Beijing professor felled by ‘Tiananmen talk’

Classroom fracas spills over into ideological battle in China’s academia

HONG KONG: A classroom fracas in a Beijing university, triggered by a professor incensed by his truant students, has escalated into an ideological battle in China’s academic space, and claimed the scalp of a second academic who spoke up on behalf of the students by controversially invoking the bloody 1989 crackdown on students in Tiananmen Square. 

The controversy continues on China’s vibrant blog world. The trouble began in January when Prof Yang Fan, a conservative Maoist economic scholar at the China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL) in Beijing, berated a group of undergrad students who had skipped one of his classes, and had otherwise conducted themselves in indecorous fashion.

Right in the middle of Yang’s 10-minute tongue-lashing session, one of his young female students, who had had enough of this, headed for the door. Further incensed by what he considered to be cheeky insouciance, Yang let rip a string of profanities at her, and even grabbed her by the hand to keep her from leaving.

He then handed her over to the security guard, who detained her for a few hours. 

Over the next few days, Yang was soundly criticised on the campus Net forums for “trampling students’ freedom” and for invoking profanities in the classroom.

Shut out from the students’ forums, Yang went public with his version of the events, blaming the students’ conduct and defending his responsibility to enforce discipline.

The controversy snowballed further when another professor at the CUPL, Xiao Han, 38, argued in a blog post that Yang was to blame for the whole mess.

Being of liberal bent of mind, he observed: “Classrooms are not prisons. Even in a church, people are allowed to leave during the sermon. Why, then, cannot they do so in a classroom?”

He then criticised the Chinese education system, which placed excessive emphasis on conformity, as being similar to “a pig-breeding farm”. 

Xiao argued in a lecture that it was fair game for students to express dissent and challenge the authority of academic superiors.

He then alluded to the Tiananmen Square massacre, and appeared to valourise the student demonstrators, who began a movement in 1987 to demand political reform, which was crushed in 1989.

“In 1989,” Xiao said, “university students sacrificed their blood and their youth to awaken this nation from its slumber. The bloodstains of that year can never be washed away… For many of us who went through those years, it was the defining event of our lifetime… It has profoundly influenced my life.”

Xiao drew heavy fire from conservative elements for his comments, and resigned a few days later. For the record, he would only say that he was resigning “for dragging the university into disrepute.”