CSUN Faculty Split on China Exchange Plan : Teaching: The conflict is over a contract with the Chinese government to train educators. Some say it endorses a repressive regime while others say it provides academic opportunity.

Cal State Northridge faculty members are raising questions about campus efforts to win a $3.3-million contract from the Chinese government, saying the campaign by school officials gives the appearance of support for the totalitarian regime.

CSUN officials this fall applied to China’s State Education Commission to become administrators of a portion of a $50-million World Bank loan earmarked for the overhaul of the country’s secondary education system.

Tens of thousands of new teachers are needed in China as part of an long-range plan to expand compulsory education from six to nine years, campus officials said. CSUN, which was visited by a delegation of Chinese this fall as part of the selection process, is one of four universities compet ing to operate the teacher-training program. The other three are Ohio State University, Columbia University Teacher’s College and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in Toronto.

But faculty critics say the campus efforts could be viewed as lending support to the government that in June killed scores of students in Beijing’s Tian An Men Square. President George Bush last week received similar criticism for sending National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger to meet with Chinese officials.

“It’s a gamble,” said Lawrence Littwin, a political science professor. “On the one hand, involvement with China is good, it does expose us to people there. But our participating legitimizes the government of China.”

Littwin and other faculty members have written a policy statement that says any effort to establish educational links with China “in no way indicates that this university condones the policies repressing the free expression of ideas” by the Chinese government.

Faculty Senate President Henry Abrash said Monday that he and colleagues had originally sought to ban all academic exchanges with China until the government there granted more freedom to its citizens. But other faculty members argued that such exchanges can be catalysts for political change, he said.

“Our help in education is ultimately beneficial, but I think there is a real danger that our presence there can be used for propaganda purposes,” Abrash said.

The proposed statement, which is to be voted on by the faculty Senate in February, is opposed by CSUN professors who have close ties with China and who are seeking to participate in the teacher-training program.

“Academic exchange has nothing to do with the government’s policies,” said I-Shou Wang, chairman of the CSUN geography department. “We are supporting the people of China.”

Physics Prof. Paul Chow, who is credited with helping the university establish ties with more than a dozen Chinese universities in the last 12 years, said he opposes the proposed policy because it takes a moral position that not all faculty members share.

“It is wrong to impose the ideas of a few people on more than 1,000 faculty members,” Chow said.

CSUN President James W. Cleary said through a spokeswoman that he does not support the Chinese government, but does support intellectual exchange. He declined further comment.

But other campus officials concede that CSUN is trying to walk a line between attempting to please the Chinese government to win the contract and wanting to expand educational opportunities for Chinese students, which many say could propel change in the current Chinese government.

“It’s not easy,” said Angela Lew, director of the school’s China Institute. “But if we can somehow promote the spreading of knowledge, that will move the country one step closer to democratization.”

Lew said there was no mention of the student massacre in Beijing when a three-member Chinese delegation came to the campus in October for an inspection tour related to the World Bank program.

“No one on this trip talked about politics,” Lew said. “We do not want to offend the government and shut the door.”

World Bank officials, who approved the loan prior to the June 4 military crackdown, said Monday that they do not know when the Chinese will select the university to run the teacher-training program.

A State Department official said Monday the Bush Administration continues to support such academic exchanges with China.

In the CSUN proposal, more than 90 professors from universities throughout the country would train more than 200 visiting Chinese scholars in the United States and scores of others in China during the program’s four years. Those Chinese scholars would train teachers at institutions throughout China.