Chinese Students & Scholars Associations in Europe, and Long-distance Authoritarian Engagement

Interview with Jérôme Doyon

Based on fieldwork conducted in France and the United Kingdom among local chapters of the Chinese Students & Scholars Association, a recent study by Jérôme Doyon from CERI, sheds light on what he calls “long-distance authoritarian engagement”, which sees some Chinese students studying outside China mobilising within structures affiliated with the Chinese regime. In this interview, Jérôme Doyon answers our questions and elaborates on his research.

What are the purposes of the Chinese Students & Scholars Association (CSSA) and how does the organisation function?

The CSSA is present in most countries that host Chinese students. Officially, it aims to support and represent Chinese students abroad. In practice, the organisation also plays a supervisory role for these students, and mobilises them for political purposes. The CSSA’s political functions take various forms, combining propaganda, mobilisation, and surveillance of Chinese students abroad. Yet, the CSSA is not limited to its strictly political activities. Its primary role is to create a welcoming community for students who are sometimes isolated abroad. The CSSA organises welcome and information meetings for Chinese students abroad. It also brings students together for cultural and academic events, such as Chinese New Year galas and science competitions. Several of the people I interviewed also mentioned that they often turn to the organisation first to resolve their day-to-day problems, as universities are often perceived as ineffective in this area. The CSSA can be very helpful in cases of emergency, such as a disappearance or a medical problem, by putting students, their parents, and the Chinese authorities in contact with each other.

You write that Chinese nationals abroad are “both targets and relays for the political activities of the party-state.” Can you elaborate on this idea?

We know that the Chinese party-state aims to cultivate ties of dependence and allegiance with its nationals abroad. In the case of Chinese students abroad, the party-state leadership very explicitly calls for “exploiting their patriotic capacities” and turning them into relays, described as “grassroots ambassadors to promote friendly exchanges between China and foreign countries.” However, we cannot stop at the official discourse and stated intentions of Chinese leaders. We must not forget that before being potential political relays, Chinese nationals abroad are the primary targets of the party-state’s transnational authoritarian practices. Chinese students are the primary targets of the co-optation, mobilisation, and surveillance practices that I describe in this study.
In this context, the party-state’s main objective is to maintain control over its citizens outside its national borders and to facilitate the return of talent to China. Similarly, to assess the Chinese party-state’s ability to implement this policy, we must take seriously the perspectives of the individuals targeted as potential relays, rather than simply treating them as coerced or bought.
We must shed light on the drivers—and limitations—of long-distance authoritarian engagement.

Why do Chinese students engage with organisations affiliated with the party-state, despite the geographical distance? What kinds of professional or symbolic benefits do they hope to gain from their engagement?

Students get involved in the CSSA primarily to build a circle of friends abroad (especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, which greatly increased the isolation of foreign students) and to develop their networks. CSSA executives can also reap symbolic rewards, linked to the prestige that some students attach to leadership positions in the organisation. But beyond these social and symbolic aspects, the strength of the organisation lies in its connection to the party-state. This is what distinguishes it from other Chinese student associations that are “less focused on the public sector, less obsessed with the system”, as one of the people I interviewed pointed out. Getting involved in the CSSA can therefore be a long-term investment, especially for students considering a career in the Chinese public sector. Exchanges between CSSA branch leaders and Chinese diplomats in their host countries, as well as with visiting Chinese delegations, can help build useful relationships for the future. Similarly, the CSSA is involved in government initiatives that explicitly aim to bring talent back to China. However, as I show in this study, it is not so easy for the party-state to mobilise outside its borders, and the political and professional value of the links created through the CSSA should not be overestimated; it is not a major channel for political advancement within the Chinese system.

What dilemmas do CSSA executives face when they have to respond both to the expectations of the Chinese authorities and to the reactions of students?

While becoming a CSSA leader can bring certain material, social, and symbolic rewards, the potential social and emotional costs of this commitment must also be considered.
The organisation’s leaders face multiple and recurring political pressures. These can come from below: while most Chinese students choose to keep their distance from the CSSA and are difficult to rally, others demonstrate their patriotism by putting pressure on the association.
Or they can come from above: CSSA leaders must respond to requests from embassies or consulates, whose primary goal is to avoid any problems or mobilisation. As I mentioned, the CSSA can also play a role in monitoring Chinese students on behalf of the embassy or consulate, which sometimes puts its leaders in a delicate position with their peers.

