The University of Hong Kong Photo: hku.hk

 

A move by the University of Hong Kong (HKU) on Tuesday to appoint two professors from the mainland as its vice presidents, despite politically-motivated objections, was hailed by observers as a good progress in Hong Kong's academic field and a good start to shrugge off "political hijacking" to uphold academic freedom.

The council of HKU voted to approve the appointments of Shen Zuojun and Gong Peng, after disruptions caused by the school's student union, which raised politically-charged questions into the two mainland scholars' background.

As an internationally-recognized top scholar in his field, Shen is currently chancellor's professor and chair of the department of industrial engineering and operations research, and professor of the department of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, according to the website of HKU. 

And he is also a center director at the Tsinghua-Berkeley Institute in Shenzhen, as well as honorary professor and department chair of industrial engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing. 

Gong is currently professor and dean of the faculty of science at Tsinghua University, the website showed. 

The backgrounds of these two professors relevant to the mainland, particularly some reports referring to Shen as a member of the Communist Party of China (CPC), have triggered opposition from the HKU student union, which issued a statement on Sunday urging the university council to postpone the appointments until the candidates' backgrounds were investigated and a probe report published.

The student union said the university should not be a venue for political wrestling and the plan to appoint members with obvious political affiliations to the senior management to take charge of research direction would "violate the University's commitment to institutional autonomy and academic freedom."

Before the Union's petition was handed over to the HKU council, over 4,200 signatures have been collected from HKU students and faculty members, Ming Pao reported. But the council made the decision out of academic independence, observers said.  

"The recommendations for appointment are results of thorough global search and elaborate review and consultation processes, with the sole purpose of attracting the best talents to fill the leadership positions, irrespective of race, nationality, gender, place of origin, political orientation or religious belief," the HKU wrote in an announcement on its website. 

The opposition stemmed from a sentiment of mainland-phobia on the Hong Kong campus, ignoring the strong academic background of those two, but only focusing on hyping their political orientation, which should not be the standard for the university to evaluate faculty, observers said. 

"A part of the HKU is stuck in 'mainland-phobia'," Tang Fei, a principal at Hong Kong's Heung To Secondary School (Tseung Kwan O), told the Global Times on Tuesday, "They are completely blinded by identity hyping, ignoring the candidates' academic credentials."

However, the appointments are a good start for HKU  to get rid of "political hijacking," they noted.

"The appointments show the HKU is getting education back to its roots, rather than being held hostage and manipulated by politics, which has been a problem in the past few years," Li Xiaobing, a Hong Kong affairs legal expert at Nankai University in Tianjin told the Global Times on Tuesday, "Now it is back on track."

"Narrow political biases could hinder the development of Hong Kong's universities," Li noted, "Hong Kong, as a bridge between China and the West, should absorb and accept talent from all backgrounds regardless of his or her political affiliations."

Shen and Gong will serve a five-year period starting from January 2021 at the earliest.