City University of Hong Kong has recently announced its intention to change its name to “South China University” or “Nanyang University,” and nearly 90 percent of its students and faculty have expressed opposition. City University of Hong Kong students and senior professors told the Voice of America in one voice that the removal of the word “Hong Kong” from the university’s name has the intention of integrating into the Greater Bay Area, “de-Hong Kongization” and showing loyalty to Chinese Communist politics. It will also lose the meaning of running a university as a social conscience.
The Hong Kong media reported that at the recent academic affairs meeting of the City University of Hong Kong, a member suggested changing the name of the university to “South China University” or “Nanyang University”, which sparked extensive discussions among the student community. The City University of Hong Kong Student Union collected the opinions of more than 3,000 students and faculty members through a web-based questionnaire, and the results showed that as many as 98% of them were against the idea. City University said that the participating professors generally believe that the current name does not reflect the academic and scientific achievements of the University in recent years, but the name change is not yet finalized, will remain open-minded, continuous communication.
A student at City University of Hong Kong, Wang, who did not want to be named, told Voice of America that City University of Hong Kong has squeezed into the world’s top 50 in the 2020 QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) World University Rankings, ranking 48th, behind the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He said that City University of Hong Kong is a good university with a high degree of internationalization. Since he enrolled in the university, the president has been a Taiwanese, and for a while the department chairs were also Taiwanese, and even the librarian was a Taiwanese, so City University was known as “Little Taiwan” for a while. In addition, CityU scholars and professors from around the world, its internationalization is like a microcosm of Hong Kong itself, “we are proud of this school!”
Students: the name change is a political statement and allegiance
However, when he heard that the university wanted to change its name to “South China University” and “Nanyang University”, Wang said he felt sad and regretful, and could see that in the context of the passage of the Hong Kong version of the National Security Law, some of the scholars were even the top vassals of CityU The trend of Chineseization of Hong Kong, the name of the school has made an article, there are obvious political motives, is a political statement, political sycophancy and political allegiance.
Wang said, “I was very dismayed to hear the news, because the first thing I thought of was the South China Seafood Market in Wuhan where pneumonia broke out. Although the current political situation in Hong Kong is not good, but the university should maintain its independent character, independent spirit, because the university autonomy, professor rule, student autonomy, this is to defend academic freedom and independence of the three basic principles. As a member of the university, we have feelings for the university and for the name, so of course we do not want the word ‘Hong Kong’ to be removed from City University of Hong Kong, because the meaning of the word ‘Hong Kong’ is a historical spirit and a realistic meaning.”
In an interview with the Voice of America, former City University of Hong Kong Chair Professor of Political Science Yushuo Cheng said that City University’s desire to change its name may be related to two factors: first, City University of Hong Kong wants to become a world-class university, but the name “City University” may be a second-rate university in many countries, so the university is not satisfied with this name. The second factor is that the City University of Hong Kong is different from the University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and other well-funded research universities, the government hopes that the City University, like the Polytechnic University, to become a university of application, but the City University is not satisfied with this arrangement, so they want to change the name.
Hong Kong’s universities into the Greater Bay Area?
Zheng Yushuo said that there is nothing wrong with changing the name of the university, but the timing of the passage of the Hong Kong version of the National Security Law, the rumor of changing the name to “South China University” and dropping the word “Hong Kong” may indeed have the intention of showing political loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party, just as the other day more than 30,000 Hong Kong police officers volunteered to become a member of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Area. The name “South China University” is also intended to integrate Hong Kong’s universities into the Greater Bay Area, with “Greater Bay Area” as the main body and “Hong Kong” as the main body. The name “Hong Kong” will be weakened.
Zheng Yushuo said: “Now this time to change the name to South China University and so on, of course, is a bit to meet the intention of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to integrate Hong Kong into the Greater Bay Area such a planning-related. So in addition to its (City University of Hong Kong) own special reasons, but also its willingness to cater to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s meaning of such considerations included.”
City University Wang said that the University of Hong Kong also has a history of name changes in the past, such as the Hong Kong Institute of Education to the Hong Kong University of Education, which is upgraded; the Open University of Hong Kong, which provides distance learning courses, changed to the Hong Kong Metropolitan University in order to change its image, “the more people change, the better, then we are the more we change, the worse.” He argued that the name change of City University of Hong Kong came in the context of the National Security Law, a stern political atmosphere, everyone’s pledge of allegiance, and the mass exodus of foreign scholars, which is not comparable to the name change of the two aforementioned schools.
