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Perry Link | |||||||||
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| Born | 1944 (age 80–81) | ||||||||
| Nationality | American | ||||||||
| Alma mater | Harvard University | ||||||||
| Scientific career | |||||||||
| Thesis | The rise of modern popular fiction in Shanghai (1976) | ||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||
| Chinese | 林培瑞 | ||||||||
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Eugene Perry Link, Jr. (Chinese:林培瑞;pinyin:Lín Péiruì; born 6 August, 1944Gaffney, South Carolina) is Chancellorial Chair Professor for Innovative Teaching Comparative Literature and Foreign Languages in College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at theUniversity of California, Riverside andEmeritus Professor of East Asian Studies atPrinceton University. Link taught Chinese language and literature at Princeton University (1973-77 and 1989-2008) andUCLA (1977-1988). He specializes in modern Chinese literature and Chinese language.[1]
Link is aHarvard University alumnus who received his B.A. in philosphy in 1966 and his Ph.D. in 1976. Link has been a Board Member of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) since 2021. CFHK is a US-based non-profit organisation, which presses for the preservation of freedom, democracy, and international law in Hong Kong.[2]
Link helped Chinese dissidentFang Lizhi and Fang's wife obtain refuge at the U.S. Embassy following the crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.[3] Fang remained at the embassy for a year until negotiations resulted in Fang's being allowed to leave and settle in the U.S.[3]
Link has translated many Chinese stories, writings and poems into English. Along withAndrew J. Nathan, he translated theTiananmen Papers, which detailed the governmental response to the1989 democracy protests. In 1996, Chinablacklisted Link, and he has been denied entrance ever since. In 2001, Link was detained and questioned upon arriving in Hong Kong because of his involvement in theTiananmen Papers. After roughly one hour, he was allowed to enter Hong Kong, where he spoke at theHong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club. He has been banned from the People's Republic of China since, however.[4]
From 2022 to 2024, Link faced disciplinary action at U.C. Riverside after expressing concerns in a faculty search committee about prioritizing a Black candidate’s race over qualifications. Link was removed from the search committee and subjected to a disciplinary process, including hearings resembling a trial, where termination was suggested as a penalty. Link said his comments were intended to caution against elevating race as the “overriding criterion,” and that the comments were reported to the university without his knowledge. Although a faculty committee unanimously found that Link did not violate any conduct codes, UC Riverside chancellorKim Wilcox issued Link a formal letter ofcensure.[5][6][7]
Link was recommended by the university to keep the process confidential and warned that the disclosure of any details of his disciplinary process “may result in discipline.” In December 2024, Link went public about his experience in an op-ed published in theWall Street Journal.[8]
