Re: More than 1,000 Chinese students at Johns Hopkins University signed an online petition, pressuring the school to cancel a panel later this month featuring Hong Kong activists Joshua Wong and Nathan Law.

In an earlier version of the petition, the petitioners claim that they are making people they do not like shut up because they have “a deep understanding of freedom.”

“Shutting people’s mouths in the name of democracy” is the exact kind of “democracy with Chinese characteristics” one would expect students from China to be familiars of.

On the one hand, as a former Chinese student myself who graduated from a U.S. university not long ago, I am still shocked that so many at JHU would sign such a “petition,” consisting mostly of gibberish.

On the other hand, what we see here also seems inevitable, as today’s universities do not really care about “values” or anything of that sort. A typical Chinese student to them is, in essence, a synonym for “a steady stream of cash flows for 4+ years.”

Expansion, at the expense of quality, has made long-term educational and developmental commitments largely gone. What has replaced them are those witty stories and sophistical narratives widely shared on WeChat and Weibo, written by and catering to those who grew up in an authoritarian environment, and with such a mindset by default.

It is regrettable to see this happening so fast given the tremendous impact that American ideals, institutions, and people used to have on so many Chinese students of older generations.