Here is more from Cato:
The move comes after the university dismissed Professor Xia last October due to his outspoken criticism of China’s Communist Party and his advocacy of democracy and human rights.
Here is what The New York Times has to say about the Cato hire.
Yeliang is not the first Chinese dissident to join a US think tank. As reported last year by Think Tank Watch, Chen Guangcheng, Chinese dissident and legal rights activist, joined The Witherspoon Institute, a conservative think tank. Here is a Foreign Policy piece on how Chen ended up at the "pro-life, anti-gay think tank."
According to the just released 2014 University of Pennsylvania think tank rankings, the Cato Institute is the 18th best think tank in the world. It was also ranked as the 9th best think tank in the US. And it is the #1 libertarian think tank in the world.
It is no surprise that Yeliang ended up at a US think tank, as there are 1,828 to choose from, according to the UPenn think tank survey. After the US, China has the most number of think tanks, with 426, followed by the UK with 287 think tanks.
Yeliang's first public event at the think tank will take place on February 27, 2014. It is titled "Chinese Intrusions into American Universities: Consequences for Freedom."
