A call by the Chinese government for citizens to report to a new hotline anyone who ¡°misrepresents¡± the country¡¯s history could place further restrictions on university teaching, especially online, professors have warned.

The Cyberspace Administration of China? that people should report anyone who ¡°distorts¡± the history, politics or leadership of the Communist Party (CCP) or ¡°defames national heroes¡±.?¡°Some with ulterior motives¡­have been spreading historical nihilistic misrepresentations online, maliciously distorting, denigrating and negating the history of the party,¡±?said?the notice.?

The hotline is the latest of several actions to control study in the humanities, including a recent?warning?to social scientists to stop ¡°vilifying¡± the country in international journals. These announcements, combined with internet restrictions called the?Great Firewall,?could have an effect on even the overseas teaching of Chinese history.??

Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a history professor at the University of California, Irvine, told?Times Higher Education?that while the hotline is new, ¡°some of the worry was already there¡± and that ¡°the new mood has already affected my own teaching¡±.?

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¡°In online classes that included students based in China, I felt uncomfortable having online group discussions, even though my focus was on events of the Qing Era (1644-1912),¡± he said, citing as examples the histories of Xinjiang and Tibet. ¡°I did not want students to feel that they might get called out by their classmates for taking a position on something I said about this issue that was seen as insufficiently patriotic.¡±?

The shift online has made a difference. ¡°When discussions are in-person ones, you can get more of a sense of the dynamic in a group. But in this case I decided to substitute short one-to-one Skype conversations for longer and more frequent discussions sections,¡± he said.??

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As for the new hotline, he added that ¡°there is definitely a historical precedent of sorts for students ¡®reporting¡¯ on teachers, in the form of Red Guard attacks on teachers during the early stage of the Cultural Revolution¡±.??

While that eased in the 1980s, ¡°there has then been a further ramping up of control over historical narrative during the last decade, as more and more topics are again being treated as politically sensitive¡±, he said.??

Steve Tsang, an expert on 20th-century Chinese history and the director of the China Institute at SOAS University of London, told?THE?that the practice of ¡°reporting¡± on critical comments had happened in the past.???

¡°Students were openly required to report on teachers and fellow students on incorrect political thoughts during the Cultural Revolution. So this is not new,¡± he said, referring to a period from 1966 to 1976. ¡°What is unusual about the current situation and during the Cultural Revolution was the open call and requirement that this should happen.¡±?

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Professor Tsang said that the space for studying modern Chinese history started to narrow in 2013, when Xi Jinping became the country¡¯s leader. He predicted it would continue to tighten in the lead-up to the CCP¡¯s 100th anniversary celebrations in July.?

¡°Chinese historians are at risk wherever they are, as the Party under Xi tries to extend its reach to rein in critics,¡± Professor Tsang said. ¡°But not all will accept that. There are also historians of China outside of China who will sustain academic integrity and not bow to pressure from Beijing.¡±?

In 2019, Zheng Wenfeng, an assistant professor at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,?was suspended?after students reported him for questioning a tenet of ancient Chinese history. ?

joyce.lau@timeshighereducation.com?