buruma184_ PHILIP PACHECOAFP via Getty Images_money from china PHILIP PACHECOAFP via Getty Images

When Money Smells

Research can be expensive for cash-strapped universities, and many countries, including China, are more than happy to help. The question is whether universities, or indeed media outlets, should ever accept money from donors that have a political interest in the returns on their generosity.

NEW YORK – In recent years, the Vrije Universiteit (Free University) Amsterdam has conducted research on human rights in China. As part of this work, carried out by the university’s Cross Cultural Human Rights Center, researchers traveled to Xinjiang province, notorious for the Chinese authorities’ mass incarceration of more than one million Uyghurs and members of other largely Muslim minorities. The CCHRC published the results of its investigations in a newsletter, financed through the Southwest University of Political Science and Law in Chongqing.

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