On Campuses Far From China, Still Under Beijing’s Watchful Eye

Just Pinned to Domestic and Global News: Chinese students bring Beijing's heavy hand to Western campuses... Chinas booming economy has increasingly allowed more of its young men and women to seek a college education in the West; 329000 now study in the United States more than five times the number recorded a decade ago. By far the largest contingent of foreign students they can be an economic lifeline for colleges since they usually pay full tuition and they can provide a healthy dose of international diversity. But those students often bring to campus something else from home: the watchful eyes and occasionally heavy hand of the Chinese government manifested through its ties to many of the some 150 chapters of the Chinese Students and Scholars Associations. The groups have worked in tandem with Beijing to promote a pro-Chinese agenda and tamp down anti-Chinese speech on Western campuses. At Columbia a decade ago the club mobilized students to protest a presentation about human rights violations in China urging them to resolutely defend the honor and dignity of the Motherland. At Duke the group was accused of inciting a harassment campaign in 2008 against a Chinese student who tried
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