I'm a student of the Chinese language and of Chinese history and culture too. I read some of the Chinese press in the original language, and, yes, heavy-handed

I'm a student of the Chinese language and of Chinese history and culture too. I read some of the Chinese press in the original language, and, yes, heavy-handed government censorship is much more pervasive in China since 1949 than it has ever been in the United States. Moreover, the Chinese government does far more to "prepare" (ideologically) and monitor its students overseas than the United States does. (I can say without fear of contradiction, as an American who has lived in the Chinese-speaking world, that the United States did nothing whatever to monitor my activities overseas while I was a student. Chinese students in the United States know better than to make the same claim about the birth country government.) To sum up, the Chronicle of Higher Education here is commenting on an important issue of academic freedom that needs a lot more attention. The people-to-people exchanges of many young Chinese students coming to the United States and quite a few United States students, scholars, and journalists traveling to China are more effective in developing international understanding when China lays off trying to control the thinking of its citizens at home and aboard. I'll believe China is comparable to the United States in this regard the day that all prior restraint of newspapers and broadcast news channels is lifted, and when the ruling party of China faces free and fair elections at regular intervals (as has happened in Taiwan for about two decades now).