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CIs in the mainstream Chinese studies curricula on US campuses to date. (See below for our recommendations concerning CIs.)

Chinese Students and Scholars Associations

Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSA) on American campuses maintain regular contact with China’s diplomatic missions in the US. Even when these contacts are purely for cultural purposes, the CSSA provides a ready channel or entry point for the political departments of China’s embassy and consulates in the US to gather information and coordinate action, which in some cases includes pressuring the behavior of Chinese students. Sometimes pressure is even applied by China’s security services on the family members of those students it finds speaking out in unacceptable ways back in China. What is more, Chinese scholars and diplomats have sought to influence on-campus debates in China’s favors and have even protested when American universities have exercised their right to invite speakers whom China identifies as unfriendly. Finally, some Chinese students and scholars have exploited the collaborative research environment on US campuses to obtain sensitive American technologies.

Chinese Students and Scholars Associations now exist on approximately 150 US campuses.19 A second type of on-campus association has also recently started up, the China Development Student Think Tank (CDSTT), with chapters at Syracuse University, Boston University, and George Washington University. As voluntary associations of Chinese citizens on campus, these groups perform many appropriate social functions, such as orienting new students to life in the United States and arranging networking get-togethers. Nonetheless, their links with Chinese diplomatic missions and some of their activities, because of their attempts to interfere with other campus activities and broader political discourse and debate, present cause for concern. CSSAs at Washington, DC, universities make no secret of their ties to the Chinese embassy and receive small amounts of operating funds directly from it. CSSAs elsewhere have similar ties to nearby Chinese consulates, which also provide them with funding, other kinds of support, and surveillance. It has also been reported that Chinese Communist Party cells have been established on several US campuses.20

CSSAs often alert PRC diplomatic missions about events on campus that offend official PRC political sensitivities, e.g., speeches or discussions on Tibet, Taiwan, Xinjiang, human rights, and Chinese elite politics. Once notified, the local PRC mission has sometimes contacted university faculty or staff members to prevent such events from proceeding. In some instances, it is difficult to know whether opposition to events originates with a CSSA or the local PRC mission. In 2017, the CSSA at the University of California San Diego mobilized opposition to the chancellor’s invitation to the Dalai Lama to be the commencement speaker, which at least some CSSA members ultimately coordinated with the PRC consulate in Los Angeles.21 After the event finally took place anyway as planned,

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