China not to promote western values in
university education
-Dr.
Abdul Ruff Colachal
__________________
Realizing
the higher educational institutions artificially promote western culture and
values that belittle domestic culture and traditional values, the Chinese
government has made a decision to deny its university chances to propagate or
promote western values that make the students pro-west and even anti-China.
It is one matter that those Chinese who go to
USA or Europe for higher education pick up bits of western culture and turn
against communism and socialism, even against China. China fears
anti-communist movements in the country, ably fueled by the western
terrocracies.
Arab nations, off late, regularly send Muslim
youth regularly to western institutions to study and obtain degrees, besides
train in “high” values in order to make Islam modern and western.. These
youngsters were used by the western sources foment crises, if not they were
themselves are instrumental in the latest so-called Arab spring that effected
regime changes in a few Arab nations, starting from Tunisia
China’s universities are run by the ruling
Communist party, which tightly controls discussions of history and other topics
it construes as a potential threat to its grip on power. The party often brands
concepts such as multiparty elections and the separation of powers as
“Western”, despite their global appeal and application.
Being has obvious reason in disallowing
universities to become the forums for spreading western culture and
values that eventually would replace present so-called communist set up in the
country.
China’s education minister has vowed to ban
university textbooks which promote “western values” in the latest sign of
ideological tightening under President Xi Jinping. “Never let textbooks
promoting western values appear in our classes,” minister Yuan Guiren said,
according to a report by China’s official Xinhua news agency. “Remarks that
slander the leadership of the Communist Party of China” and “smear socialism”
must never appear in college classrooms.
China has tightened controls on academics
since Xi assumed the party leadership in 2012, with several outspoken
professors sacked or jailed. Xia Yeliang, an economics professor at the
prestigious Peking University, was fired from his post in 2013 after 13-year
tenure in a decision he attributed to persistent calls for political change in
China. Xia was one of the original signatories of the reformist petition
Charter 08, whose main author Liu Xiaobo remains in prison even after winning
the Nobel Peace Prize.
The university attributed the dismissal to poor
teaching, and Xia moved to the US last year. Yuan’s remarks came shortly after
Xi called for authorities to increase the party’s leadership of universities,
and to “strengthen and improve ideological work”. Teachers must stand firm and
hold the political, legal and moral bottom line, Yuan added, using a common
expression for support of China’s authoritarian political system.
A Chinese province last month announced plans to
install CCTV cameras in university classrooms, sparking an outcry from lawyers
who say the move would further curb academic freedom.
Authorities have in the past installed video
equipment in the classrooms of outspoken academics, most notably Uighur
economics professor Ilham Tohti, who was sentenced to life in prison for
separatism in September. Evidence from the classroom cameras was used to
convict the scholar, in a case that was condemned by human rights groups.
China
has greatly expanded its higher education system as its economy has grown, with
the total number of universities and colleges more than doubling in the past
decade. But many children of the country’s political and business elite prefer
to study at institutions in the US and Europe, including Xi’s daughter, who has
reportedly attended Harvard University since 2010.
China
rejects not only western values but also Islamic practices. Already, China does
not allow free religious practices of Muslims in the country and forbidden in
some places fasting during the Holy Ramadan month and prayers discouraged in
mosques. Muslims are asked local authorities to practice the Chinese culture
and values in preference to Islamic civilization and practices.
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