Sir, Beijing’s sanctioning of Dr Joanne Smith Finley is a threat to universities’ core principle of academic freedom. First, the Chinese Communist Party has long used covert attempts to silence critics outside its territory, but these overt new measures against academics are a serious escalation. They are not organs of the state but autonomous institutions devoted to the pursuit of truth — however inconvenient to those in power. Finally, by in effect insisting that self-censorship is a prerequisite for academic partnership with Chinese universities, UK scholarly co-operation with China is rendered very difficult, if not impossible. We, as fellow academics, stand in full solidarity with Dr Smith Finley and

Source: The Times March 28, 2021 22:52 UTC