Chinese Internet Censors Erase News of £3.7 million Donation to Cambridge

Serious concerns about the donation from the unknown 'Chong Hua' foundation were raised last month by several Cambridge academics who feared that Beijing was using its vast resources to purchase soft-power influence at the university. A source in the Chinese media, who cannot be named for his own protection, told The Daily Telegraph he awoke one morning last week to find the unseen censors had been hard at work.

"In just one night, all discussions and articles about this event on the big Chinese websites [that carried the story] have been 'cleaned'.", the source said.The secretive foundation, which has no website or official listing anywhere in Britain or China, has endowed a chair of Chinese Development studies at the university's prestigious Department of Politics and International studies.


Cambridge said it has conducted an "investigation" into the Chong Hua donation that did "not identify any link between this private foundation and the Chinese Government." However the news that China's state-backed censorship apparatus had moved to erase the story in China, has renewed concerns among Cambridge academics. "These further revelations make increasingly untenable Cambridge's claim that the Chong Hua foundation has no links to the Chinese government," said Tarak Barkawi, a senior lecturer in war studies at the Department of Politics and International Studies.

"They demonstrate also just what kind of regime Cambridge has chosen to associate itself with, one whose values are antithetical to freedom of thought and freedom of speech, the very basis of the Western academy.

"Covert financing through front organisations is exactly how the CIA corrupted US university departments during the Cold War. In such circumstances, polite assurances from University officials that all is in order are simply inadequate."

Questions about the origins of the money were raised after it emerged that the first recipient of the chair, Professor Peter Nolan, had personally helped to solicit the donation.

Prof Nolan is known to have a plethora of high-level government contacts in China. His former students include Liu Chunhang, the son-in-law of Wen Jiabao, China's prime minister, who is now a senior figure in China's financial regulatory authorities.

Prof Nolan, who has refused to comment on the donation, is also believed to have taught Mr Wen's daughter Wen Ruchun and several other prominent figures in the Chinese political establishment.

The donation was finally approved at a meeting of the Regent House, the university's governing body last week and will be officially announced in the coming days, a Cambridge spokesman said.

The removal of all references to Chong Hua even applied to Prof Nolan's supporters, according to Yao Shujie, a Chinese scholar at Nottingham University who posted a blog in Chinese on three separate portals in China defending Cambridge's decision to accept the donation.

"My blog was taken down," he confirmed to The Telegraph, "I re-posted it, but it was again deleted and I was asked not to re-post the material. I did not even criticise the donation, but argued that Britain should accept such funding, but it was still removed."

Another local source in China also reported being directly ordered to remove a story about Chong Hua. "When I asked why, I was told it was 'orders from the top'." the source added.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/9091750/Chinese-internet-censors-erase-news-of-3.7-million-donation-to-Cambridge.html