Political Censorship in British Hong Kong

By Jerome A. Cohen

Michael Ng's new book looks like an important contribution to the study of free speech in Hong Kong under British rule; Mr. Ng's upcoming book talk on October 27th will be an interesting program. I wonder whether the establishment of the Universities Service Center by the Carnegie Corporation in Hong Kong in 1963-4 is mentioned in the book. The Hong Kong Government was very slow to give its approval, Carnegie’s representative was very cautious about finalizing arrangements for fear of offending the Brits and ultimately was sacked for being too ineffective.

The HKG was worried about offending the PRC and suspected that USC was going to be a CIA plant rather than a good faith home for visiting scholars of events in China. Carnegie asked me to take over arrangements for setting up the Center since I was in HK for a year of research, needed a place to work, and was a friend of several higher-ups in the UK administration as well as Lord Lawrence Kadoorie, a leading figure in the business community.

Lucian Pye, also in HK that academic year and already an established China scholar, would have been the obvious choice to lead the Carnegie effort but was deemed too close to the US Government, as he himself agreed. I recall how the seating at a dinner party was arranged so that the HKG’s foreign affairs chief could interrogate me for an evening of apparent sociability. It would be interesting to know whether HKG files reveal any of this.

Hong Kong Universities Ramp Up Suppression of Dissident Views

By Jerome A. Cohen

This is a helpful report on the Shiu Ka-chun case. Hong Kong Baptist University recently told Shiu, an opposition lawmaker who was involved in the 2014 Occupy Central protests, that it would not renew his lecturing contract, with no reasons given and no opportunity to be heard. I know nothing about Shui but sympathize with his comments about HKBU’s refusal to renew his teaching contract. He described the decision as “political persecution.”

Activists Lee Wing-tat, Chan Kin-man, Benny Tai, Chu Yiu-ming, Tanya Chan and Shiu Ka-chun arrive at the court for sentencing in Hong Kong in April 2019. Reuters

Indeed, no opportunity for him to ask why or present his case? No waiting until the judicial appeals process on his criminal conviction for participating in the Occupy Central movement has run its course? No reasons for HKBU’s decision, even though it is a publicly funded university? The university is hiding behind the shameful excuse that it is remaining silent in order to protect the “privacy” of the harmed teacher, while hiding its reasons from the very person whose privacy is ostensibly being protected. “Privacy” is a pathetic excuse for the public university to hide behind.

Simultaneously, pro-democracy activist Professor Benny Tai was fired today from Hong Kong University by a HKU council vote of 18-2. Note that Nathaniel Lei, an undergraduate representative on the council who spoke out against the decision, pointed out that if Tai wins his appeal, the council decision “may be reviewed.” We should not hold our breath, of course, that the appeal will be successful or that success might lead to reversal of the academic decision. Additionally, how should we interpret the failure of Vice-Chancellor Zhang Xiang to vote? A gesture of opposition to the council action? Or of impartiality or political paralysis? Note the hypocritical discretion of the university council in identifying the matter solely as “a personnel issue concerning a teaching staff member.” What a joke to claim that this is purely an internal matter and that outsiders should respect the university’s autonomy! Cheers for the council’s endorsement of “impartial due process”! And recall the rejection by the council of the nomination of former law Dean Johannes Chan, a great person, for higher university responsibility!

For me these cases are a matter of special interest because of the contrast it presents with my own experience at Harvard during the height of the Vietnam war controversy in America. In 1968, I believe, the TODAY show asked me to debate with Assistant Secretary of State Averell Harriman the right of the US air force to bomb Hanoi hospitals that reportedly were plainly marked with Red Crosses on the roof. Harriman himself and some wealthy Harvard alumni reacted strongly to various university authorities the next day about my criticisms of the US government. However, Harvard President Derek Bok told me to go on doing what I thought was right. He did not abstain!

To what extent will Hong Kong's new National Security Law "educational reforms" affect its law schools?

By Jerome A. Cohen

Thus far, apart from concern over the fate of Professor Benny Tai, whose earlier criminal conviction now pending appellate review has left him free on bail but under review for possible removal from the Hong Kong University Law School faculty, little attention has been paid to the potential impact of the new NSL on the SAR’s law schools. 

Will freedom of speech continue to prevail at the many forums they sponsor? Will speaking panels be unfairly tilted in favor of pro-government advocates?  Will certain teaching appointments for untenured professors not be renewed for unspoken political reasons? Will certain courses no longer be taught, or their content skewed in response to the new situation? Will new, politically inspired courses be added? Will there be pressures on scholars not to research certain topics or to pursue others? Will classes be monitored by students who are encouraged to report discussion of forbidden topics? What topics might be forbidden? Will the criteria for enrolling undergraduate and post-graduate students be altered? For hiring teachers and research scholars? Will it be possible to continue cooperation with foreign law schools and research institutions and to attract foreign students? Many other questions might be asked. Much is at stake here.

