Last month, at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore, billionaire Michael Bloomberg issued an apology to any members of his audience who “were upset and concerned” with remarks made by former British prime minister Boris Johnson about the Chinese government.

As The Guardian reports:

The former UK prime minister, the after-dinner speaker at the flagship Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore on Tuesday, was said to have described China as a “coercive autocracy” to about 500 Asian businesspeople, investors and diplomats.

Later in the week, Bloomberg apologized to attendees, which included Chinese vice president Wang Qishan and other Chinese business leaders:

Bloomberg, who invited Johnson and whose organisation was hosting the event in partnership with the Singapore government, acknowledged at the conference on Thursday that some attendees may have been “insulted or offended” by Johnson’s remarks.

But the businessman, a former mayor of New York and friend of Johnson, clarified that they were “his thoughts and his thoughts alone”. He added: “To those of you who were upset and concerned by what the speaker said, you have my apologies.”

Johnson also reportedly told the audience:

“Let’s look at Russia and China. The two former communist tyrannies in which power has once again been concentrated in the hands of a single ruler. Two monocultural states that have been traditionally hostile to immigration and that are becoming increasingly nationalist in their attitudes.

“Two permanent UN security council members that back each other up and enable each other and which are willing to show a candid disregard for the rule of international law, and two countries that in the last year have demonstrated the immense limitations of their political systems by the disastrous mistakes they have made.”

But Bloomberg’s rush to apologize doesn’t come as a surprise as the billionaire has a history of praising the Chinese government. In 2019, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon, he told Firing Line host Margaret Hoover that Chinese president Xi Jinping "is “not a dictator”:

"The Communist Party wants to stay in power in China and they listen to the public," Bloomberg said. "When the public says ‘I can't breathe the air,' Xi Jinping is not a dictator. He has to satisfy his constituents, or he's not going to survive."

"He's not a dictator?" Hoover asked. "He doesn't have a vote, he doesn't have a democracy. He's not held accountable by voters. Is the check on him just a revolution?"

"No, he has a constituency to answer to," Bloomberg responded. "You're not going to have a revolution. No government survives without the will of the majority of its people."

Bloomberg expressed a similar sentiment in the 2020 elections.

Perhaps Bloomberg admires authoritarian regimes given his reputation as a nanny-stater while mayor of New York City. In fact, it appears he’s directly funded totalitarian policies in other countries. In 2021, public officials in the Philippines investigated direct influence by Bloomberg Philanthropies over the country’s extreme tobacco control policies.

Regardless, Bloomberg’s deference to China is concerning given his role as Chair of President Biden’s Defense Innovation Board.

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The city of Kaohsiung, Taiwan was set to host an upcoming WorldPride event under the banner WorldPride Taiwan 2025. But that naming apparently didn’t sit well with InterPride, which demanded the name be changed to WorldPride Kaohsiung 2025.

The Taiwanese organizers and InterPride couldn’t come to an agreement and the event was ultimately canceled. InterPride later backpedalled and posted on social media that it offered to keep Taiwan in the name, but organizers say that’s false.

In response, IntePride said in a social media post that it had suggested using the name "WorldPride Kaohsiung, Taiwan" in line with the "long-standing WorldPride tradition of using the host city name."

But A-Ku (阿古), co-chairman of the local WorldPride Taiwan 2025 organizing committee, told CNA in an interview Saturday that InterPride had never given this naming option.

Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) helped organize a tripartite meeting with InterPride and Kaohsiung Pride on Nov. 16, 2021 during which the three parties agreed upon the name Taiwan, A-Ku said.

Despite this, InterPride subsequently announced in a letter dated July 26 that, based on a vote by the directors and supervisors, the event must be named either "WorldPride Kaohsiung" or "Kaohsiung WorldPride," A-Ku said.

He added that InterPride's assertion that it had suggested using the name "WorldPride Kaohsiung, Taiwan" was "completely inconsistent with the facts."

A-Ku said that the name "WorldPride Taiwan 2025" had been used throughout the entire bidding process from the beginning of 2021, including on application forms, plans, and other relevant documents.

