A portal to China is closing, at least temporarily, and researchers are nervous

China's top internet portal for academic papers will suspend foreign access to some databases starting next week, sparking concerns among scholars that they will lose not only an important resource for understanding China but also a useful guardrail to reduce misunderstanding between China and the West.

This week, research institutions around the world - including the University of California, San Diego, Kyoto University and the Berlin State Library - notified affiliates that they would indefinitely lose access to up to four databases provided by the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) platform starting on April 1.

In a notice sent to affected institutions on March 17, CNKI's operator - Tongfang Knowledge Network Technology - noted that the suspension was made in accordance with "the Measures of Data Cross-Border Transfer Assessment and relevant laws effective September 1, 2022".

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The regulation, finalised in July by the country's top internet watchdog, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), requires security reviews of "important" and large data transfers from China to destinations outside its borders.

The database operator did not say when access might be resumed, leading some to worry that the suspension might become permanent.

The suspension is the latest measure in a trend of academic and technological decoupling between China and the West. In recent years, academic and broader people-to-people exchanges have been constrained, in part due to Covid-19 restrictions but also due to rising political tensions.

For academics studying China, CNKI is an invaluable resource, particularly with the current uncertainty surrounding visits to China for field research.

Straton Papagianneas, a doctoral student focused on China's governance of advanced technologies at Leiden University in the Netherlands, said that he used CNKI "primarily as part of my PhD research because on-the-ground fieldwork was not possible".

The portal provides "one of the easiest means of searching through Chinese language media sources, academic journal articles and government almanacs", said Kyle Jaros, an associate professor at the University of Notre Dame. He said he used it frequently to study local and provincial governance in China.

"[It's] my main gateway to Chinese scholarship," said Jonas Lindner, a PhD candidate at the University of Wurzburg in Germany who studies economic inequality in China.

Over 95 per cent of Chinese academic papers that are formally published are available on CNKI, according to the State Administration for Market Regulation, China's antitrust watchdog, when it conducted a separate review of the platform's practices.

About 40 per cent of materials available for subscription are exclusive to the platform, the CNKI website said last year.

Not all CNKI databases will be affected by the latest effort to comply with cybersecurity regulations. The crucial Chinese Academic Journals database - which publishes almost every Chinese journal - remains untouched for now.

Among the affected databases are the China Dissertation and Masters' Theses; the China Proceedings of Conferences; China Statistical Yearbooks; and the National Population Census of China.

Even more concerning, China watchers say, is that the suspension appears to be part of a wider regulatory push by Beijing to restrict the flow of information and academic freedom.

Since June, the CAC has been investigating CNKI on the grounds that it has "sensitive information" related to the country's major projects, significant technological achievements and development of core technologies.

"CNKI is not the only platform that has limited foreign access," Lindner said. Recently, he added, his colleagues had their access to other Chinese research platforms and data sets terminated, with the organisations citing "relevant rules and regulations".

Victor Shih, an associate professor at UCSD researching Chinese elite politics, said that this was not the first time that he found his access to CNKI restricted.

"It's not like it's been free and easy to use to begin with, we've always had trouble," he said.

Shih suggested that the current move might be caught up in Beijing's wariness of online data scraping - the mass, automated download of unstructured data from the internet into files - in the race over control of big data.

Given the impending restrictions, Shih said, he would try to use a virtual private network to gain access to data for his research.

Other than specific data for their research, the CNKI platform also allowed Western scholars to get a feel for what Chinese scholars were generally thinking about, which can serve as key indicators for where Beijing is going next.

Papagianneas said that Chinese academic debates often play an important role in policy formulation and that platforms like CNKI play "an integral part" of understanding Chinese policy reform, ideological drivers and leadership priorities.

"I rely on [CNKI] a lot to track topics that might be hot at the moment or see scholarly discussion around how the Chinese Communist Party is implemented", said Martin Wendiggensen, who is pursuing a master's degree at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

He has begun downloading data sets in preparation for the April 1 suspension.

Since the start of the pandemic, when China largely shut itself to foreign scholars, researchers outside the country have held webinars and training sessions to discuss open-source research and non-traditional ways to study China from afar. Still, many said, nothing can replace in-person research.

Thus, CNKI restrictions may particularly affect younger scholars without personal networks in China who must rely more on written sources.

The suspensions, Papagianneas said, were "another signal that China is closing and become increasingly inaccessible to people, but especially those who haven't had the luck to spend many years there and build connections".

But because more advanced scholars use the databases, their loss of access can have wide ripple effects.

The opinions of such academics are "invaluable for public debate and policymaking, especially in today's environment of increased geopolitical tension", Lindner contended.

"Every measure that restricts these people's ability to understand China makes it more likely that political mistakes are made."

Jaros said it was hard to see "how such a move is in China's interest" given that "foreign observers tend to assume the worst about China" when cut off from abundant and nuanced information about the country.

"I hope to make a trip in the coming year for research, but that will depend on whether the experiences of other foreign scholars suggest that it will be safe - for me and potential interlocutors - and affordable to do so," Jaros said.

Additional reporting by Mark Magnier

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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