The last weekend in October, Harvard University played host to a group of university presidents -- five from the United States and seven from China. According to the account in the Harvard Crimson, the agenda consisted of "fundraising, academic planning, admissions, and computer technology." Everything of concern to college administrators, in short, with one conspicuous exception: academic freedom.
But the most disturbing aspect of the meeting was the decision by the Chinese university administrators, notably the president of Peking University, to exclude a Harvard student from their meeting. And it was no ordinary student: Wang Dan, before he was exiled to America and enrolled at Harvard, may have been the most famous former student of Peking University, which he attended until being arrested for his leading role in the 1989 democracy uprising in China. In an account in Time's Asia edition, Sinming Shaw noted that "Wang, hardly the firebrand portrayed in Chinese propaganda, meekly obliged. None of the 20-odd Harvard students and alumni of Peking University who were present protested. In a Chinese academic context, it is unthinkable for a student to refuse a 'request' from a superior, even a former one. As for Harvard, it considers the incident a private matter between Wang and Peking University's leaders, even though Chen was an official guest and the incident took place on Harvard property.
"Communist China unfailingly demands that others respect its internal values. Yet when they are overseas, China's leaders too often show scant respect for values precious to other nations. What's troubling is how willing the rest of the world is to exercise self-restraint, even at the cost of bending its core values. Even at fair Harvard."