As David Yu, a Berlin-based Taiwanese American technologist and amateur athlete, points out at Foreign Policy, there may be more politics at play here:

InterPride leadership may have their own priorities. InterPride aims to eventually receive consultative status at the United Nations. China has repeatedly blocked Taiwan’s inclusion in international organizations such as the U.N. and the World Health Organization. Make no mistake, any objection to Taiwan, whether directly from China or based on existing U.N. rules, is ultimately a result of China’s making. If InterPride simply allowing the Taiwanese organizers to name an event reflective of their chosen identity is justification for the group’s exclusion, it can’t possibly expect inclusion would suddenly turn the group into effective advocates while acquiescing to the framework set by an authoritarian government.

We suggest reading the rest of Yu’s piece at Foreign Policy, which discusses how the broader LGBTQ+ movement has been succumbing to China’s authoritarian pressure for quite some time now.

In August 2020, then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement, designating Confucius Institutes as a foreign mission of the People’s Republic of China [PRC], warning that the institutes “are funded by the PRC and part of the Chinese Communist Party’s global influence and propaganda apparatus.”

That statement no longer exists on the State Department’s website, but it appears, based on what is happening on college campuses in the United Kingdom, that Pompeo was correct. According to The Telegraph:

MPs have warned the institutes are effectively a front for the Chinese Communist Party to clamp down on critical views of China and that they are having a “chilling effect” on academic freedom.

Research seen by The Telegraph has uncovered evidence that Chinese bodies supervising Confucius Institutes appear to be using discriminatory employment policies to vet staff working on UK campuses and are attempting to replicate China’s legal regime, which restricts free speech.

Job applications posted by Chinese universities, which have partnerships to run Confucius Institutes with their British counterparts, including Cardiff, Southampton and Huddersfield, ask applicants to describe their “political profile/characteristics” and “ethnicity”.

What are Confucius Institutes? According to the Washington Post, they are “Chinese-language and cultural centers funded by grants from China — more than 1,000 have been established around the world, usually on university campuses. These institutes also work with local K-12 schools to open Confucius Classrooms, which offer programs for younger students.”

In a 2018 column, The Post’s Josh Rogin warned that Confucius Institutes threaten “the ability of the next generation of American leaders to learn, think and speak about realities in China and the true nature of the Communist Party regime.”

Beyond fears of student indoctrination, The Telegraph reports on how these institutes are also threatening academic freedom on UK campuses:

Job applications posted by Chinese universities, which have partnerships to run Confucius Institutes with their British counterparts, including Cardiff, Southampton and Huddersfield, ask applicants to describe their “political profile/characteristics” and “ethnicity”.

Sam Dunning, who is leading the research for the Henry Jackson Society, a foreign policy think tank, and the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong, a pro-democracy organisation, said the application forms are seemingly being used to find out whether candidates are a Communist Party member or have any potentially problematic affiliations.

[ . . . ]

Anson Kwong, a researcher from Hong Kong now based in London, said: “By replicating China’s legal regime which restricts speech, Confucius Institutes have in fact successfully imported a regime of censorship onto British campuses.

“And our universities are indeed participating in the Communist Party’s systematic oppression of ethnic minorities and political dissidents. All this undermines our scholarship by corrupting our knowledge of China, so that we only get the official version of Chinese culture, society and history.”

In the U.S., about 104 of the 118 Institutes in the country closed starting around 2020. But according to Voice of America, they are beginning to return to schools following a rebrand:

But beginning in July 2020, as U.S. schools were closing the programs even before the State Department’s finding, the Chinese government reorganized and rebranded the Confucius Institutes’ parent department, the Office of Chinese Language Council International, also known as Hanban, as the Ministry of Education Center for Language Exchange and Cooperation (CLEC). The CLEC also spun off a separate organization, the Chinese International Education Foundation (CIEF), to fund and oversee Confucius Institutes and many of their replacements, according to Xinghuanet, a state-controlled news outlet.

As of June 2022, around 28 of those that closed have replaced their Confucius Institute with a similar program while 58 have “maintained close relationships with their former Confucius Institute partner,” according to a report by the National Association of Scholars.

The full report from NAS is worth a thorough read on the lengths the Confucius Institutes have gone to rebrand and camouflage themselves within universities under similar terms and arrangements. We’ll see whether these new centers will be more cautious about threats to academic freedom in the U.S.

A social media campaign to promote a limited edition Snickers bar prompted an apology from the parent company of Snickers candy bars after images and media called Taiwan a “country.” From Reuters:

Videos and pictures showing a Snickers website promoting a limited edition Snickers bar and saying the product was only available in the “countries” of South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan triggered an outpour of anger on Chinese microblogging platform Weibo on Friday.

