This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, March 7th, 2014.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The financial and educational relationships between universities in the United States and China may at first glance be an open exchange of students and

ideas.

Unfortunately, the long history and present state of repression in China may bleed over

into education in this country.

Thomas Cushman is a professor of sociology at Wellesley College.

We spoke following an event on the subject last week.

What is the relationship between universities in the United States and China or more specifically a Chinese government?

Well, I don't think there's any one particular relationship. I think there's an emerging

set of different relationships over the last 10 years

in which various organizations, educational institutions,

have forged out exchanges, partnerships, and arrangements

with Chinese institutions of higher education.

There are many different kinds of these all the way from the most intense kind of interaction with prominent universities establishing

campuses in China affiliated with Chinese Institutes of

Higher Education all the way to very small-scale exchanges of students and faculty to work on specific kinds of projects.

There is no one kind of relationship.

There are several different kinds of relationships.

But what interests me is, or what I'm interested in looking at is the nature of these

relationships and how they condition the kinds of knowledge that

were able to produce either in China or either in the United States, especially the United States, I'm interested in whether or not these

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