If you don’t get expelled, you know you’re doing something wrong.
Unfortunately, expulsion isn’t the worst that can happen to a sharp critic of the state in the People’s Republic of China, and the unnamed physics student who has been booted from Northwest University in Xi’an doesn’t seem to be the sort to maintain a politic silence (The Epoch Times, 11/25/25).
The document says he had already been disciplined in 2024 for “inappropriate remarks” during a Theoretical Marxism course in which he challenged core party doctrines and disagreed with classmates.
The [current] dispute allegedly escalated on Sept. 16 during a mandatory class on “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”
Asked about the relationship between communist ideals and China’s national rejuvenation, the student reportedly argued there was “no connection” and that “a nation can be revived without communism.” He also told the instructor, according to the notice, “If the Communist Party collapses, you Marxist professors will have to set up street stalls outside the South Gate to make a living.”…
The CCP has in recent years urged universities to strengthen ideological alignment and integrate “Xi Jinping Thought” across teaching, research, and campus governance. Chinese state media have highlighted directives instructing schools to “prevent and control ideological risks.”
While disciplinary cases involving political expression are not new, expulsions remain rare. Teachers and students have previously faced warnings, suspensions, or administrative penalties for classroom remarks, though such incidents are seldom publicized.
Could you have kept your mouth shut when forced to take a course with the brain-killing title Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era? The university should have let the kid focus on matter and energy and skip the XJTOSWCC swill.
Normal discussion
The document being cited is an “internal disciplinary notice.” It’s the administrators’ and professors’ indictment of the student. If I were a Marxist prof at a CCP university with the job of detailing wrongdoing, I’d hesitate to quote the student’s “inappropriate remarks” so specifically.
Scholars (some) think that what happened is both wrong and abnormal—abnormal in the People’s Republic of China? “Several scholars in Xi’an, Chongqing, and other cities told The Epoch Times that discussion of Marxism and the CCP’s history in class is normal, and that students expressing personal views, including emotional or dissenting ones, should not be considered misconduct.”
The normative part is indisputable. But there’s an ambiguity in The Epoch Times’s paraphrase about how “discussion of Marxism and the CCP’s history in class is normal.” Do the scholars mean “should be” normal or “is” normal? Normal where? Normal when discussed how?
Perhaps the degree of liberality in Chinese university classrooms varies somewhat. Maybe some of the professors are also brave or foolhardy. A faculty member at Chongqing Normal University, a Mr. Wang, gave Epoch Times the example of a former professor there named Tang Yun.
Tang Yun
“In Feb. 2019,” says Wang, “at the start of the new semester, he expressed his personal views in class and was reported by students, which led to his teaching qualifications being revoked and a demotion. After Tang Yun retired, I heard that a surveillance camera was installed at his front door to continue monitoring him.”
Savage and incisive attacks on Marxism and the CCP are probably not routine in China’s university classrooms. Aren’t most of the students and professors instead saying things like “We have got to tweak the socialism with Chinese charactistics so that it’s suitable for the new era”?
I’m guessing. But I’m not guessing about the fact that many opponents of the regime end up tortured and incarcerated.