Mars Wrigley later published an apology on its Snickers China Weibo account and said the relevant content had been amended.

“Mars Wrigley respects China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity and conducts its business operations in strict compliance with local Chinese laws and regulations,” Mars Wrigley added.

However, the social media backlash did not abate as many users were irate that the U.S. company’s statement did not say Taiwan was a part of China, a cornerstone of Chinese foreign policy.

“Say it: Taiwan is an inseparable part of China’s territory!” read one comment underneath the post on Snickers China Weibo account that received 8,000 likes.

More from the Wall Street Journal on Mars Wrigley’s response:

In its second apology issued about 2½ hours later, the company added: “There is #OnlyOneChina in the world, and Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory.” 

Mars Wrigley, which is owned by McLean, Va.,-based Mars Inc., said it respects China’s national sovereignty and conducts its business operations in “strict compliance” with local laws and regulations. 

A company spokeswoman said in an email Friday that Snickers reviewed and changed the language on its website and social-media accounts in some locations in Asia.  

Several Chinese state media, nationalistic tabloids and a least one youth branch of China’s ruling Communist Party shared the Snickers apology on their social-media accounts. 

It’s a good thing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn’t get “hangry” during her high profile visit to Taiwan last week or Snickers might have been permabanned from China.

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Despite the Chinese Communist Party’s best efforts to censor the abuses coming out of Shanghai’s extremely strict and draconian lockdown in response to rising COVID cases, news stories have still emerged chronicling the extreme measures taken to keep citizens in line.

Beyond the food shortages caused by the lockdown, video and images show police storming residential areas, dragging people out of their homes, “brawling with residents,” and wrestling people to the ground. The Guardian recently reported on how an elderly nursing home resident was put in a body bag after mistakenly being declared dead. Shanghai residents have protested the grueling lockdown measures enacted by the government.

But if you watched a recent video featuring NYU-Shanghai Vice Chancellor Jeffrey Lehman, you would think things aren’t that bad. That was at least Lehman’s tone in a recent propaganda clip released by the Chinese media agency Xinhua. In the video Lehman says, “I am very proud of how positive and resilient our community has been during the B.A. 2 variant wave in Shanghai.”

Lehman’s demeanor in this video stands in sharp contrast to his message from an April 11 Zoom call to faculty, saying, “We have about 20 employees and vendors who have been trapped on campus or in the dorm room for weeks now unable to go home.”

Another faculty member on the call said, “I’m assuming that a great many people associated with NYU and in Shanghai are experiencing food shortages. People in my building are without food. And I live in a very upscale neighborhood. The whole distribution of food has been shut down.”

According to the New York Post, NYU Chinese studies professor Rebecca Karl recently alleged in an email to faculty that students were committing suicide: “I have heard that there have been several suicides among the students already, all of it swept under the rug for the sake of NYU’s reputational convenience. Students are suffering. Many faculty are as well.”

Whether Lehman was forced or felt compelled to say positive things about the lockdown experience in the video remains to be seen, and we may never know what prompted him to appear. Regardless, given the news stories emerging about the situation there, the video should raise alarm among higher education leaders in the U.S.

Dialogue referencing the romantic past between Dumbledore and Grindelwald in the forthcoming blockbuster Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore were removed by the studio Warner Bros. for the movie’s release in China.

China requested the studio remove the lines “because I was in love with you” and “the summer Gellert and I fell in love,” amounting to 6 seconds of the 142-minute film.

According to Variety, Warner Bros. released a statement justifying its decision:

“As a studio, we’re committed to safeguarding the integrity of every film we release, and that extends to circumstances that necessitate making nuanced cuts in order to respond sensitively to a variety of in-market factors,” Warner Bros. said in a statement to Variety. “Our hope is to release our features worldwide as released by their creators but historically we have faced small edits made in local markets.”

“In the case of ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,’ a six-second cut was requested and Warner Bros. accepted those changes to comply with local requirements but the spirit of the film remains intact,” the statement added. “We want audiences everywhere in the world to see and enjoy this film, and it’s important to us that Chinese audiences have the opportunity to experience it as well, even with these minor edits.”

This posturing to appease Chinese censors stands at odds with Warner Bros.’ (and other major studios’) purported commitments to promoting LGBTQ+ stories:

Perhaps the braver (and more principled) choice for studios would be to forego a Chinese release of the film to “safeguard the integrity” of the storyteller’s work.

