Science and Law should still have Cultural Revolution-era thinking and will resort to all and any methods to denounce their teacher as a counter-revolutionary. So sad! These Chinese university students.
When I held my <Ancient Han Language>, I definitely criticized certain traditional Chinese culture in the context of the course materials. If there are certain aspects of traditional culture that are connected to today’s society, I would make those connections and criticize the government.
I remember that two female students came to see after class and angrily denounced me for daring to criticizing Chinese culture and the government! They even had tears in their eyes. I admire students who love Chinese culture and the government so much, and it is their right to do so! But why don’t I have the right to criticize Chinese culture and the government? Therefore I told them: I have the right to express my views and if you don’t like my lectures, you don’t have to take my course. However, they went to denounce me to my superiors and added some more imaginary “crimes.” I was really surprised.
You know, if this were to happen in the late Qing dynasty, someone might believe it. If this were to happen in the May 4th era of the Republic of China, people won’t believe it. The youth of that era had basically adopted the notions of “democracy,” “freedom” and “human rights” and therefore such weird incidents could not be happening. But today in the 21st century, it is happening in China and at a Chinese university no less. This is really incredible. When I recall the series of weird things that occurred in Chinese schools recently, I have to pray silently for Chinese society and its people: When will Chinese society emerge out of ignorance? When will Chinese education get on the right track? When will Chinese students begin to think normally?
Last May, I wrote on The China Beat:
Like their May 4th predecessors, the young people of China today espouse a strong Chinese nation and their rhetoric is filled with pride and optimism for their country’s future. The passion and fire of May 4 is certainly there as well, even if the new media is an electronic one: Sohu, Tianya, and a universe of blogs and BBSs represent the new New Youth.
But something is missing: The marketplace of ideas.
Today in China, even with the government tirelessly trying to limit access to alternative perspectives, bookstores and the Internet still abound with news, essays, translations, history, and philosophy, providing young people with an access to information far beyond the wildest dreams of the May 4th students. But the desire to find out more, the craving to challenge assumptions and formulate multiple perspectives on complex issues is woefully absent. The youth of today write more than ever, more than any generation in recent memory, terabytes of opinion available online—but the anger and passion and fire of the May 4th generation are now enlisted in support of a single worldview and a single perspective on a range of issues. A whole generation whose arguments are hard-wired: an authoritarian success story.
I have a sense that things are changing and that the hard-wired fenqing anti-intellectualism will ultimately soften as emotions ebb and reason and analysis have their day. At least I hope that’s the case…
UPDATE December 30: Louisa Lim reports on the case of Professor Yang for NPR’s Morning Edition.
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* Translation by Roland Soong, the original post in Chinese can be found on Professor Yang’s blog.
