*NOTE: This statement has now closed and is no longer taking signatures. The statement and full list of signatories is available below.*

Statement: The Hong Kong National Security Law is an assault on academic freedom

The recently introduced Hong Kong National Security Law is a direct assault on academic freedom by the Chinese party-state. Universities are supposed to be a place for vigorous debate, and to offer a safe space for staff and students to discuss contentious issues without fear or favour. The National Security Law, which under Article 38 is global in its scope and application, will compromise freedom of speech and academic autonomy, creating a chilling effect and encouraging critics of the Chinese party-state to self-censor.

The British Association for Chinese Studies (BACS) has pointed out that:

    "[t]he National Security Law makes it an offence—punishable by a lengthy prison sentence—to criticise the rule of the Chinese Communist Party or to make subversive statements about the Party and its rule regardless of where in the world an individual is based and regardless of their citizenship."

The Chinese party-state itself has confirmed this far-reaching interpretation, most recently in a statement from the Chinese Embassy in the United Kingdom asserting that burning the People's Republic of China (PR China) national flag and chanting slogans in London constituted a violation of both the PR China's National Flag Law and the National Security Law.

BACS has also warned that:

    "When passing through Hong Kong or China, teachers and students of any countries’ citizenship could find themselves arrested based on evidence from lecture notes, recorded lectures, or recorded class discussions because these include content that the Party-state deems subversive. The risks are especially high for individuals from mainland China and Hong Kong who study at or who previously studied at British universities."

Attempts are now under way to safeguard students in China-related courses. Some universities now allow students to submit their coursework anonymously. Oxford University has announced that "group tutorials are to be replaced by one-to-ones". But such stop-gap measures are insufficient to address the underlying concern that staff and students may be reported for what they say in class, whether it is online or offline.

These concerns are well founded. It is widely known that the Chinese party-state is weaponising students to monitor their university instructors in mainland China and Hong Kong. Such attempts to instrumentalise students do not stop at the PR China's border. Professor Vanessa Frangville has revealed that the Chinese embassy in Brussels tried to hire Brussels campus students to express their disapproval of a Uyghur demonstration in 2018. And a lecturer in Sinology at the University of Leipzig recently told Hong Kong activist Glacier Kwong that:

    "his students from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China asked if they could drop his class, because they worried about being associated with the criticism others made of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in class. His students are concerned about participating in class, and that they might be considered as troublemakers."

This example is typical of a wider trend which may result in global censorship.

Universities cannot be expected to resolve the problem alone. The measures proposed by Oxford University are unrealistic for most universities; online services which check student submissions for plagiarism are vulnerable to cyber-attacks; and mere suspicion that staff and students could be reported to the Chinese authorities already has a chilling effect.

What is needed is a united front of university leaders and academics, Members of Parliament, and senior government officials to act in defence of academic autonomy and freedom of speech.

US Ivy League Schools, the Russell Group of 24 leading British universities, as well as their counterparts in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, must unequivocally condemn the law. If universities fail to condemn the law explicitly, then they are supporting it implicitly. As BACS has rightly pointed out,

    "the unofficial response … to the National Security Law cannot be for teachers to err on the side of caution in their teaching content or for certain China-related modules to be dropped from the syllabus because they prove too challenging to deliver safely."

International lawmakers and senior government officials must take steps to ensure legislation is updated to create a university environment which enables the full exercise of academic freedom. They should reiterate to Chinese authorities that Article 38 of the Hong Kong National Security Law is unacceptable and makes an open-ended intercultural dialogue with the PR China increasingly difficult. It codifies the illiberal values of the Chinese Communist Party, such as the Seven Don't Speaks and Document No 9. Such political censorship is antithetical to the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. It also prevents a critical discussion about the PR China and its role in the world.

STATEMENT ENDS

Rolling list of signatories:

