The policy of opening Taiwanese universities to Chinese students has once more come under scrutiny following incidents of Chinese students damaging “Lennon walls” and abusing other students.
The tensions are due to ongoing pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, Taiwanese students’ support of those protests, and the wider context of China’s relationship with Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Allowing Chinese students to study in Taiwan certainly has its advantages, on a national, institutional and — for the students — personal level.
The question of inappropriate behavior in a host nation is one issue, and National Immigration Agency Director-General Chiu Feng-kuang (邱豐光) yesterday confirmed during a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign and National Defense Committee that Chinese students found to have broken the nation’s laws, including destroying Lennon walls or attacking other students, would be denied re-entry into the nation after they leave.
However, critics have also pointed to potential national security risks of inviting the nationals of an openly hostile country to live and study in Taiwan.
There are the obvious risks of infiltration by spies sent by Chinese authorities under the guise of pursuing studies. That risk would apply in any nation. The government and security services could endeavor to monitor the two types of Chinese students: those who are genuinely here to learn and those whose primary objective is espionage at the direction of Chinese intelligence agencies.
However, the nature of the totalitarian system in China under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) adds further dimensions into the mix, and these blur the distinctions between those two types.
One notorious example is Zhou Hongxu (周泓旭), who seems to have genuinely come here to study, but was subsequently recruited. Zhou in 2009 came to Taiwan as an exchange student at Tamkang University and then enrolled in a master’s of business administration program at National Chengchi University three years later. He was recruited in 2014 during a visit to Shanghai, and asked to infiltrate the business and academic worlds in Taiwan.
Then there are those driven by loyalty to their home country, and the beliefs and values they grew up in, who react badly when those are questioned, and the CCP’s more “hands-on” approach to Chinese nationals living and studying abroad, directing or encouraging others to listen out for and report any actions or words deemed to be damaging to the party.
The hope that Chinese students — having studied in Taiwan’s open academic environment in which they are encouraged to question prevailing assumptions about the world around them, at least relative to how they are likely to in China — could return to their own country enlightened, and armed with this new approach and drive change is more than a little naive.
For one thing, that would require an assumption that people who have grown up in a society very different from modern democracies and in an environment closely controlled by a totalitarian state — in terms of what they are allowed to think; the prevailing mindset of their peers and social circles; what information they can access; and where their loyalties lie — would rapidly be divested of all this once they set foot in Taiwan.
None of this is an excuse for bad behavior, and it is certainly not a defense for surveillance or espionage at any level, nor is it condoning destructive, violent or abusive behavior aimed at property or other people. It is simply a recognition of the complex nature of the implications of the original policy.
An optimist would suggest that there is a balance to be struck between promoting Taiwan’s open academic environment and values, and mitigating risks to national security. It is also possible that such a balance does not exist. Whatever the government decides to do, it needs to face up to the complex reality of the situation and take decisive steps to address it.
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