The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s China Studies Service Center (hereinafter referred to as “the Center”), which was founded in 1963 and is well known in the global academic community, will be reorganized in 2021, according to exclusive news from Free Asia. The Center contains a large number of materials on modern Chinese history, which plays a pivotal role in the understanding of China by scholars around the world, and at a time of political turmoil in Hong Kong, there are doubts that the reorganization is actually another round of political suppression after the National Security Law. According to insiders, Pierre F. Landry, the Center’s foreign director, resigned after the announcement of the reorganization. The insiders analyzed the reason for the reorganization as “collaboration with foreign powers” and “espionage center”, as the Center has been accused by pro-communists.
Free Asia obtained an internal newsletter from the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s China Studies Service Center, stating that the Center will begin a reorganization plan in 2021, incorporating “new digital technologies to integrate and leverage resources” and that the Center’s collections will be managed by the University Library. The Center’s collections will be managed by the University Library, and the Center’s academic activities will continue to be held at the China Institute, adding that “the shape has changed, but the genes remain the same” and that the current personnel appointments at CUHK will not be affected. The Center’s reorganization and reengineering project will be headed by the “Thousand Talents Plan” special expert and Dean of CUHK’s College of Social Sciences, Zhao Zhiyu.
The Center has been falsely accused of “colluding with foreign powers”.
The announcement of the news sparked speculation from many sides. A source inside the center revealed that although CUHK claimed that the reorganization is to improve the center’s services and strengthen China studies, but he believes that in the current political turmoil in Hong Kong, the sudden mention of reorganization is “unwise”, “to reorganize should not be this time”, and that the center recently have received a lot of letters requesting CUHK “do not do such action at this time”.
Informed sources also revealed that Li Lei suspected that after learning the news of the restructuring, resigned from the center, many colleagues believe that the reality of the restructuring is still not clear, Li’s resignation is too “impulsive”. Now he is still in contact with the university, requesting a detailed account.
As for the reason for the reorganization, informed sources analyzed that the center has been falsely accused by pro-government people of “collusion with foreign forces” and “spy center”, and that Chen Jianmin, one of the “three sons of Occupy”, was also the director of the center during the Umbrella Movement in 2014, so the center should be reorganized.
The academic independence of the center is in doubt after the reorganization
Another CUHK faculty member, who did not want to be named, said the center has been an important database and academic exchange center for China studies around the world for decades, active in the world academic community and promoting understanding of China among scholars at home and abroad. He fears that the Center will lose its independence after the reorganization, and that its free academic activities will inevitably be hampered. He lamented that the death of Ezra F. Vogel, one of the Center’s founders, and the sudden reorganization of the Center “seem to be the end of an era.
He said the center’s collection will be handed over to the library management, worried about the library has independent management methods, such as restrictions on admission, part of the precious collection to close the shelves management, compared to the center open to all kinds of people free to see, no doubt in the access to information on the more than one difficulty.
Admiralty: Restructuring may be related to the political situation in Hong Kong
Open Magazine editor-in-chief Jin Zhong has known the center since the 80s, he said the reorganization and the resignation of the center’s director Li Lei was surprised, that the reorganization or the current political situation in Hong Kong, coupled with the previous director of the center Chen Jianmin, analysis may be considered after the National Security Law to rectify the center.
Admiralty pointed out that after the National Security Law, many democrats have been accounted for, many student leaders and Lai Chi-ying were prosecuted; also pointed out that Beijing so against a research center of the Chinese University, the practice is very unwise, “the most recent years of the student movement and democracy movement, the occupation movement and anti-sending movement, the center is not involved.
He lamented that the Center is a purely academic research institution, which is “very cautious” and never intervenes in political events, and does not touch on highly sensitive political figures when inviting scholars to give speeches.
The center contains a wealth of information on modern Chinese history
According to the Center’s website, the Center was established in 1963 when Western scholars of Chinese studies set up a university service center in Hong Kong to serve scholars from overseas who came to Hong Kong to engage in Chinese studies, and before the opening of China, the Center became the home base for China studies in the Western world. According to statistics from the early 1980s, some 200 scholarly works on mainland China studies were completed at the Center. The Center played a significant role in promoting international understanding of mainland China.
The Center joined the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1988 and was renamed the China Studies Service Center in 1993. The Center is now the most complete library for contemporary Chinese studies, and has been praised by scholars at home and abroad for its ease of access. The Center’s collection includes provincial and national newspapers, periodicals, and selected newspapers and journals published by academic institutions and the mainland government, including electronic and print editions, from the early 1950s to the present. The Center also has a complete collection of national, provincial, and municipal comprehensive and specialized yearbooks and statistics, provincial, municipal, county, and township-level local chronicles, including county-level special chronicles on land, grain, finance and taxation, education, and water conservation, as well as more than 80,000 volumes of monographs on Chinese studies in both English and Chinese, and materials on regional studies in particular. In addition, the Center collects documentaries, unpublished personal memoirs, and other folk historical materials.
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