The Blue and the Red: Yale's China project

The detainment of a University lecturer raises questions about the Elis' place in China

By Ted Diskant

Over the summer of 2000, East Asian Language Lecturer Zhengguo Kang returned home to China to visit his family. Five days into his stay, eight plainclothes police officers arrived at his door. They told him he would need to come with them for a "returnee interview." "I had an ominous presentiment," Kang said. "I psychologically prepared for trouble as they brought me to be interrogated in the cell room." A returnee interview quickly became a three-day interrogation, during which he was confined to an isolated building and, when unwilling to admit guilt, forced to write a self-criticism confessing to his purported misdeeds.

Kang soon realized that the Chinese police had been opening and reading mail he had been sending to friends in China. Included in that had been articles from publications banned by the Chinese government. Additionally, Kang had himself published an article viewed as critical of China and the ruling Communist Party. His actions, while perfectly legal in the United States, had aroused the suspicion of his native government. "I never expected they had been accumulating `proof' of my guilt," Kang said. He had instructed his family to contact the American government, and the State Department responsed quickly; by the third day, Kang's interrogators made clear they were ready to release him despite the fact that the Yale professor had refused to admit any wrongdoing. "I knew how to defend myself," he said. "Stubbornly refuse to admit the guilt they imposed on me."

This is modern-day China, a country where suppression of views critical of the government and harassment of those who oppose the goals of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are still very much in practice. For Kang, who remained silent about his detainment for over a year in fear of retribution, there was nothing particularly shocking about the way he was treated by his own government. "For many Chinese people, including me, to suffer at the hands of officials and policemen is a common affliction," he said. "We are so weather-beaten that we can hardly feel the political or moral indignation."

Kang's story is becoming public just as Yale's involvement in China reaches what seems to be its all-time high: University President Richard Levin, GRD '74, and a Yale delegation spent two weeks in mainland China in May; the Yale-China Association, one of the oldest private institutions connecting Americans with the Chinese is preparing to celebrate its centennial in October; and with the development of a number of recent programs, most notably the China Law Center at Yale Law School, Yale is devoting more and more resources to helping China transition politically and economically through judicial and market reform. Yale's increased interest even sparked coverage in The New York Times, which reported that China had taken "center stage" at Yale ["East takes center stage as Yale focuses on China," 8/29/01].

The Chinese officials who held Kang knew he was an American scholar, and perhaps more importantly, that he worked at Yale. His situation, which numerous Yale officials described as "disturbing" and "outrageous," raises questions about what exactly Yale is doing in a country that still distrusts both foreigners and scholars. But Kang's story also suggests that the bigger problem for Yale may not be why it is there, but whether or not its programs will have any effect on a society still under the strict control of the CCP.

IN RECENT YEARS, THE UNIVERSITY HAS TAKEN ON A NUMber of ambitious projects in China: Law School Professors Paul Gewirtz and Jonathan Hecht have founded and started the China Law Center, aimed at educating Americans and Chinese alike on issues of judicial reform in China. Professors at the School of Management (SOM) have spent time working with leading Chinese economists discussing market reform and existing regulatory bodies. And over the past six years, the Yale School of Nursing has conducted AIDS testing and education in the Hunan province while training nurses in a variety of fields, including HIV prevention. The recent involvement has clearly been sparked by interest from the head of the University—"China matters because one-fifth of the world's population lives there," Levin told the Class of 2001 in his commencement address.

"I think what Yale has done in China is admirable and exemplary, but almost unique," Strobe Talbott, SM '68, the director of the newly created Yale Center for Globalization, said. "Yale has built over time a strong relationship with China that allows for these kinds of unique interactions."

Indeed, Yale's involvement with China is so unique that the goals of even the most specified programs, including the China Law Center, remain rather vague and broad. As a result, when asked to define the work they are doing, some of the Yale professors most heavily involved in University programs in China had vastly different answers. For some, Yale's work in China is missionary in nature. "We are an outgrowth of Dwight Hall," Nancy Chapman, the director of the Yale-China Association, a program that sends students to teach and study in China, emphasized. "We were founded as a mission, and our focus has always been on education." Professor Jay Pottenger, the director of Yale's Clinical Studies program, a group that attempts to promote the use of actual legal experience in the training of new lawyers in China, is leading similar programs in China through the China Law Center. "I'm going [to China] as a missionary," he said. "Not in a religious zealot sense, but as a missionary for legal clinical education."