Wanting audiences in every country to have access to entertainment might be a noble goal, but depriving them of media they want to consume may lead many to question their government’s censorious ways and push back.

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The Financial Times recently reported that two British publishers – Octopus Books (Hachette) and Quarto – have removed references to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other subjects banned by Chinese authorities from books.

From FT:

The revelations follow a string of censorship controversies in the publishing sector. In 2017, academic publishers Springer Nature and Cambridge University Press were criticised after it emerged they had each blocked hundreds of articles from being accessed in China.

But evidence obtained by the Financial Times gives the first indication that books sold in the west are also being amended to appease Beijing.

Since 2020 Octopus, a self-described “leading publisher of non-fiction”, has removed references in at least two books to Taiwan, a democratic nation that China claims as its territory. In one case, an entire section relating to Taiwan was cut.

Over the same period Quarto, a picture book publisher that in 2020 released the New York Times bestseller This Book is Anti-Racist, erased mentions of Hong Kong and dissident artist Ai Weiwei from separate publications.

The nationality of people mentioned in one book was also changed from Taiwanese to East Asian, while references to Tibet, a region annexed by China in 1951, were revised in two books to suggest it was Chinese territory.

Both Octopus and Quarto have censored books after suppliers in China, which face legal restrictions on what they can print, said they were unable to publish the original text. The people familiar with the changes did not want to publicise the names of books affected as this could risk anonymity, but the FT has seen documents confirming the edits were made.

It's not just these two publishers that are feeling the pressure:

Publishers across the industry told the FT that printing in China, where production fees are lower than elsewhere, has grown increasingly difficult.

Last year US printing company RR Donnelley & Sons distributed a memo seen by the FT, saying that its Chinese printers were unable to produce books mentioning human rights abuses in Xinjiang and suggestions that Covid-19 originated in China.

These incidents are particularly troubling, especially considering the current “awakening” happening among publishers on other issues. We will see if any publishers stand for freedom of expression or continue to succumb to China’s political and financial pressures.

The New York Times opinion section prides itself on presenting a “robust, wide-ranging and distinctive collection of arguments and ideas” in its pages. But in doing so, it owes its readers the duty to enforce its own guidelines, which state that guest writers should “take care to avoid any conflict of interest, or the appearance of such conflict[.]” While part of the responsibility rests with the writers, the Times itself must be certain disclosure is full and clear.

This Sunday, the Times published an essay entitled “It’s Time to Offer Russia an Offramp. China Can Help With That.” by Wang Huiyao. Both Craig Singleton of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Washington Free Beacon called attention to the insufficient way the Times identified the author.

Wang was originally identified in the short bio accompanying the essay as the “founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization, a nongovernmental think tank based in Beijing.”

Subsequently the Times updated the bio with another revelation: “He advises the Chinese government in that capacity.”

However, the Times neglected to disclose that this bit of information had not been included originally. This is called a “stealth edit.”

Not only that, the response of Wang’s organization (Center for China and Globalization, or CCG) in 2018 to a Foreign Policy magazine story reveals more about the CCG’s relationship to the Chinese government than perhaps it intended, as I first pointed out in a tweet Monday:

The idea that an organization “required to be registered” with the propaganda arm (the United Front Work Department) of a communist government controlled by a single party, the CCP, is comparable to IRS non-profit reporting requirements in the United States is risible. The New York Times has been around the block long enough to know better.

That the Times didn’t inform their readers of this glaring connection to the CCP is embarrassing and shows an unbecoming deference to China’s authoritarian system.

This week, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) issued a formal apology to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Their crime?

At last week’s opening ceremony for the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, IPC president Andrew Parsons referred to Xi as president of “the Republic of China” rather than “the People’s Republic of China.” The former usually refers to Taiwan.

During a press conference on Saturday, IPC chief brand and communications officer Craig Spence “insisted that Parsons was apologetic:”

"As you will have noticed, during his speech, there was a slip of the tongue," Spence said.

"You all saw the speech, which was available on OIS [Olympic Information Service].

"He meant to say 'the People's Republic of China'.

"He was very emotional last night.

"[It was] a slip of the tongue and he mispronounced the opening line of the speech.

