The more than 50-year-old Chinese Studies Service Center at the Chinese University of Hong Kong will be reorganized next year. The center is known as the “Mecca” of contemporary China studies by Chinese and international academics, and has been frequently visited by many mainland scholars and pro-democracy activists in the past. Now the center is facing reorganization, which some Chinese dissidents who have visited the center describe as a sign that the Chinese Communist Party does not allow historical truth to exist.
The China Studies Service Center, formerly known as the University Service Center, was founded in 1963 in Hong Kong by Western scholars studying mainland China and joined the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1988, later renamed the China Studies Service Center. In addition to overseas experts and scholars in Chinese history, mainland scholars and pro-democracy activists have visited the Center when they came to Hong Kong and provided first-hand accounts of Chinese history.
In 1972, the Center’s staff and a group of scholars visited Beijing and were received by the late Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai.
The Center is the most comprehensive library for contemporary Chinese studies, and is regarded as the “Mecca” of Chinese studies by both domestic and foreign academics. The collection covers national studies since the establishment of New China, including many sensitive issues in China, including the land reform, the anti-rightist movement, and the Tiananmen Square incident. Party and local histories, as well as provincial, municipal, and even county-level information, can be found at the Center from the mid-Republic of China onward. In addition, the Center also has several databases, such as the “China Cultural Revolution Database” and the “China Great Leap Forward – Great Famine Database”, which record various details of Chinese historical events in detail.
Reorganizing the Center is like “putting a red scarf on a Boy Scout.”
Hu Jia, a Chinese dissident, visited the center in 2007 to look up information about AIDS in China, among other things. He said that the Center has access to unpublished and uncensored academic materials that are not available in China, such as sensitive materials from the Cultural Revolution and the anti-rightist movement. He is grateful to CUHK for having such an academic center that documents the history of China.
He was not surprised that CUHK would “reorganize” its center, saying, “I have expected CUHK to accelerate its ‘continentalization’ since last year’s battle to defend CUHK. He also helped “reorganization” in Chinese official language is the meaning of “rectification”, reorganization of the center is like “to the Boy Scouts wearing red scarf,” worried about the future, but the center personnel or information It is feared that in the future, the personnel and information of the center will be “replaced”.
Hu Jia: “The information in there is directly related to China. Even if you are not a particularly anti-communist organization, you are an academic organization, and you want to demand only the truth of the academic, and the information should be objective and detailed. In the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party, all the information that students and scholars have access to should be screened, retouched, and even tampered with by the Communist Party before they are allowed to do so. So when you talk about the China Research (Service) Center, they are not afraid that you are a China Research (Service) Center, they are only afraid that you are the “Center for Exposing the Truth about China”. But as I learned later, that’s the place where mainland China also sends some people related to national security. It seems that he is not doing research there, but he is working there.
He estimated that in the future, when the center is reorganized, there must be state security personnel stationed to work and manage the center. When Chinese communists completely infiltrate the academic institution, the center will naturally lose its academic and historical value as well.
Hu Jia: “In fact, I think people from mainland China are particularly fond of the Center. You can access any material you want in Hong Kong, without the Great Firewall, but you can’t look at anything in mainland China. I know that some scholars, once you go to the center, it seems like a treasure, read all kinds of information, such as the Cultural Revolution, the anti-rightist, June 4, etc., the spark of thought to touch, and the conclusions you come to is often independent and objective. But if you don’t have these, you may be exposed to things that are no different from what the Communist Party gives you.”
In addition to being a repository, this center is an important window for promoting exchanges between China and the West. During the Cold War, when China was closed and blockaded, the Center became an important window for the West to understand China; until the 1970s, when China opened up to the outside world, the Center became a bridge between Chinese and Western academics. Many prominent political officials and scholars have visited the Center, including former Hong Kong Governor Wilson, American scholar Ezra F. Vogel, who wrote The Age of Deng Xiaoping, and American scholar Mike Oksenberg, who was instrumental in normalizing relations between China and the United States. The Center also hosted a delegation from the Mainland, which was received by former Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. To date, the Center still carries the burden of promoting academic exchanges between China and the West, often organizing seminars and inviting overseas scholars to give public lectures in Hong Kong.
Veteran journalist: the Center is a treasure for mainland and overseas scholars
The Open Journal’s editor-in-chief, Jin Zhong (Ran Maohua), said in an interview with this station that he had known the Center in the 1980s, and that in addition to being an important channel of exchange between China and the United States, the Center has collected rare historical collections, sensitive books and archives in China since its inception, and “the Center also collects issues of the Open Journal over the past 30 years,” providing a very comprehensive resource for academic research in China, describing it as an important resource center for scholars from mainland China and overseas.
Admiralty: “The Center’s information is more comprehensive, not only in Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas, especially in mainland China collected very comprehensive, such as some mainland publications, about Chinese history, modern history, modern history, published works and journals, is a heavyweight in the study of Chinese issues.”
Kim Chung said the center attracts many scholars to visit the center every year. In the past, the center also often organized many exchange activities, inviting scholars from all over the world to conduct seminars and short-term research.
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