A Third Degree for a Ph.D : UCLA’s Young rightly protests Taiwan’s detention of student

Academic freedom means the pursuit of new and old ideas. That should be welcomed in Taiwan where the march toward democracy has begun. A student from UCLA has discovered otherwise.

Taiwanese authorities arrested Jen-Ran Chen on May 9 in Taipei and charged the UCLA graduate student with sedition. The charge reportedly was based on Chen’s research activities and materials he had been collecting for his UCLA dissertation. He was released on bail, but his trial is set for June 22.

UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young, who was visiting Taiwan when Chen was arrested, has sent a strong letter urging authorities to examine Chen’s case carefully so that he is not punished for his academic research.

Young has special cause for concern because Chen’s arrest is renewing fears among students at UCLA that they are being watched by Taiwanese spies hired to monitor dissident activity. Students at other U.S. college campuses have expressed similar fears. This is eerily reminiscent of the circumstances surrounding the 1981 death of Carnegie-Mellon University assistant professor Wen-Chen Chen. Just days before he was to return to Pittsburgh, Chen was held for alleged anti-Taiwan activities in the United States. His badly beaten body was discovered on the grounds of the National Taiwan University.

UCLA’s Chen is accused of attempting to overthrow the Nationalist government through his association with the banned Independent Taiwan Assn. Chen came to UCLA from Taiwan in 1988 as a graduate student and took a leave in 1989 to work on his dissertation on Taiwanese intellectuals. In the course of his research, he interviewed and corresponded with the exiled founder of ITA. Chen, who claims he is not a member of the group, also conducted student study groups on Taiwanese history. The Taiwan government is said to be alarmed at the recent interest among students in Taiwanese history, which has been suppressed by the ruling Nationalist Party since 1949.

If convicted, Chen could face death. That would be a tragedy not just for academic freedom, but for democracy.