An aerial view of Hong Kong. Photo: Xinhua

The Fulbright Program - a flagship interna-tional educational exchange program of the US Department of State in China's Hong Kong Special Administration Region (HKSAR) - has become a major platform for training students as part of anti-mainland forces while intervening in local education and manipulating important courses of higher education, local media reports said, reflecting "black hands" of the US behind of chaos in the city and that passage of the national security law is highly necessary, analysts said. 

As early as 2012 when HKSAR conducted 334 curriculum reforms, the US Consulate sent 25 Fulbright scholars in the name of assisting the reform to the city, advising and helping design a liberal studies curriculum and relevant training, which has become a major way of manipulating the important courses of higher education in Hong Kong, local news site wenweipo.com reported on Thursday. 

While the Fulbright Program was originally designed to be an academic exchange platform between the Chinese mainland, the US, and HK and Macao SARs, after the US regarded China as the number one opponent, the US-Hong Kong exchange platform that has been established and operating in Hong Kong for many years has now turned into an anti-mainland tool, the media report said. 

Hong Kong school students were major groups in anti-extradition bill protests since June 2019, which have become street riots and lasted for months, dragging the once-prosperous Asian financial hub into long-term stagnation. 

Black-clad rioters even turned some Hong Kong universities into war zone in November, forcing hundreds of students to flee from uni-versities such as the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the City University of Hong Kong following clashes between rioters and police at the campus. 

Wong Kam-leung, chairman of Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers, told the Global Times Friday that since Hong Kong's return to the Chinese mainland in 1997, for-eign interference in Hong Kong's affairs has been visible and Hong Kong's higher educa-tion has been affected profoundly. 

He noted that during the Occupy Central movement in 2014, university students held protests under the incitement of Benny Tai Yiu-ting who now teaches law at the University of Hong Kong. 

Tai has been alleged of receiving funds indi-rectly from the US government and was seen attending forums and activities hosted by the National Endowment for Democracy and the National Democratic Institute. 

Tai also compiled and reviewed Hong Kong's general education textbooks.

"Hong Kong's young people can easily be in-fluenced by local forces while foreign funds and support are behind these local forces," Wong said.

The Hong Kong-American Center led by the US Consulate in Hong Kong implemented brainwashing education as scholars participated in Hong Kong's liberal studies planning and enjoyed high salaries and free accommodation, wenweipo.com said, noting that from 2006 to 2012, 25 Fulbright program scholars helped fund liberal studies program. 

The entire first-hand general education project planned by Washington received a grant of HK$96 million ($12.4 million), and three scholars were assigned to each university, according to the report, indicating that these scholars are responsible for the general education of eight universities in Hong Kong, and work closely with Hong Kong scholars in various fields such as curriculum design, effectiveness of general planning programs and evaluation methods, influencing local education with American ideas. 

While external forces have utilized the free-dom in Hong Kong to concoct many anti-government protests to render Hong Kong anarchy and materialize it as a base for destabilizing the central government's rule of the whole of China, more calls for supporting the national security law emerged, as the special administrative region needs to improve the legal system for safeguarding national security.

"Hong Kong cannot be a place posing latent danger to national security. Education about national security is necessary, and enactment of article 23 is of great urgency," Wong said.