The Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) has become a focal point in the debates about the Chinese Party-State’s influence over Western societies, and universities in particular. While this organisation officially aims to support and represent Chinese overseas students and scholars, it has recently attracted the attention of media outlets and NGOs as instruments to monitor students and limit academic freedom on campuses. Yet despite its growing role in monitoring, mobilising, and regimenting Chinese overseas students, currently amounting to roughly 1 million worldwide, we know very little about the actual functioning of the CSSA. This research project into CSSAs in Europe aims to fill this gap. It highlights that when the Chinese party-state exports its structures, it needs to adapt to local contexts, leading to meaningful variations in how to deal with overseas students. I also argue that while structures such as the CSSA are often presented as a sort of command and control in nature, the reality is much more complex. Taking the perspective of the CSSA organisers, and diving into the complex incentives and pressures they face rather than approaching them as simple pawns of the party-state, is in fact central to understanding better how these structures operate.
Jérôme Doyon is a Junior Professor at the Centre for International Relations (CERI) at Sciences Po Paris, and an affiliate at the Oxford China Centre as well as at the King College London’s Lau China Institute. He received a dual Ph.D. from Columbia University and Sciences Po. Prior to joining Sciences Po’s faculty, he held fellowships and positions at the Harvard Kennedy School, the Oxford School for Global and Area Studies, the University of Edinburgh, and the SOAS China Institute. His work on Chinese domestic politics, including youth politics, the inner workings of the Party-State apparatus, as well as issues related to religious and ethnic minorities, has been published in various journals, such as Political Studies or The China Quarterly. His recent books include Rejuvenating Communism: Youth Organizations and Elite Renewal in Post-Mao China (University of Michigan Press, 2023) and The Chinese Communist Party: a 100-year Trajectory (co-edited with Chloé Froissart, Australian National University Press, 2024).
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DATE: Thursday, June 5, 2025
TIME: 18:15 – 19:45
LOCATION: Studierraum Japanologie, at the Department for East Asian Studies/Japanes Studies, Altes AKH, Campus, Spitalgasse 2, Yard 2, Entrance 2.4
