Academics in Japan shun events in China amid fears over professor’s disappearance in Shanghai

Chinese professor Fan Yuntao, who teaches in Tokyo, has reportedly gone missing after returning to Shanghai in February 2023

Academics in Japan have little confidence in Tokyo’s ability to intervene on their behalf if they were to disappear in China

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Asia University’s campus in Tokyo. A Chinese professor, who teaches at the institution, has been missing after returning to Shanghai last year. Photo: Facebook/Asiauniversityofficial

Published: 8:00am, 26 Apr 2024Updated: 9:35am, 26 Apr 2024

Academics in Japan have expressed deep concern over the apparent disappearance in Shanghai of a Chinese professor who had been teaching in Japan, the latest in a series of similar incidents.

Some scholars said they worried about meeting a similar fate if they were to travel to China due to Beijing’s opaque laws, and had little confidence that the Japanese government would intervene on their behalf out of fear it could upset bilateral relations.

Concerns have mounted since Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi confirmed on Monday that Tokyo was “aware” that professor Fan Yuntao had been missing after making what was meant to be a brief return to Shanghai in late February 2023.

Fan, 61, is an expert in international law and politics at Asia University in Tokyo. One of his papers, available on the university’s website, examines Beijing’s “Belt and Road Initiative” and asks how it could “change the international order in East Asia”.

Fan had told family and friends that he intended to return to Japan in April last year but managed to get word to relatives shortly before his disappearance that he had to accompany Chinese government officials for questioning, Kyodo News reported.

In a statement issued to This Week in Asia, Fan’s university said the professor was “currently on leave of absence” but declined to elaborate “in order to protect personal data”. The university “sincerely hopes that the individual will return to work,” it added.