Institutions like Peking University officially claim academic freedom to be one of its major principles and the Chinese national higher education law states that the state is required to ensure the freedom of scientific research. In reality, researchers and students are severely restricted in the pursuit of academic freedom, with restrictions ranging from the inability to find publishers for publications on sensitive topics to dismissals and prison sentences for critical statements. Research in China is heavily dependent on the financial support of the local or national government. The main purpose of the university, as an institution, in China is promoting socialism and perpetuating CCP narratives. On top of that academics are pressured to focus on publishing articles in journals listed with the Social Sciences Citation Index because of the university administrations’ heavy focus on university rankings. This further narrows the scope of research that can be pursued by Chinese scholars.

It is no surprise that foreign researchers are also subject to various restrictions when it comes to working in China. They might have difficulties obtaining visas for research purposes, be interrogated or searched by government authorities, denied access to archives, physically intimidated while doing field work, or even detained by the police. This often leads to self-censorship, by which researchers start to focus more on “nonthreatening” parts of their research or in some cases abandon whole research projects (Hao, 2020). Even scientific publishers outside of China, like the Cambridge University Press or Springer Nature, are not immune to the pressure from the Chinese government and restrict or block access to journal articles in China.

Academic freedom faces pressure not only from within China, but also from Western governments and university administrations. For instance, the Australian government intervened in Australian-Chinese STEMM collaboration because of concerns for national security as well as for perceived medical, economic, and human rights risks. This demonstrates that academic freedom is susceptible to geopolitical competition and the perceptions of risks and opportunities associated with collaborating with China.