But Will Goetzman, the director of the International Center for Finance at the School of Management, was much more cautious, judiciously avoiding any suggestion that the Yale professors viewed their counterparts in China as anything but equals. "We're academics, not policy makers or diplomats," he said. "That's the type of thing that could really grate someone's teeth in China—they are sensitive to outside pressures and influences." Paul Gewirtz, the director of the China Law Center, was equally restrained in defining his role. "I'm uneasy a-bout, and would never myself use the term `bring reform to China,'" he said. "We try to assist in achieving reform, but we have to be careful about exaggerating our goals or our importance." The fear, as Chinese scholar and Yale History Professor Jonathan Spence, voices, is of being seen as overly paternalistic in a manner that could threaten any influence the University might have in China. While "enthusiastic" about the work Yale is doing in China, Spence was nonetheless aware of the potential concerns raised by Yale's work there. "Some people see [Yale] as rather chauvinist," Spence said. "Does China need values from this society?"

Through a fairly lengthy history of involvement with China (Yale is the alma mater of Yung Wing, Class of 1854, the first Chinese student to graduate from an American university, and the Yale-China Association has been sending American students to China since 1901), the University has established a relationship that affords it a high level of name recognition in much of China and even respect and admiration among many academics. "We're perceived as an institution that is involved in China in the long haul," Chapman said. "Yale-China is at least known [in China] as an institution, even if we are still perceived as outsiders, as Americans." Spence added that Yale "has a good reputation, it seems to me, in China" and even Kang noted that "Yale is well known now throughout the country." As a result, Yale professors visiting Chinese scholars and universities have generally been well received, and Levin, visiting last spring, was given the opportunity to meet with Chinese Minister Yang Jingyu. "President Levin was able to make contacts at the highest level in China," Talbott confirmed.

But in addition to Yale's long-standing interest in China, its status as a private entity is potentially just as important to breaking down barriers. "Politically, it is too difficult in the United States. There are also practical reasons why the government won't do the work [of the Yale China Law Center] very well," Jonathan Hecht, the deputy director of the Yale China Law Association, said. "The greater the involvement of the U.S. government, the greater the involvement of the Chinese government—whereas we try and work a little bit more quietly." By avoiding the political connections associated with government officials, Yale professors can serve as advisors and experts without the fears and suspicions that might be associated with American representatives from Washington. "I think our university affiliation should give us not exactly protection, but a more neutral tone," Spence said. "Yale certainly appears less politicized than anybody coming from Washington." And coming as scholars, not politicians, only reinforces that percieved neutrality. "[The Chinese] perceive us as experts, that's what they are interested in," Gewirtz said. "[It's] a huge advantage for us, coming without the political charge that these issues might have if they were part of a government project."

One SOM professor who was born in China and has worked on some of the University's projects there since coming to Yale felt similarly. "As somebody who grew up in China, I see that a university like Yale can play an important role because it is perceived as being neutral," he said. "When Yale professors go to China, no one is going to be suspicious of their motives."

BUT AT THE SAME TIME, THAT CHINESE SOM professor seems to embody the problem facing Yale as it attempts to at least raise questions and openly discuss the possibility of reform—he refuses to attach his name to any statements he makes, largely out of fear of what might happen to him. "Personally, I've always been appalled by the Chinese government," he said. "I don't like what has been happening there in terms of the treatment of researchers and scholars." Asked if he was afraid to travel there himself, he responded immediately, "Absolutely. But I always feel like if someone like me would be afraid to travel in China and work in China, then I don't know what that would say about my hope for the future of the country."

