4 replies on “Funding Opportunity for Graduate Students”

  1. It took some time to assemble a detailed report on the EACS/Braga incident to which the link supplied by John refers. The report along with a letter of protest from the EACS president to Hanban is now online here: http://www.chinesestudies.eu/.

  2. Thanks to Wolfgang for bringing this intellectual atrocity to our attention. The letters of protest read nicely. But did not EACS invite the atrocity in the first place, by its handling of the arrangements?

    It seems to me that the initial error was accepting this extraterritoriality proviso:

    ”The conference is regulated by the laws and decrees of both China and the host country, and will not carry out any activities which are deemed to be adverse to the social order.”

    Whose social order? Deemed by whom?

    Instead, it should be understood by all, sponsors as well as participants, that the laws – and freedoms – of the host country will apply.

    Funding itself raises problems of control. Isn’t the printing bill excessive? I have been at conferences in the USA with handsomely printed programs distributed to participants as they arrive. The best place to make that information available is weeks in advance, by electronic means. The less money we need, the less we are for sale; that is, vulnerable to takeover by funding providers.

    Don’t people know what is going on? Don’t they realize that our whole intellectual tradition is in the position of the Ukraine? If not, it seems time for a heartfelt staff meeting, at the highest level.

    Respectfully suggested,

    Bruce

    • Good point, Bruce. Extraterritoriality was a detested provision of the Treaty of Nanjing. How ironic!

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