Swiss Review / April 2022 / No.2 7 there have been hiccups in the past. Many Swiss will remember Jiang Zemin’s state visit in 1999. The president of China struggled to contain his anger at the sight and sound of Tibetan sympathisers in the centre of Berne exercising their democratic right to protest, as regularly happens in Switzerland. Keeping the Swiss government waiting, a visibly angered Jiang then cut the official reception short. His host, the then Swiss President Ruth Dreifuss, later continued on the theme of human rights, infuriating Jiang further. “You have lost a friend,” he said. Beijing’s long reach Yet friction is not only confined to the political stage. Chinese corporate and property acquisitions, not tomention Chinese investment in Swiss football, are a source of unease in Switzerland. Perhaps more than any other state apparatus, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tries to control how the world perceives it. In Switzerland, too, the CCP puts systematic and significant effort into monitoring the conversation onChina among expatriates, at educational establishments, in economic circles and even in cultural life. CCP representatives also attend public events. Notably, they caused a stir at a University of Zurich function by taking photographs after participants began asking questions considered inappropriate by the CCP. The Chinese embassy in Berne intervened when students at the Zurich University of the Artsmade a filmabout the protests in Hong Kong. In 2021, the case of a PhD student at the University of St Gallen (HSG) alsomade headlines. The student had used Twitter to criticise Inadvertently symbolic – Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang ‘meets’ Federal Councillor and economics minister Johann Schneider-Ammann in Beijing (2013). Photo: Keystone the Chinese government, after which his professor wanted nothing more to do with him. Following his stay at a Chinese university, the young man tried in vain to re-enrol at St Gallen. The dispute ended with the student having to get a job that had nothing to do with the three years that he had spent onhis doctorate. TheHSG, which nurtures ties with universities in China through exchange programmes as well as training and research projects, has since announced its intention to address perils such as uncontrolled knowledge sharing and self-censorship. Self-censorship in the field of research Ralph Weber, a professor at the Institute for EuropeanGlobal Studies at the University of Basel, puts these incidents into awider context. He believes there is a structural problemaffecting many universities in Europe. “Self-censorship becomes an issue for any academicwho comes into contact with an authoritarian regime,” he says, adding that China is putting increasing pressure not only on educational establishments, but on companies and policymakers too.Weber, a political scientist, has studied how the Chinese government exerts influence in Switzerland. “The Chinese one-party state is carrying out a systematic campaign,” and has an obscure network of groups and organisations embedded in this country, he says. “This is how Beijing is try-
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