When “Zooey,” a Chinese international student at the Berklee College of Music, put up posters on campus reading, “WE WANT FREEDOM—WE WANT FOOD ON OUR TABLES… STAND WITH CHINESE PEOPLE,” a fellow student and Chinese national, Xiaolei Wu, threatened to send police after Zooey’s family in China and to “chop [her] bastard hands off.” Wu tipped off the Chinese Public Security Agency, doxxed Zooey online, and bombarded her with physical threats on social media. Zooey sought help from her university, which prohibits stalking and harassment. However, Berklee turned her away and did not take action to protect her. It was not until the FBI arrested Wu and a federal court convicted him that the incident was resolved.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) and other authoritarian nations often attempt to quell dissent and political organizing beyond their borders by using a wide and evolving range of intimidation tactics. These techniques have involved police threatening loved ones in China both physically and financially, counter-organizing with the help of Party-funded Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSAs), online and offline verbal harassment, and surveillance and hacking. Such actions are part and parcel of what has come to be called “transnational repression,” an under-reported and under-addressed phenomenon in American colleges and universities. Universities must combat the use of violence and coercion that impede students’ First Amendment rights to ensure equitable access to political and civic life for all students.
Transnational repression is a daily reality for international students on American campuses—one that colleges and universities have been woefully complicit in. The refusal of administrators and faculty at American universities to acknowledge, much less resist, transnational repression means that universities play a key role in making such coercion effective. Its victims are left to feel abandoned and confused, with no trusted allies.
Echoing experts and organizations that aid victims, I urge universities to create clear guidelines on reporting, prevention, justice, and security—all measures that lie well within universities’ purview. Creating a designated reporting mechanism that connects victims with a network of resources—such as government agencies and campus police—while allowing for potential prosecution is paramount to organizing any response to transnational repression. Furthermore, education for incoming staff and students regarding the rights they are entitled to is needed not only to warn potential perpetrators of consequences but also to illustrate avenues for otherwise disenfranchised students to enjoy their rights. Universities have already successfully employed similar structural protections to combat threats like drug and alcohol misuse and sexual violence. The threat of transnational repression deserves similar attention.
Administrators have refused to protect academic freedom and campus safety against transnational repression in countless instances like the one at Berklee. In 2023, Zhang Jinrui, a Georgetown Law School student and key organizer of pro-democracy activism at Georgetown, was harassed by a fellow student who was a member of the university’s CSSA branch. The harasser berated and pointed his phone camera at Zhang, telling his friends that he was video-calling Chinese authorities to report Zhang for his pro-democracy activism. Georgetown does not have a specified reporting mechanism for seeking aid or justice in such cases and has allowed its CSSA to continue operating on campus without condemnation. In 2020, members of the Brandeis CSSA petitioned administrators to cancel a Zoom panel on the Uyghur genocide. After the date, time, and link to the meeting were published on WeChat, the panel was Zoom-bombed by students who, using the platform’s shared screen draw feature, scrawled “BULLSHIT” over the presenter’s screen and played the Chinese national anthem. Brandeis administrators failed to condemn the act and did not attempt to hold the responsible students accountable. In 2022, a Columbia student was punched unconscious at a pro-democracy protest. Still, the University refused to issue a public safety alert, signaling indifference toward such violence.
Victims of transnational oppression report that their conversations in seminars might be disclosed to the Chinese embassy and hesitate to enroll in courses on topics the PRC deems “sensitive.” Chuangchuang Chen told ProPublica, “If there are more than three or four Chinese students in the same class, you are scared to talk. A Chinese student is definitely seen in good favor by the Chinese government for reporting someone.” A Georgetown faculty member echoed this sentiment to Radio Free Asia, observing that Chinese students are unable to speak freely in classrooms out of fear that they will be reported by their classmates.
Why would American colleges and universities willfully ignore and tolerate transnational repression despite the obvious harm it creates on their campuses? For one, Chinese students bring in an estimated $12 billion in tuition each year. Without public pressure, universities are reluctant to take any action that would threaten their golden goose. Zhou Fengsuo, the director of Human Rights in China, remarked in an interview for the Brown Political Review that universities are complicit in Chinese transnational repression: “They have become part of the problem by basically institutionalizing this fear. They do not want the Chinese student population to feel different from China. That means you are spreading the brainwashing, the fear, here.”
Some PRC-affiliated students and groups also weaponize the language of racial equity and social justice, exploiting the issue of anti-Asian hate to pressure universities to ignore transnational repression. The Washington State University CSSA, for instance, hounded the University into removing posters protesting the treatment of ethnic minorities in China by claiming that the posters were racist toward Chinese people. The letter that the Brandeis CSSA sent to administrators urging them to cancel the Uyghur genocide panel also invoked the supposed anti-Asian racism of its target. While these CSSAs co-opt real concerns about racism to advance their agendas, universities’ refusal to defend their Chinese students from transnational repression reflects actual anti-Asian prejudice. This complicity communicates to these students that their safety, academic freedom, and quality of education are a second-class priority. Discussing transnational repression in his classroom, Professor James Millward of Georgetown University told ProPublica that “most Chinese students just want to get educated and get on with their business.” Millward’s statement reflects the attitudes of universities to their Chinese students more broadly: University administrators assume that East Asian students are bookish, STEM-oriented, and docile and that their right to freedom of speech does not need to be protected because they do not use them.
University officials seem to forget that the purpose of repression is silence, and the invisibility of transnational repression speaks to its danger. While universities have little control over the policies of foreign governments, administrators cannot simply stand by and watch while the powers of an entire state are pitted against individual students. Students at risk of being targeted by foreign governments deserve to know that their university will denounce their victimization and pursue their safety.