The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s China Studies Service Center, founded in 1963 and enjoying international status in the study of contemporary Chinese history, is facing a restructuring in 2021. An insider told us that Pierre F. Landry, the former director of the Center, resigned after CUHK proposed to restructure the Center. Another insider was concerned that the sensitive historical materials of the Center would not be available to the public after the reorganization. CUHK replied to our inquiries, saying there was “no such thing” as a crackdown on the speculation, while the former director of the China Studies Service Center, Li Lei, and the current director, Zhao Zhiyu, had not replied to our inquiries by press time.
The letter said that the Center will start its reorganization plan in 2021 and will integrate “new digital technology to integrate and make good use of resources”, and that the Center’s collection will be managed by the University Library.
The letter also reveals that Pierre F. Landry, the foreign director of the Center for Chinese Studies, has resigned as director of the Center, and that in January 2021, Zhao Zhiyu, the director of CUHK’s School of Social Sciences and a special expert in China’s Thousand Talents Program in Philosophy and Social Sciences, will coordinate the reorganization and reengineering of the Center.
Pierre F. Landry, director of the Center for China Studies and Services at CUHK, resigns suddenly (CUHK website)
The Center has repeatedly been falsely accused of “collusion with foreign powers” and of being a “spy center.”
However, the news has led to many speculations. Although the University claims that the reorganization is to improve the services of the Center and strengthen China studies, but she believes that in the current political turmoil in Hong Kong, the sudden mention of reorganization is “unwise”, but also easy to misunderstand, “to reorganize should not be this time “, recently the center also received many people wrote to ask CUHK “do not do such action at this time”.
He also said that Li Lei suspected that when informed of the news of the restructuring, resigned from the center, many colleagues believe that because it is still not clear restructuring of the reality, Li’s resignation is an “impulsive” decision. Now he is still in contact with the university.
As for the reason for the reorganization, the source estimated that the center has been falsely accused of “collusion with foreign powers” and “spy center,” and that one of the “three sons of Occupy”, Chen Jianmin, was the director of the center during the Umbrella Movement in 2014, so the center had to be reorganized.
The center is an important academic exchange center for China studies, and its independence will be in doubt in the future.
Another CUHK faculty member, who did not want to be named, did not belong to the center but heard about it from a colleague. He estimated that the reorganization would split the Center’s structure and consolidate all departments and resources related to China studies. The Center has been an important repository and academic exchange center for international scholars of China studies for decades, active in international academic activities and promoting understanding of China among scholars at home and abroad, and he fears that the Center will lose its original independence after the reorganization and that its free academic activities will be restricted.
He also believes that the center’s collections will be handed over to the library management, although the center’s collection may not have screening, but worries about the library has an independent set of management methods, such as the need to restrict admission to people, some of the precious collections need to be sealed sealed storage management, can no longer be open to the public.
CUHK: Never reorganize the center due to external pressure
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) replied to our inquiry, saying that the rumor that CUHK was under external pressure to reorganize the center was “absolutely not true, the rumor is all fiction. CUHK also said that the purpose of the restructuring of the Chinese Studies Service Center is to enhance the Center’s existing services and to make its collections more widely available to local and international scholars. The documentary film screenings and seminars will continue to be supported by the CUHK Library and the Institute of Chinese Culture.
Open Magazine Editor-in-Chief Kim Jong: Maybe it has something to do with the political situation in Hong Kong
The Open Magazine editor-in-chief Kim Chung, who has known the center since the 1980s, said in an interview that he was “surprised” by the reorganization and Li Lei’s resignation, and that he did not rule out the possibility that it was related to the current political turmoil in Hong Kong, as well as the fact that Chen Jianmin had served as the center’s director, “or that someone thought it was necessary to reorganize after the Hong Kong version of the National Security Law came into effect.
Admiralty said, “It is related to the whole atmosphere of Hong Kong, especially after the promulgation of the National Security Law, many people have been reckoned with in the autumn, many student leaders and Lai Chi-ying were prosecuted. (Reorganization) I think is unbelievable and clumsy, a very unwise move for Beijing to have to deal with a research center at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in this way. The student movement and the democracy movement, the Occupy Central Movement and the anti-Send Central Movement in recent years, the center is not involved, they just get information and the information is only objective material.”
He believes that the center has been purely academic institutions, the past “very cautious”, never involved in political events, in inviting scholars to speak will not encounter highly sensitive people, do not understand that the center was threatened.
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