A closely related issue is the impact of NSL Article 55 on academia more generally, making individual scholars subject to government prosecution, not merely restrictions imposed by their academic institutions. Some analyses may be drawing the potential net for prosecution too narrowly. I fear the law may go beyond the examples being discussed by expert observers. For example, in view of Article 55, many scholars now teaching in HK, whether bred in HK or arrivals from the Mainland or from foreign climes, are asking themselves, as recently as today, should they continue to grant interviews to foreign media, take part in international Zoom-type fora, write another op-ed or blog condemning the new NSL, meet with students including foreign students, etc.? Moreover, are their foreign interlocutors likely to also be pursued by the PRC as “colluders”? And will activist scholars in HK have alleged violations of the NSL used against them when they apply for promotion, course assignments and research grants? These are not merely academic questions, as many well appreciate. 

Furthermore, although I agree that it’s best for activist teachers to carry on until some specific warning is issued, it is a more difficult decision for a university professor who is not a foreign national. Yet I have even advised one who isn’t a foreigner to not significantly self-censor until a warning is issued. In response I was told that informal warnings and advice had already been personally given by university officials, even before adoption of the NSL!! In these circumstances, even the bravest are now becoming at least somewhat more discreet. 

What’s Next for Xu Zhangrun?

By Jerome A. Cohen

Although Professor Xu Zhangrun, a leading and outspoken scholar of Chinese law, society, politics and history, was released after six days of detention by Beijing police, he’s now been dismissed from Tsinghua University and any public office. I wish Xu hadn’t returned from Japan and perhaps now he does too. His next move? One option is to go on occasionally publishing in China or, more likely, abroad and get locked up much more seriously like Xu Zhiyong and so many other able, outspoken reformers. Another is to try to keep silent, do serious research and contemplation to the extent extensive “non-release release” restrictions permit, and wait for a better day. The third is to leave the country at least for the immediate IF he and his family are allowed to do so. Will the Party let him go?

Former Chinese law professor Teng Biao, whose academic career followed a similar downward political spiral and who was three times actually kidnapped by PRC police in China, happened to be in Hong Kong with one of his children when the Party’s final blow landed on his career in the country. But it took his wife and their older child a year to escape and only after a harrowing 26-day trip from Beijing to Boston, including a secret motorcycle rescue via Southeast Asia.

Xu Zhangrun

Johannes Chan appointment rejected by Hong Kong University Council: A Scandal

Originally posted on September 29, 2015 (reposted on September 30 due to technical issues)

by Jerome Cohen

The Hong Kong University Council has voted to veto the appointment of pro-democracy scholar Johannes Chan Man-mun as pro-vice-chancellor. This is very sad news for Hong Kong’s autonomy and freedom. “Zhengzhi guashuai (政治掛帥)” is a slogan frequently invoked in the Mainland, but it is tragic to see “Politics in Command” in Hong Kong’s educational sphere. The Council is hiding behind the fig leaf of confidentiality and privacy because it cannot afford to be transparent and give the reasons for its decision. This is a scandal!

• Related: Jerome A. Cohen & Alvin Cheung, Delay in HKU appointment of Johannes Chan makes a mockery of Beijing's pledged support for rule of law, South China Morning Post, September 25, 2015

Threats to academic freedom in Hong Kong

Jerome Cohen

Here is an article by David Matthew today on how Hong Kong academics critical of Beijing have been put under pressures, subtle or flagrant. It reports, “Press attacks and council control…have been the weapons of choice against the most prominent academic figures in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. But some believe that the highly politicised environment in Hong Kong is also beginning to affect the climate for day-to-day teaching and research.”

Johannes Chan Man-mun (Photo by Voice of America Tang Huiyun, 美國之音湯惠芸)

This further development is disturbing. The current struggle over the appointment of former law school dean Johannes Chan as pro-vice chancellor at University of Hong Kong is a more visible litmus test. HK is no longer a safe haven for holding conferences or even informal exchanges with scholars and lawyers from China, as again illustrated by today’s news that five Mainland human rights lawyers have just been stopped from leaving for HK.

On his impending visits to the US and UK, Xi Jinping should be questioned on every occasion about this as well as his vicious repression of human rights lawyers, IF any of his hosts – official or unofficial – have the wit and guts to insist on allowing unscripted questions.

Today’s very moving BBC interview with the wife of LI Heping, a genuinely great human rights lawyer and friend, only adds fuel to what may become a bonfire. Xi Jinping is evidently putting into practice his belief that China should be guided by the ancient dictatorial philosophy of its notoriously repressive Legalists rather than by the “universal” legal values reflected in the 25 international human rights documents to which his predecessors voluntarily committed the PRC. Beijing’s new slogan for governance might be “Leninist Legalism”. Or should it be “Legalist Leninism”?