It is this inextinguishable, undaunted appetite for learning and experience, no matter how risible, no matter how esoteric, no matter how seditious it might seem.

Chinese academia more broadly has been the regime s chief target in its search for enemies, with universities dismissing professors for espousing seditious ideas like constitutionalism. In a particularly egregious case, an official newspaper in Liaoning province dispatched reporters disguised as students to college classrooms to catch professors criticizing the regime.