Xi Jinping tightens stranglehold on China’s academia

A Chinese scholar who was one of the most prominent critics of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has been forced into early retirement, becoming the latest victim of a crackdown by Beijing on academics.

Hu Wei, a top government adviser, sparked fierce online debate in China at the outbreak of the war in 2022 by calling for Beijing to “cut off as soon as possible” its ties with Vladimir Putin, a position that ran directly against Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s policy of closely courting the Russian president.

Two people familiar with the matter said this month that Hu, whose commentary has been featured extensively in international media, was forced to retire from the Shanghai Party Institute of the Communist party — a school for officials — last year at the age of 59. This was considered early for such a prominent scholar, who once advised the country’s top leaders.

Hu is one of a growing number of scholars targeted in recent years as the Communist party under Xi tightens its grip on academia. The crackdown has targeted Chinese intellectuals overseas as well as those working within the country, muzzling public discussion of not only traditionally sensitive topics such as politics and international relations, but also China’s struggling economy.

Mainland Chinese academics have “long been of suspicion to the Chinese Communist party”, said Sophie Richardson, a visiting scholar at Stanford University and former China director at Human Rights Watch. The situation had become “significantly worse” under China’s current leadership, whose reaction to discussions of difficult topics had become “less predictable”, Richardson said.

“That has enormous implications for the lives of intellectuals and scholars and scientists and the quality of the work they can do,” she said.

Some academics have disappeared from public view, apparently detained by authorities on undisclosed charges, while others have been dismissed by their employers, had their social media accounts cancelled or suffered other forms of administrative and legal punishment.

In Hu’s case, his agreement to step back from the Shanghai institute had allowed him a “soft landing”, one person familiar with the situation said, in that he had avoided jail and was still able to attend public events.

Hu could not be reached for comment. The Shanghai government, which is responsible for the Shanghai institute, did not respond to a request for comment.

In one of the most serious recent cases, Zhu Hengpeng, a deputy director of the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think-tank that advises Xi’s cabinet, was this year detained for comments made on WeChat, said two people familiar with the matter. Zhu’s case was first reported by The Wall Street Journal last month. Zhu did not respond to a request for comment.

During China’s annual parliamentary session this year in March, Wu Qiang, an outspoken former political science lecturer at Tsinghua University in Beijing, was placed under house arrest. Wu, whose politically sensitive research included work on the 2014 pro-democracy Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, had his contract terminated in 2015 after he failed a performance review.

Tsinghua University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences did not respond to requests for comment.

Chinese academics in Japan in particular have been targeted. Fan Yuntao, professor of international relations and politics at Asia University, vanished last year while returning to his native Shanghai. The Japanese government said in April it was “monitoring” his case, which it feared might have “human rights implications”.

In March, Japan’s Kobe Gakuin University revealed that it did not know the whereabouts of Hu Shiyun, a literature and linguistics professor, who also disappeared on a trip to China last year.

“Japan clearly seems to be targeted,” said Kenji Minemura, a senior research fellow at the Canon Institute for Global Studies think-tank, suggesting China was putting pressure on Tokyo for deepening security ties with the US.

Within China, many academics have met similar fates. Rahile Dawut, a scholar of ethnic Uyghur folklore and traditions in China’s north-western Xinjiang region, went missing in 2017.

Asked about claims Beijing had restricted the freedom of the various academics, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was “not aware of the specific situation”. “As a principle, China always maintains an open attitude towards academic exchanges between China and foreign countries. At the same time, we oppose malicious speculation and groundless smearing of China,” it said.

Perry Link, professor emeritus of East Asian Studies at Princeton University, said academics’ working conditions — from salaries to travel and even school places for their children — had been tightly controlled under late dictator Mao Zedong’s rule.

Such restrictions had since been replaced by “polite bribery”, he said. But the party remained what he termed “the anaconda in the chandelier” — a threat that was mostly unseen, but at any moment could descend on those in public life who stepped out of line. 

“There’s really an evolution since the Mao years. But the fundamental fact that the Communist party committee calls the shots at the universities is the same.”