FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images) China shapes global knowledge not just by blocking information at home, but by exporting censorship through economic coercion and diplomatic pressure. It is increasingly influencing what the rest of the world knows about its internal repression and territorial revisionism and even about China itself.
Its strategy rests on three pillars. The first is corporate compliance. Beijing leverages access to its vast domestic market to make Western companies — from Hollywood studios to the National Basketball Association — self-censor topics such as Tibet, Taiwan, Xinjiang and Hong Kong in order to protect their commercial interests.
The second is platform-control. Chinese-owned apps such as WeChat enforce domestic censorship rules on overseas users. TikTok has faced sustained international scrutiny over its algorithms that tend to deprioritize or shadow-ban content critical of the Chinese government.
The third is the suppression of independent scholarship. Beijing employs economic leverage while threatening to withhold visas from Western researchers, suspend funding for overseas Confucius Institutes or curtail tuition revenue from Chinese international students. Foreign universities, think tanks, nonprofits and academic publishers have all faced targeted pressure intended to shape research on modern Chinese history and politics, including Beijing’s claims over Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang and the South China Sea.
Few cases better illustrate China’s campaign against academic freedom abroad than the world’s premier conference on Tibetan studies, scheduled to open on Aug. 23 in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital. Even before the first panel begins, one group of scholars has already been silenced.
Following Chinese pressure on Nepal’s government, the Tibetan Policy Institute — the think tank of the Tibetan government-in-exile — has been compelled to withdraw from the International Association for Tibetan Studies conference. Yet about 100 officials and supposed scholars from Chinese state institutions, including the China Tibetology Research Center, are set to participate.
The contrast illustrates Beijing’s asymmetric approach to global Tibetan studies: denying institutional representation to independent ethnic-Tibetan scholarly voices while securing greater space for state-run Chinese institutions to help shape the international production and dissemination of knowledge about Tibet.
It also underscores China’s growing leverage over Nepal, which is wedged between Chinese-ruled Tibet and India. Beijing routinely uses economic inducements to pressure Nepal into policing Tibetan exile activities, suppressing protests and imposing strict restrictions on Tibetan exiles.
The International Association for Tibetan Studies meeting, held every three to four years, is widely recognized as the leading academic conference on Tibetan history, language, culture, philosophy and religion, drawing Western Tibetologists.
The Nepal episode is a window into a broader transformation in China’s exercise of power. No longer content merely to censor discussion within its own borders, Beijing is increasingly using diplomatic leverage, economic influence and political pressure to shape who gets to speak — and who is denied a voice — on the international stage. This represents a new form of geopolitical competition: the struggle not simply for territory or markets but for authority over knowledge itself.
China is increasingly seeking to convert economic and diplomatic leverage into epistemic power — the ability to influence what others think, know or believe and which narratives acquire institutional authority. This entails controlling knowledge norms and information access.
China did not demand that Nepal cancel the conference. Instead, its ambassador conveyed Beijing’s concern that the meeting could become a platform for “anti-China rhetoric.” That was enough. Nepal, increasingly dependent on Chinese investment and attentive to Beijing’s political priorities, ensured that the Tibetan exile government’s principal research institute would not participate.
This represents a sophisticated form of influence. Rather than openly suppressing debate, Beijing creates incentives for others to limit it voluntarily. The result is often the same as direct censorship — but with far less international scrutiny.
The irony is striking. An academic conference devoted to the study of Tibet will feature a large delegation from Chinese state institutions while the principal research institute of the Tibetan exile community has been excluded. The imbalance is not merely numerical; it is structural.
Academic freedom depends not only on individuals’ ability to speak but also on the existence of competing institutional voices. When one side enjoys the backing of a powerful state while the other is denied institutional representation through diplomatic pressure, the marketplace of ideas becomes distorted.
This is why the Nepal episode should matter to Americans. The U.S. has spent years addressing Chinese influence by phasing out Confucius Institutes, increasing scrutiny on federal grant recipients for foreign ties, and tightening controls on sensitive research. Now, another dimension deserves equal attention: Beijing’s growing ability to shape the production of knowledge itself.
Knowledge is power. Whoever shapes accepted historical narratives — and determines whose voices are treated as legitimate while others are quietly erased — acquires lasting influence.
None of this is an argument for excluding researchers from Chinese state-run institutions. Robust scholarship requires intellectual exchange across political systems. The problem arises when geopolitical pressure determines institutional participation before scholarly debate even begins.
Academic conferences should be arenas where evidence competes with evidence — not places where geopolitical power decides which institutions are permitted to participate.
What Beijing increasingly seeks is to shape the global institutions that determine which arguments are heard, which voices are considered legitimate, and which histories become accepted as authoritative. Its more-fundamental objective is to encourage preemptive self-censorship, effectively narrowing what the world can say, see and study.
The larger struggle over who defines the world’s understanding of Tibet, Taiwan, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, the South China Sea — and China itself — is gathering pace, with universities and scholarly institutions emerging as a critical battleground in the geopolitical competition.
Brahma Chellaney is the author of nine books, including the award-winning “Water: Asia’s New Battleground.“
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