"He acknowledged his mistake as soon as he came off the stage and he'd like to express his apologies to all our tremendous hosts who have made us feel so welcome here.

"He apologises for the mistake."

There is no indication this groveling apology was demanded by Xi or the CCP directly, which doesn’t necessarily make it any better. Part of China’s cultural power is that organizations who do work there already know what is expected of them. But what was Parsons so “emotional” about that made him make this egregious error?

Well, during his speech, Parsons was commenting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine:

Tonight, I want to begin with a message of peace.

As the leader of an organisation with inclusion at its core, where diversity is celebrated and differences embraced, I am horrified at what is taking place in the world right now.

The 21st Century is a time for dialogue and diplomacy, not war and hate.

The Olympic Truce for peace during the Olympic and Paralympic Games is a UN Resolution adopted by consensus by 193 Member States at the 76th UN General Assembly. It must be respected and observed not violated.

According to Bloomberg, the China’s state broadcaster CCTV apparently decided this part of Parsons’ speech was too controversial:

The part where Parsons condemned the war was not translated into Chinese in a live broadcast by CCTV. Instead, a Chinese announcer talked over Parsons and read a later part of his translated statement. When it came to the part about the truce, CCTV appeared to have lowered the volume so that Parsons’ remarks became inaudible. 

The IPC has asked CCTV for an explanation. In a sane world, the IPC should be the one demanding an apology from the CCP for outright censorship of a simple plea for peace. 

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In summarizing his forthcoming book Phil: The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorized) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar, author Alan Shipnuck reported that pro golfer Phil Mickelson was skeptical of the Saudi-backed Super Golf League’s role in the sport, especially given Saudi Arabia’s human rights record:

[Mickelson] didn’t pretend to be excited about hitching his fortunes to Saudi Arabia, admitting the SGL was nothing more than what he called “sportswashing” by a brutally repressive regime. “They’re scary mother***ers to get involved with,” he said. “We know they killed [Washington Post reporter and U.S. resident Jamal] Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates. They’ve been able to get by with manipulative, coercive, strong-arm tactics because we, the players, had no recourse. As nice a guy as [PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan] comes across as, unless you have leverage, he won’t do what’s right. And the Saudi money has finally given us that leverage. I’m not sure I even want [the SGL] to succeed, but just the idea of it is allowing us to get things done with the [PGA] Tour.”

Then, last week, Mickelson issued a lengthy statement apologizing for what he said:

“I used words I sincerely regret that do not reflect my true feelings or intentions,” Mickelson’s statement read. “It was reckless, I offended people, and I am deeply sorry for my choice of words. I’m beyond disappointed and will make every effort to self-reflect and learn from this.”

“My experience with LIV Golf Investments has been very positive. I apologize for anything I said that was taken out of context,” he continued. “The specific people I have worked with are visionaries and have only been supportive. More importantly they passionately love golf and share my drive to make the game better. They have a clear plan to create an updated and positive experience for everyone including players, sponsors, networks, and fans.”

LIV Golf Investments is the Saudi-backed company behind the Super Golf League.

Mickelson’s public apology didn’t prevent him from losing sponsorships. KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting firms “mutually agreed” to end their sponsorship, according to NPR. Mickelson also lost sponsorships from Workday, Amstel, and Callaway. From CBS Sports, Callaway said in a statement:

"Callaway does not condone Phil Mickelson's comments and we were very disappointed in his choice of words – they in no way reflect our values or what we stand for as a company," the statement read. "Phil has since apologized and we know he regrets how he handled recent events. We recognize his desire to take some time away from the game and respect that decision. At this time, we have agreed to pause our partnership and will re-evaluate our ongoing relationship at a later date."

To be completely honest, Pluribus is not even sure which aspect Mickelson was apologizing for, or with which statements his disappointed sponsors disagree. Numerous human rights organizations regularly report Saudi Arabia’s dismal record on these issues. Freedom House gave Saudi Arabia a 7/100 in its Freedom in the World Index. The Human Right Measurement Initiative (HRMI) gave Saudi Arabia a 2.4 out of 10 on their “Safety from the State” measure, which “suggests that many people are not safe from one or more of the following: arbitrary arrest, torture and ill-treatment, forced disappearance, execution or extrajudicial killing.”

Still, Mickelson’s comments have created so much controversy in the sport that he’s felt compelled to apologize and lost major sponsorships over . . . fair and true statements?

What are we missing?

