Academics worry about Taiwan’s shrinking academic space after a journal asked a doctor to add “China” behind “Taiwan”
Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest academic journal publisher, removed hundreds of journal articles on topics deemed sensitive by the Chinese government from their website in China in 2017, and the decision led to heavy criticism from the academia, describing Springer Nature’s decision as a sign of kowtowing to pressure from Beijing. On Tuesday, one of the academic journals under the publisher once again carried out political censorship against a medical doctor from Taiwan.
On Tuesday, Taiwanese doctor Hsuan Wu wrote on her Facebook about her experience of becoming the victim of China’s political censorship regime. Wu had recently submitted a paper to “Eye and Vision,” a medical journal published by Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest academic journal publisher in the world.
However, after she submitted her manuscript, Wu received an e-mail from the editor of the journal, telling her that the editorial policy required her to add “China” after “Taiwan” in her paper, and if she couldn’t comply to this policy, the journal couldn’t publish her paper.
“This day has finally come for me,” Wu wrote in a Facebook post. “I have finally witnessed how politics can be anywhere, even in academia. When I encounter political censorship, it’s probably faster for me to decisively submit the manuscript to other publishers, as it offers me more chances to become better. I will treat this experience as a way to adjust the format of my paper.”
According to Stand News, Wu said her advisor and research team said out of the more than one thousand times that they have submitted papers to academic journals, they have never been asked to change “Taiwan” into “Taiwan, China” by the editors. Wu thinks that while it is unfortunate for her paper to be rejected due to political reasons, as a Taiwanese researcher, she is concerned that more academic journals might become the victim of China’s political influence.
In fact, this is not the first time that a journal published by Springer Nature has conducted censorship due to pressure from the Chinese government. In November 2017, Springer Nature admitted that after they received a request from Beijing, they removed hundreds of articles on topics related to Taiwan, Tibet, human rights and elite politics from their website in China.
At the time, Springer Nature defended their decision, claiming that only one percent of their content was inaccessible in China. According to information shared by Shuan Wu, she wasn’t entirely sure if the decision to ask her add “China” behind “Taiwan” was made by the Springer Nature Group, since the editor of the journal that she submitted to is Chinese.
In an e-mail response, Springer Nature said that for all the journals that they own, the authors can decide how they want their institutional affiliation to appear in the journal. “In this case, the journal is not owned by us,” wrote the spokesperson of Springer Nature. “It is owned by the Affiliated Eye Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University and therefore is subject to different regulations.”
Scholars worry Chinese political censorship will squeeze Taiwan’s academic space
The incident triggered a lot of discussion in the academia. Wen Liu, an Assistant Research Fellow at the Institute of Ethnology at Academia Sinica in Taiwan, said she has been asked by editors not to add “Taiwan” after her institutional affiliation in some cases, even though her research has nothing to do with Taiwan or China.
“They may not explicitly ask you not to talk about Taiwan or Taiwanese politics, but in all these small ways, they are trying to erase Taiwan’s academic visibility and force people to censor their own content,” said Liu.
Catherine Chou, an Assistant Professor teaching early modern European political theory and culture at Grinnell College, said Taiwanese academics will often have to face situations where they need to choose between access and compromising their national identities.
“This is a particularly egregious example of the kinds of choices that Taiwanese academics might have to confront any time they apply for a position or submit their works,” said Chou.
Chou thinks that one way that Taiwanese scholars can adopt to push back against China’s censorship regime is to raise awareness outside of the small group of Taiwanese academics. “If you aren’t Taiwanese, you probably don’t have any experience with your identity being erased in these subtle ways,” Chou said.
Liu points out that since the international academic circle isn’t really aware of the challenges facing many Taiwanese scholars, academics from Taiwan should be vocal about how the erosion of their national identity is real and alarming.
“However, scholars really don’t have much influence over academic publishers,” Liu said. “We mostly donate our free labor in exchange for their platforms.”
This piece was first published in Mandarin on DW’s Chinese website.
