On Aug. 20, Beijing University informed its professors and students that uncontrolled participation in online conferences organized by foreign hosts will no longer be tolerated. The document titled “Notice on Regulating the Declaration and Approval of Participation in Online International Conferences Organized by Foreign Parties” requires a Chinese participant to submit the details of the meeting to a Communist Party office or other administrative office 15 days in advance of the online event. The application must provide the agenda of the meeting, list all organizers and participants, and spell out the role of the applicant.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, online conferences have replaced international meetings that required foreign travel. This has become the subject of growing concern for the Chinese Community Party, worried that it could lose its grip on Chinese academics. Before the pandemic, the denial of foreign travel was common, often taking place at the very last moment by preventing a scholar from boarding a plane. In 2017, Chinese security agents stopped a prominent Uighur academic, Tashpolat Tiyip, president of Xinjiang University, from boarding a plane to a science meeting in Germany. Three years later, his fate remains unknown despite numerous protests by world science and human rights organizations.