Vicky Xiuzhong Xiu, Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Akira Igata, Center for Rule-making Strategies, Tama University
Harriet Larrington-Spencer, University of Manchester/University of Salford
Jean-Philippe Béja, CERI-Sciences-Po, CNRS, Paris
Frank H. Finch III, University of New Haven
Teng Biao, City University of New York
Jessica Yeung, SOAS University of London
Jeppe Mulich City, University of London
Eli Friedman Cornell University
Magnus Fiskesjö, Cornell university
Donald Clarke, George Washington University Law School
Dr. Mareike Ohlberg, German Marshall Fund
Yasser Hussein Issa Mohammed, Hajjah University- Yemen
Colin Sparks, Hong Kong Baptist University
Glenn Tiffert, Hoover Institution
Ho-fung Hung, Johns Hopkins University
Hanna Burdorf , Newcastle University, UK
Eva Pils, King's College, London
Shaun O'Dwyer, Kyushu University
Subodh Patil, Leiden University
Stephen C K Chan, Lingnan University
James Rice, Lingnan University
William A. Callahan, London School of Economics and Political Science
Christopher Balding, Independent
Giulia Piccolino, Loughborough University
Richard McGregor, Lowy Institute
Charles Burton, Macdonald-Laurier Institute and European Values Center for Security Policy
Lucrezia Poggetti, Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS)
Kevin Carrico, Monash University
Thomas Chase, Monash University
Paul Maidowski, Independent researcher
Kwan Sze Pui Uganda, Nanyang Technological University
Kerim Friedman, National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan
David Emanuel Andersson, National Sun Yat-sen University
Stefanie Dr. Eschenlohr, National Taiwan University of Science & Technology
Ian Chong, National University of Singapore
Xun Zhou, The University of Essex
Craig Jones, Newcastle University
Dr Caleb Johnston, Newcastle University
Dr Jo Smith Finley, Newcastle University
Michael Tsang , Newcastle University
Martin Hála, Charles University, Prague
Dr Michael J Richardson, Newcastle University
Tao Zhang, Nottingham Trent University
Dr Lee Jones, Queen Mary University of London
Jonathan Eyal, Royal United Services Institute
David O'Brien, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
Corcuff Stéphane, Sciences Po Lyon
Daniel Garrett City, University Hong Kong
Dafydd Fell SOAS, University of London
Steve Tsang SOAS, University of London
Kharis Templeman, Stanford University
Torbjörn Lodén, Stockholm University
Geremie R Barmé, The Australian National University
Tom Cliff, The Australian National University
Harry Yi-Jui Wu, The University of Hong Kong
Alex Wang, UCLA
Ilan Saban, Univ. of Haifa, Israel
Filip Jirouš, Sinopsis
Vanessa Frangville, Université Libre de Bruxelles
Ondrej Klimes, Czech Academy of Sciences
Rebecca Ruth Gould, University of Birmingham
Benjamin Cheung, University of British Columbia
Dorothy J Solinger, University of California, Irvine
Ezra Shi Yanjun, National Dong Hwa University
Jeffrey Wasserstrom, University of California, Irvine
Kun-Chin Lin, University of Cambridge
Rowann Fitzpatrick, University of Central Lancashire
Dali Yang, University of Chicago
Max Roger Taylor, University of Dundee
Felix Boecking , University of Edinburgh
Martin Thorley, University of Exeter
Fredrik Fällman, University of Gothenburg
Avi Heinemann, University of Kent
Shakhar Rahav, University of Haifa
Alison W. Conner, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Sharon Yam, University of Kentucky
Toby Lincoln, University of Leicester
Elena Barabantseva, University of Manchester
June Teufel Dreyer, University of Miami
Yi Li Wu, University of Michigan
Vincent Wong, Osgoode Hall Law School
James Rogers, Independent Researcher
Steven Levine, University of Montana, Department of History
Victoria Hui, University of Notre Dame
Katharine Adeney, University of Nottingham
Dr Andreas Fulda, University of Nottingham Asia Research Institute
André Laliberté, University of Ottawa
Craig Clunas, University of Oxford
Margaret Hillenbrand, University of Oxford
Rachel Murphy, University of Oxford
Arthur Waldron, University of Pennsylvania
Chongyi Feng, University of Technology Sydney
Aki Tonami, University of Tsukuba
Jack Chen, University of Virginia
Dr Daniel Conway, University of Westminster
Professor Dibyesh Anand, University of Westminster
Björn Alpermann, University of Würzburg
Adrian Zenz, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
Anne-Marie Brady, Wilson Center, DC/University of Canterbury, NZ
Michael Davis, Woodrow Wilson International Center
Evan Fowler, Henry Jackson Society
Caroline Bald , University of Essex
Michael Freeman, University of Essex
Catherine Churchman, Victoria University of Wellington
Alvin Y.H. Cheung, US-Asia Law Institute, NYU School of Law
Gerda Wielander, University of Westminster
Colin Samson, University of Essex
Kaori Abe, University of Hull
Roy Chan, University of Oregon
Gerda Wielander, University of Westminster
Kristin Shi-Kupfer, University of Trier
Hsien-Hsueh Huang, Tamkang University Taipei
Daniel Howe, City University of Hong Kong
Sarah Kirchberger, Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University
Sara Yau, City University Hong Kong
Thomas Boutonnet, University of Strasbourg, France
Colin Sparks, Hong Kong Baptist University
Alfred Wong, City University of Hong Kong
Line Marie Thorsen, Aarhus University
Stephen Rush, Bowling Green State University
Kevin James, London School of Economics
Christian Göbel, University of Vienna
Peter Alain, University of Strasbourg, France
Coraline Jortay, University of Oxford
Wai-keung Fung, Cardiff Metropolitan University
John Dotson, Jamestown Foundation
Alvis Kwok, Deakin University
Mary Gallagher, The University of Michigan
Paolo Marelli, University of Genoa
Chrisann Lee, Queensland University of Technology
Henry Langley, University of Cambridge
Tena Prelec, University of Oxford
John Heathershaw, University of Exeter
Lutgard Lams, KU Leuven
Chris Fraser, University of Hong Kong
Charles Parton, Royal United Services Institute
Eva Li, Lancaster University
Christoph Müller-Hofstede, Bundeszentrale fur politische Bildung