Report: Tokyo University Used ‘Tiananmen Square’ Keyword to Block Chinese Admissions

The student-led paper for Tokyo University says a graduate program used an HTML trick to prevent mainland Chinese students from applying.

In a bombshell accusation, Todai Shimbum, the student-run paper of Tokyo University, alleges that a graduate admissions site embedded a keyword related to Tiananmen Square for over a year. The goal was apparently to prevent the page from loading in mainland Chinese and thus block Chinese students from attending, the paper alleges.

Todai Shimbun reports that the keyword appeared on the website for graduate admissions to its Computational Biology and Medical Sciences Program (メディカル情報生命専攻). The keyword used was 六四天安門 (roku-shi tenanmon), or “June 4th Tiananmen.” June 4th was the date of the student Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989.

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