He also said that the proposal of Nanyang University is even more outrageous, Hong Kong and Nanyang can not be related, Hong Kong is not Singapore, Singapore has a Nanyang Technological University, if the City University to change its name to “Nanyang University” is easy to confuse. Moreover, if the university thinks that the “City University” is too small and not international enough, then is it not better to change the name to “Hong Kong University of the World”?
He said it was surprising that the reaction of Chinese students in the mainland to the name change was more intense than that of local students in Hong Kong, he said, because many Chinese students come to Hong Kong to study because of the University’s good academic reputation and world ranking. As far as he knows, when the university’s senior management discussed the name change, the strongest opposition was expressed by the Graduate Student Association, which is mainly composed of Chinese students, who believe that the name change will affect the “legitimacy” of the diploma in the job market, which will not be conducive to workplace competitiveness. “In this matter, students from China and Hong Kong appear to be more united.
Analysis: remove the British Hong Kong logo City University name change is just the beginning
Hong Kong commentator Samp believes that City University’s name change may only be the beginning. He fears that within a few years, the University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, etc., may remove the two words beginning with “Hong Kong” to remove the British Hong Kong era or the symbol of Hong Kong, and change the name to the Chinese way of naming the “first university”, “second university”. The name “Second University” now seems to have similar traces.
Speaking to Voice of America, Thorpe said: “Even you see recently someone from Tsinghua University (in China) claiming to advocate changing the name to Xi Jinping University, many alumni came to protest and it has become kind of a Cultural Revolution. This (City University) renamed both the ‘de-Hong Kongization’ problem, but also to take advantage of the new wave of China’s Cultural Revolution to become a symbol of Xi Jinping dynasty, revealing his muscles to build a career, changing his name, using this way to show his (Xi Jinping) arrogance of power. This situation I think Hong Kong will only keep happening, if it really succeeds, it may be just the beginning, it may take a few years, the universities in Hong Kong do not have the two words ‘Hong Kong’ to begin with.”
“Xi Jinping wants the whole of Hong Kong to just become like another city in China, and to do that, it has to start with education.” Samp said the CCP wants to Chineseize and de-Hong Kongize Hong Kong’s universities and colleges, both formally and substantively, by treating Hong Kong’s universities as local tier universities of the same kind as Guangdong’s Sun Yat-sen University. The specific operation is to replace the dean of the school and the council with one of their own, he said, and the council has already begun to carry out, and won a big victory. In addition, the Chinese Communist Party will also “pull up stakes”, all the deans who are not their own, because the dean has jurisdiction over the personnel of each faculty, the library may not be able to continue to store some books in the future, the student union members and their families are threatened by the life, but also had to resign and disband.
Scholars: the meaning of running a university is to be the conscience of society
Political pressure has caused a chilling effect on the academic community. Former City University of Hong Kong Chair Professor of Political Science Zheng Yushuo said, Hong Kong’s anti-sending in the early stages of the movement can be seen in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the University of Hong Kong, two presidents more active and positive dialogue with students, but later, perhaps feeling the political pressure of the Chinese Communist Party, each of the university presidents are afraid to come out to show their support. But at the beginning of the movement, when the other university presidents were still willing to come forward, the president of City University had disappeared from the scene.
Zheng Yusuo said that although there are still some individual teachers in Hong Kong universities who are willing to express the importance of human rights and democracy, without exception, they all feel great pressure. For example, Li Jingjun, a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, was besieged by the Chinese Communist Party’s official media, which is a very obvious example; university student unions are also under pressure, and many students who have been active in student unions in the past two or three years have been prosecuted; the Chinese University of Hong Kong The student union of the Chinese University of Hong Kong has also been suppressed by the university for expressing its position against sending China, and has resigned in general. He said that only the Polytechnic University now has a full-fledged student union, while all other university student unions have faded into obscurity under political pressure.
Zheng Yusuo said: “From this you also see the pressure on the student movement, you also see the position taken by the university management. In fact, as a professor of a university in Hong Kong in the past, I think the most important thing is not the name consideration, the most important thing is the university president, the university management has the backbone, has a firm position to be the conscience of the society, to speak for the society, to support the activities of the students’ association, this is very very important. Otherwise, your university just knows how to cater to the government, how to get funding, how to improve international rankings, this will run the real meaning of the university forgotten.”
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