Much of the positive reaction that Yale professors have received has been from Chinese scholars and students. The fairly common stories of the Chinese government's mistreatment of its own citizens, even those like Kang who have lived abroad and claim citizenship in other nations, suggest that any Yale actions face hurdles that can not be gauged simply by dealing with universities and scholars in China, but rather through approaches that take into consideration the effect of the Chinese government. "People talk about communism as if it was a thing of the past," Talbott said. "China is not a democratic political system. The largest country on earth is run by something called the Communist Party, and they may have opened up economically, but politically they have a very long way to go."

Faced with Kang's story, both Gewirtz and Hecht were alarmed. "That is obviously disturbing," Hecht said. "The Chinese government is obviously very nervous about losing control of the pace and direction of change in China, and that leads it to do things we think are outrageous."

But Kang estimates thousands of Chinese citizens have experienced harassment similar to his own, which casts doubt on just how successful any Yale-led efforts at reform might expect to be. In the midst of his ordeal, Kang invoked traditionally American principles of criminal justice: first, that his actions were perfectly legal in his home country, and second, that evidence of his "wrongdoing" had been obtained illegally through an unjustified search of his private mail. Both were wholeheartedly rejected by his governmental interrogators. And yet Gewirtz and the China Law Center continue to work towards judicial reform, with the center having run a major workshop involving both Chinese academics and government officials on criminal law recently. Stated as one of the main goals of the Center is an "effort to develop China's first detailed legislation on the collection of evidence in criminal cases," a topic which includes "police interrogations of suspects" and "treatment of illegally seized evidence," both issues in Kang's ordeal. "These are long-term goals," Gewirtz admitted. Pressed for a timeline, he confessed "these are not one- or two-year projects."

The SOM professor was less optimistic. "Academics and actual politics are two separate worlds," he said. "If you don't cross the bridge, you are OK. But there are gray areas, and if we get too close to the gray areas, we may find ourselves in trouble." And Kang, while "appreciative" of all the work Gewirtz and others at Yale are doing in an attempt to bring reform to China, was realistic. "I realize American principles of law and justice can hardly be applied to China," Kang said. "This reality is brought into high relief when one falls into Chinese police `custody.' I must urge my American students not to be naïve or paternalistic."

And students, who either independently or through the Yale-China Association have spent time in China, seem to agree with Kang's sentiments. One student, who spent six months in China, returned with the message that "Americans really don't have an idea of what China is like." Like others who chose to speak anonymously, this student was cautious. "I'm so guarded in talking about China," she said. "It's an entirely different political system, one in which I didn't know how I felt about a lot of the issues." Another added that she experienced "standoffishness" between herself and her Chinese counterparts, a sentiment Kang sees as a stewing problem in China with potentially dire implications for the future of efforts like those at Yale to improve China through American-sponsored efforts at reform. "I am alarmed that anti-American sentiments continue to rise among the new generation of Chinese students and ascendant intellectuals," he said. "This new generation bears a new standard of communism and nationalist patriotism."

AS THE YALE-CHINA ASSOCIATION PREPARES TO CELebrate its centennial next weekend, Chapman and her colleagues are focused on the improvements, however slight, she has seen. "The changes that I have seen in the last 20 years is what gives me hope," she said. Similarly, Gewirtz noted that the easing of government restrictions has meant the number of trained lawyers in China has ballooned from 2,000 in 1979 to over 125,000 today. And several SOM professors emphasize the greater role Americans play today as advisors in the developing Chinese economy than ever before. Talbot, a former deputy secretary of state, maintains the importance of Yale's work. "Countries that are in transition are going to succeed or fail based on whether or not they succeed in reforming the rules of law and economics," he said.

Spence, who has written and studied the influence of outsiders on China, clearly regards any change as in the long term. "A lot of this work is in the long-range possibility that somebody you work with may turn out to be very influential," he said. "Of course the Communist party is in power now, but that needn't last forever. The Yale programs keep different issues in the foreground, so that if changes occur, people will at least have been exposed to different ideas." And whatever his pessimism may be, Kang is grateful not only for his safe return to Yale, but for the University's continued interest in his homeland. "Yale can promote understanding between Chinese and American people," he said. "They're a great influence for spreading the value of liberty in China."

Photo of Levin, China Minister Yang Jingyu, and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer courtesy China Law Center.

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