What does the functioning of the CSSA tell us about how the Chinese state tries to maintain its influence over its citizens living abroad?

The primary objective of the Chinese party-state here is to supervise its nationals outside its national borders. This involves creating China-centric networks: CSSA executives mainly use Chinese social media, which is subject to the regime’s rules and censorship, and the organisation’s activities are primarily aimed at developing links either between Chinese students or between them and economic, political, or academic figures based in China. This China-centric approach is reflected in the ambitions of CSSA executives, who often aim to return to China or find work within Chinese networks. The CSSA very rarely represents the interests of Chinese students vis-à-vis host-country authorities. The main objective is not to develop links with foreign countries.
The result is the development of authoritarian enclave communities that are largely cut off from their host societies.

How does the CSSA replicate the organisational logic of the Chinese party-state in a transnational environment, and how do Western academic institutions transform it?

The CSSA reproduces abroad the functioning of youth organisations controlled in China by the Chinese Communist Party. Since their creation in the 1980s (1988 for the UK branch), the CSSA branches have been under the leadership of the Education Department of Chinese embassies and consulates in host countries.
The internal structure of the organisation is also similar to that of mass organisations run by the Party in China. However, the authoritarian enclaves formed by the CSSA branches must adapt to their host countries. In France, the relatively small number of Chinese students makes recruitment difficult, especially outside Paris, resulting in a highly centralised structure centred on the CSSA’s national branch. In the United Kingdom, with its large number of Chinese students, the local branches of the CSSA are both larger and more autonomous. These different capacities for mobilisation also affect the CSSA’s dependence on the Chinese party-state. While in the United Kingdom, the CSSA has relative financial autonomy from the embassy and relies on private funding (particularly from companies that want to advertise their services to Chinese students), this is not the case in France, where it reaches only a limited number of students and is not an attractive advertising medium for private companies.

What mechanisms of political socialisation operate through the CSSA’s non-public activities (electoral engineering, crisis management, filtering of mobilisations), and how do these mechanisms compare to those observed in mainland China?

There are many similarities between the methods used to mobilise and socialise students in youth organisations in China that are subordinate to the Party and the way the CSSA operates abroad. However, the system of rewards is much less systematic and significant in contexts where the party-state’s influence is limited. It is not always easy to mobilise support for the regime abroad. The effects of CSSA executives’ involvement on their future careers can be disappointing, and the multiple pressures exerted on them, as well as negative perceptions of the CSSA linked to the verticality of the organisation and the corruption of some of its members, can call into question the social and symbolic rewards associated with experience within the organisation.

How does the analysis of long-distance authoritarian engagement prompt us to rethink the traditional categories of coercion, adherence, and ideological internalisation in the study of authoritarian regimes?

The originality of this study largely resides in taking seriously the point of view of individuals who are involved from abroad in organisations affiliated with the authoritarian regime of their country. This long-distance authoritarian engagement is poorly understood and all the more interesting because coercion seems to play a secondary role in it. This approach has, in my view, two main implications for the study of authoritarian regimes. First, it invites us to go beyond an approach mainly focused on repression and transnational surveillance by authoritarian states of their nationals abroad. While it is essential to study the “stick”, we must not overlook the “carrots” that are central to the transnational activities of authoritarian regimes, and their ability to co-opt and mobilise their nationals. Secondly, by studying the mobilisation of Chinese students who have chosen to pursue their studies outside China within structures affiliated with the regime, I hope to contribute to a broader discussion on the drivers of engagement in an authoritarian context. The study of the motivations for associating with authoritarian structures outside the country, when the material benefits of long-distance engagement and the capacity for coercion are often lower than within the national territory, thus highlights the complexity and ambivalence of citizens’ allegiance to the regime.

Interview by Corinne Deloy.

This interview is based on Jérôme Doyon's Etude du CERI, available online.