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A new study published in The International Journal of Human Rights found that academics in the United Kingdom, especially those who taught in internationally-focused social science fields, felt relationships with autocratic regimes like China undermined their academic freedom.

A 2020 survey of 1,500 academics in the UK found that 67 percent of respondents believed academic freedom was under threat in UK universities. The number was slightly higher among those who specialized in Politics and International Relations (71 percent).

While only 20 percent of academics admit to self-censoring when teaching students from autocratic states, 41 percent of scholars specializing in China say they have censored their lectures.  

In July 2020, The Guardian reported that UK universities were beginning to adopt “risk management” strategies for dealing with China:

Kerry Brown, professor of Chinese studies at King’s College London, said accusations of self-censorship regarding work on China had intensified in recent years as China had taken a more assertive stance in its global messaging.

Writing in a collection of essays exploring the complex and challenging relationship between UK universities and China, Brown said offending China had never been difficult, but it had become more problematic under the current leadership.

[ . . . ]

Brown suggested that the problem was not just about direct Chinese influence, but about self-censorship that prevents academics or students speaking frankly about China because of fear of the consequences.

“What is clear is that in the last few years, the fear and anxiety of facing individual and institutional consequences for straying over the ever shifting red line that manages to offend China has risen dramatically.”

What’s perhaps more troubling is that 65 percent of scholars didn’t know if their departments had any policies or procedures regarding academic freedom.

It will be curious to see if they continue to conduct the survey over the next few years and whether UK institutions might adopt more explicit stances regarding academic freedom.

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In January, Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering sent an email announcing a “Lunar New Year Paint Night” event. The email read:

“The Lunar New year is a collection of holidays celebrated in culturally unique ways throughout Vietnam, Korea, China and Tibet.”

The next day, Pratt Engineering’s office of diversity sent an email apologizing to the school:

“It has been brought to my attention that the language below written in the announcement for the Lunar New Year Paint Night was an incorrect and insensitive statement to the Chinese community and the government of China,” the email reads.

Campus Reform also obtained a copy of the email, whose sender was identified as Quaina M. Tyson, Pratt’s assistant director of DEI programs and initiatives.

On Twitter, pro-Democracy activist Frances Hui also pointed out that Tibet celebrates their new year, Losar, not the Lunar New Year.

Hui told The College Fix that she received the email screenshot from a Tibetan student at Duke:

“This has happened in a lot of universities around the world of which teachers and administrators have to apologize for making statements that the Chinese community does not like, simply because they are offended by the opposition voice of the one China principle,” Hui told The Fix in an email Wednesday. “Most of the time, universities would apologize because they don’t want to sacrifice the Chinese majority student population and the big amount of tuition. In some cases, they have partnership with China or Chinese universities that they fear of harming, which explains why most of time they would compromise,” said Hui.

Duke has yet to respond to requests for comment from The College Fix, Campus Reform, or Sarah McLaughlin at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

The College Fix also highlights a similar incident that took place at Syracuse University last week.

Last week, a controversy started brewing at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. after posters appeared on campus depicting the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) human rights abuses in light of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing:

These posters generated outrage from the GWU Chinese Students and Scholars Association (GWUCSSA), calling the artwork “anti-China” and “racist” even though the artist, Badiucao, is Chinese-Australian.  

Then, on Sunday, GWU’s president issued a statement saying that he was “personally offended by the posters” and that the school was “working to have all these offensive posters removed as soon as possible.”

Here’s one aspect about such maneuvers that multiple commentators are beginning to notice: the way CCP-sympathizers use the racial hypersensitivity of elite U.S. institutions against them. These posters, of course, were created by a person of Chinese descent and are targeted at a brutal regime, not a race or ethnicity. But all it took to get the president of an American university to consider censoring expression insulting to the CCP was to frame that expression as an act of racism.

As Badiucao himself put it:

Fortunately, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) swiftly responded to GWU’s illiberal instincts:

The next day, GWU’s president backed down, saying he “responded hastily,” adding “[u]pon full understanding, I do not view these posters as racist; they are political statements.”  

While it’s good to see GWU’s president admit his error and suspend the investigation, it’s troubling that his initial instinct was to censor artwork that was clearly making constitutionally protected political statements about widely known CCP human rights abuses. What’s worse is the implication that if the artwork wasn’t critiquing the Olympics or expressing some other approved viewpoint, the president would be okay with censorship and punishment. As FIRE put it, the president’s “belated positive opinion of the posters’ content should not determine whether students can see it.”

