Columbia University Closes Chinese Students Group

A student association with close ties to the Chinese government has been shut down—and no one is saying why.
Columbia University Closes Chinese Students Group
The Columbia University campus in New York on on July 1, 2013. Mario Tama/Getty Images
Matthew Robertson
Updated:

NEW YORK—A Chinese student group with close ties to the Chinese regime has been closed down at Columbia University for “ongoing violations,” according to a statement by the university. Specifics of the violations, described as financial and organizational in nature, were not provided. 

The Columbia University Chinese Students and Scholars Association is the most prominent of the CSSA organizations in the United States, which are often a proxy of local Chinese consulates for mobilizing and monitoring overseas student populations.

CSSAs put on parties, forums, and other social events for Chinese exchange students at the universities in which they are located. But security researchers say that CSSAs are also effectively extensions of China’s overseas diplomatic and espionage apparatus, and have long been an incubation and operating ground for intelligence agents.

The precise date that the group was shuttered is unclear. Its website was still active on March 15, but by March 23 its front page was replaced with a notice that the group had been closed.

“Unfortunately, this student organization has been de-recognized, which means the organization is currently not programming or engaging in any activities,” it said, in English and Chinese.

That notice may have been a long time coming. A faculty member at Columbia University said that the association was de-recognized either late last term or early this term, citing an individual close to CSSA leaders.

Yuye Ling, the treasurer or former treasurer of the Columbia University Chinese Students and Scholars' Association appears in a profile photograph on a version of the website archived in December 2014. (Screenshot/www.cucssa.org)
Yuye Ling, the treasurer or former treasurer of the Columbia University Chinese Students and Scholars' Association appears in a profile photograph on a version of the website archived in December 2014. Screenshot/www.cucssa.org
Matthew Robertson
Matthew Robertson
Author
Matthew Robertson is the former China news editor for The Epoch Times. He was previously a reporter for the newspaper in Washington, D.C. In 2013 he was awarded the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi award for coverage of the Chinese regime's forced organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience.
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