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June 17th, 2013 
Peter Nolan
Despite the denials, the decision to ask Chen to leave has raised the question
of Chinese influence on Western academic institutions that increasingly rely
on income from the lucrative overseas Chinese student market.
At a time of spiraling costs for domestic students, China has become a
financial force in the tertiary education market, with some 200,000 Chinese
students enrolling in the US in the 2011-2012 academic year – accounting for
25 per cent of all foreign students in the US.
NYU, like several British universities, is in the process of opening an
overseas campus in Shanghai where it will open a 15-storey building in
summer 2014 under the marketing slogan “Make the World Your Major”,
according to its new Mandarin-English website.
“American universities are out chasing the China dollar and are very reluctant
to work with dissidents who have a strong voice in China,” said Bob Fu, the
president of the Christian ChinaAid group that has long championed Chen’s
cause.
“It does not always have to be direct pressure from Beijing, there is also
self- censorship, particularly if a college president believes their China
campus or the future enrollment of Chinese students will be sabotaged.”
China has opened a network of 70 non-for-profit Confucius Institutes around
the world in open bid to increase its influence in the global educational
marketplace as it seeks to drive its economy up the technological value
chain.
Chen is now understood to be considering at least two other offers, from
another US university and a pro-life think-tank.
Fears of undue Chinese influence have also been raised in the UK, with
academics in Cambridge last year questioning the wisdom of a £3.7m donation
for a professorship from an anonymous group called the Chong Hua Foundation,
as revealed by The Daily Telegraph.
Cambridge University rebuffed calls from concerned faculty members, asserting
that the foundation had “no links” to the Chinese government but refusing to
make any details public on who was behind the donation.
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