Academic restraint v. innovation

Reports of Communist Party influence in higher education in China have been increasing and some academics believe that they have reached an alarming level. Changes are evident in placement of Communist Part officials in important managerial roles and in targeting of U.S. and European academics whose research and writing is critical of China. Faculty in the Kean University in China branch campus have been moved from the university's payroll to direct employees of the government, a move that has raised concerns among the Kean Federation of Teachers.

The implications of these modifications were captured by Christopher Balding, a U.S. academic who lost his position at Peking University, when he opined "Academic freedom in China is clearly on the retreat... I have been told of other universities where the party has taken significantly more control and taken action against foreign or Chinese academics. The idea that the party is not pre-eminent in the management of a university is just false."

If the pattern of restraint is broad and persists, China's desire to compete at an international level is likely to falter. Specific to artificial intelligence (AI), Joshua Kim's review of AI Superpowers (Kai-Fu Lee, 2018) warns, "I was surprised that Lee seems untroubled by China's political system. Lee points out that China can mobilize large-scale investments in new technologies. What he fails to mention is the brittleness of a society that lacks basic individual freedoms of expression and dissent."

Intellectual freedom is essential to innovation. Although China is rising in influence due to the sheer proportion of its economy, U.S. ingenuity based on freedom and entrepreneurship may allow the U.S. to stay at the leading edge of AI and other critical future innovations.