Peter Høj, the former executive president of the University of Queensland, who has close ties to the Chinese Communist Party, was officially appointed as executive president of the University of Adelaide last week, starting his five-year term on February 8. Video screenshot from the University of Adelaide website
Peter Høj, former executive president of the University of Queensland, was officially appointed as president of the University of Adelaide on Monday (8). In the latter part of his tenure at the University of Queensland, Hoy has been criticized for his pro-communist performance, including a two-year suspension of students for supporting Hong Kong people and Uighurs, and his role as global advisor and director of the Confucius Institute, which has received widespread attention. Critics say Hoy relies on his ties with China to raise funds, and criticize the academy for putting profits ahead of national security. Some netizens have started a petition asking Australian intelligence organizations to investigate Hoy’s ties to China.
Danish-born biochemist Peter Hoj has run the University of Queensland for the past eight years. Australian media earlier revealed that Hoj had turned around the University’s financial woes and made a surplus by expanding the number of International Students and establishing new business partnerships with other countries. But later Hoy was also criticized for his close ties with Beijing.
Hoy, then executive president of the University of Queensland, presents a visiting professorship to Xu Jie, the Chinese consul general in Brisbane, in July 2019. (Official website of the Chinese Consulate in Brisbane)
Feng Chongyi, a professor of political science at the University of Technology Sydney, told the station that the Australian government has begun to wake up in recent years in the face of Chinese Communist Party infiltration and expansion, and has introduced a series of anti-infiltration and foreign intervention bills, including the new Foreign Relations Bill passed in December last year to withdraw the power of local and state governments and universities, etc. to enter into agreements with foreign governments, and the biggest resistance to these bills comes from the academic community.
Feng Chongyi criticized the universities for not considering national security at all, and it is not surprising that Hoy, who has received financial assistance from China, was promoted out of interest.
Feng Chongyi said: Australian academics, especially the president and China are very close, they have to go to China to establish a lot of contacts, to recruit many international students from China, playing “academic independence”, “science without borders” these grand brand, to oppose a series of security legislation in Australia. to oppose a series of security legislation in Australia. Politically, national security is not their concern, so it is not surprising that they have promoted these people.
According to Feng Chongyi, the Chinese Communist Party’s frenzied infiltration of the academy is a major vulnerability, not only to Australia, but also to the “Five Eyes Alliance” countries that share military intelligence and information, posing security risks. The fact that the pro-Beijing Hoy has become the president of a prestigious university again is a serious and realistic proposition for democracies to legislate against the association of universities and their heads with the Chinese Communist Party.
Feng Chongyi said: Confucius Institute is a child’s play, many universities are more directly and many Chinese research institutions, universities, and even the military to establish a very wide range of exchanges; China can not get from the U.S. side, it can turn a corner to Australia to get the most sophisticated research results and technology in the United States, the “five-eyed alliance” can not be defended, on Because there are many loopholes in the law, if the university is only profit-oriented, it can’t plug this loophole.
“Australian Values Coalition member and commentator Huang Fujing said the University of Adelaide sees Hoy’s relationship with the Chinese Communist Party as a way to economically “save” the University of Adelaide in the future, and that the University is a black hole that the Chinese Communist Party can continue to infiltrate.
Huangfu Jing said: “At the University of Queensland, Hoy’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party were exposed to the public. He has the ability to raise money, and the only one who can give money now is the CCP. The University of Adelaide transferred him to the presidency, and he will certainly go back to collude with the CCP in this position, and the CCP can once again carry out the same kind of infiltration as before. Australia’s academia is the hardest hit by Chinese Communist infiltration, and Australia has a long way to go in the fight against it.
Huang Fujing also called on the Australian government to conduct security checks and introduce restrictions on international students and scholars from China, as the British government has done. Recently the British media disclosed that the British government intends to restrict Chinese people from working and studying in 44 sensitive professions from February 15.
On Monday (8), a user from Adelaide named “Mark Underwood” launched a petition on the website “change.org”, asking the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) and the newly elected Senator James Paterson, the newly elected chair of the Australian Federal Parliament’s Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, to investigate Hoy’s ties to Beijing.
The petition points out that the many pro-Beijing incidents that have come to light show that Hoy has undermined Australian values; that Hoy’s crackdown on Anti-Communist student Pavlo is suppressing freedom of expression in Australia; that he has chosen the latter between national security and Chinese students; and that Hoy’s former position at the Confucius Institute, the Communist Party’s major outreach arm, increases the risk of Communist Party risk of infiltration into Australia. The website currently has dozens of signatures.
A petition has been launched on change.org by users from Adelaide, asking the Australian Intelligence Organisation and Liberal MP James Paterson, the new chair of the Australian Federal Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, to investigate Hoy’s ties to the CCP. (Screenshot of the petition page on change.org)
Hoy officially became executive president of the University of Adelaide, one of Australia’s top eight universities, on Monday for a five-year term.
The University of Adelaide’s honorary president, Catherine Branson, called Hoy “one of the most distinguished and respected university leaders” in Australia, vowed to lead the university in creating new opportunities for students, industry, government and the community, and said “a strong The University of Adelaide is vital to the long-term interests of the nation.
Hoy has been criticized in the media for past incidents, including the suspension of University of Queensland student Drew Pavlou for two years last May for “violating the university’s code of conduct” in solidarity with Hong Kong’s anti-China movement and Uyghurs. He had previously named Hoy directly and criticized the University of Queensland for its close ties with the Chinese government; in 2019, Hoy personally presented a visiting professorship to Chinese Consul-General Xu Jie in Brisbane, when Australian universities launched a protest movement in solidarity with Hong Kong against sending China.
In addition, Hoy has served as a senior advisor and board member of the global headquarters of the Confucius Institute in China. The University of Queensland receives funding from China for four courses covering Chinese government, Music and language courses, including a course on “China in a Changing World,” which covers China’s enhanced role in addressing “security challenges” around the world.
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