We’ll leave you with this:

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported on how major corporate sponsors of the Olympics – including Visa, Procter & Gamble, and Coca-Cola – have so-far avoided their usual Olympics-themed advertising campaigns:

P&G didn’t answer questions about its U.S. marketing around the Beijing Games compared with prior years. In an interview, P&G finance chief Andre Schulten said the company’s messaging focuses on the athletes and it leaves marketing decisions around China and the Olympics up to individual market leaders. “Every brand has their own context, there really is no global approach. It’s done tactically and individually by market,” he said. In China, “the focus is on the customer.”

Meanwhile, Coca-Cola is only advertising in China right now, but it has also been surprisingly silent on challenging China’s alleged human rights abuses:

Some of the same companies staying quiet now have spoken up on human-rights issues in other parts of the world. Coca-Cola, for instance, has raised human-rights concerns about Qatar ahead of another competition it sponsors, soccer’s World Cup, slated to be held in that country later this year. Human-rights organizations say Qatar has pressed migrant workers into inhumane and deadly conditions to construct World Cup stadiums. Qatar’s government denies those allegations and says it is committed to improving work conditions.

When asked in a Congressional hearing on why Coca-Cola wasn’t commenting in a similar manner, Coke’s global head of human rights Paul Lalli said, “We do not make decision on these host locations [ . . . ] We support and follow the athletes where they compete.”

The WSJ points out how Intel took a different approach, telling legislators that “he agreed with Washington’s assessment that Beijing was committing genocide in Xinjiang” and that he was “willing to ask the [International Olympic Committee] to postpone the Olympics to give China time to address the human-rights concerns.”

However, even Intel has recently wavered in taking a strong stance against China. In December, The Verge reported on how Intel issued an apology to partners and customers in China after it asked local suppliers to avoid sourcing from the Xinjiang region:

In its annual letter to suppliers, Intel said it was “required” to follow restrictions on Xinjiang trade imposed by “multiple governments” and would “ensure our supply chain does not use any labor or source goods or services from the Xinjiang region.” (That portion of the letter has now been removed from Intel’s website, but an archived version can be found here.)

This normally-procedural note caused a backlash in China. The letter went viral on Chinese social media, leading Chinese popstar Karry Wang, a former Intel ambassador, to cut ties with the firm (“National interest exceeds everything,” said Wang on social media), while nationalist outlet Global Times accused Intel of “biting the hand that feeds it.”

[ . . . ]

In response to this backlash, Intel apologized on Chinese social media sites on Wednesday. In a letter addressed to the Chinese public and local partners, Intel said it was limiting trade with Xinjiang only as a legal formality and not a political statement. “We apologize for the trouble caused to our respected Chinese customers, partners, and the public,” said the letter. “To clarify, the paragraph about Xinjiang in the letter is only for expressing the original intention of compliance and legality, not for its intention or position.”

It's worth keeping a close eye on how other sponsors will approach marketing and advertising for the games. But our prediction is that there will be more self-censorship or apologies issued.

Speaking of the Beijing Olympics, kudos to Jake Tapper at CNN for taking on China’s human rights abuses:

On the new Chinese streaming platform Tencent Video, censors have cut short the iconic ending of the 1999 David Fincher film so that the authorities—and authority—save the day.

In the theatrical cut Fight Club (spoiler alert, two decades on) the anarchist Tyler Durden and his love interest watch the demolition of several skyscrapers, engineered by Durden’s anarchist terror group, before the credits abruptly roll. In the People’s Republic, there’s apparently no fireworks. Instead the film cuts out before the detonation and an ending caption reads:

“Through the clue provided by Tyler, the police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding. After the trial, Tyler was sent to lunatic asylum receiving psychological treatment. He was discharged from the hospital in 2012.”

Dr. How Wee Ng, a professor of Chinese film and media at the University of Westminster, told The Guardian, “The new Chinese version of Fight Club puts power back into the hands of the police and implies an ideal closure in line with the Chinese state discourse in which the symbiotic relationship between the police and the state is a given.”

The Guardian added, “It is not clear whether government censors had ordered the alternative ending or if the original movie’s producers made the changes on their own. Tencent did not comment on the matter.”

Apparently, nudity is also a big concern: