China block on foreign access to journal portal ‘damages knowledge’

China’s largest academic portal has curtailed access for universities outside its borders, apparently in response to a security services directive, a move that researchers warn could damage mutual understanding between China and the West.

Effective from 1 April, the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), estimated to hold more than 90 per cent of scholarly publications published in the country, cut off access to some of its resources for foreign users. Affected databases include the China Dissertation and Master’s Theses, the China Conference Proceedings, China Statistical Yearbooks and the National Population Census of China, according to regional press. And there is concern Beijing could extend restrictions to cover the whole database.

Established in 1999, the database includes government reports and academic papers spanning more than a century across fields including politics, economics and social sciences.

The restriction on access, which CNKI trailed in notices to numerous institutes internationally in late March, is said to be in response to a directive by Chinese security services to stem the flow of potentially sensitive information outside its borders.

Scholars speaking to Times Higher Education said they saw a defensive attempt by the Chinese government to control the flow of raw data outside the country.

“I suspect the concerns would be over sensitive data or documents being sent overseas without having been peer reviewed or vetted for publication by the state,” said William Hurst, Chong Hua professor of Chinese development at the University of Cambridge.

For scholars accustomed to working through hard copies of university journals, the establishment of the CNKI had been a game changer, allowing near-immediate access to “vast troves” of information, he said.

“I remember thinking it was almost like suddenly having a ‘Chinese JSTOR’,” he added, in reference to the US-founded digital library of academic journals and books.

In the time since, with on-the-ground access in China becoming increasingly difficult, scholars have grown more reliant on the resource. Professor Hurst said that broader restrictions affecting the platform’s main journal database would be a “serious blow” for China-area studies. Still, he was more concerned about the impact on scholars in the country.

“It would…further isolate Chinese academics and increase perverse pressures on them to publish abroad in particular sets of indexed journals,” he added.

Hermann Aubié, a senior researcher at the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, also worried about the fallout for Chinese researchers.

“CNKI is perhaps the main if not the only place to find articles by fine scholars at relatively obscure provincial institutions, so it could also affect the visibility of such scholars outside [China],” he said.

Vilma Seeberg, an emerita professor for international-multicultural education at Kent State University, who has been doing research in China since the mid-1970s, said that greater restrictions would mean relying more on colleagues in the country.

“If a whole lot of CNKI is made inaccessible from outside, we’ll have to resort to the old ways of asking our contacts within China to take risks to send us the data rather than the links,” she said.

Ed Vickers, an associate professor at Kyushu University studying education in Chinese societies, shared the concern. He added that, even if scholars could bypass restrictions, more limited access to information would ultimately prove a lose-lose scenario for bilateral ties.

“Restricting the range of information about China that foreign scholars can access is actually likely to worsen security for everyone,” he said.

“The more that foreign observers have to struggle to understand what’s going on in China, the greater the danger of misunderstanding and miscalculation in the management of relations between China and the West.”

Kerry Brown, director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College London, agreed. “The materials available via this portal helped many, many scholars with no political or partisan agenda other than trying to deepen their knowledge of contemporary China,” he said.

Professor Brown said that the timing of the restriction – amid a chilly political relationship between China and the West and allegations of research espionage – was particularly “unfortunate”.

“Of course it will be interpreted in a largely distrustful and negative light,” he said.

“If the reasons are indeed technical, then the sooner full access is restored the better. But if they are yet another example of China tightening up access even to virtual knowledge and understanding of it, then [the Chinese government] has a far, far weaker basis for complaining about the bad press it gets almost daily in the West.”

Professor Brown said that CNKI was never a “real problem” for China’s security, adding, “it would be an easy win [for China] to gain a bit of good will to restore this service”.

pola.lem@timeshighereducation.com