China's Hong Kong and the Changing State of Academic Freedom

• In Event: 68.032 - Academic Freedom in Higher Education: International Challenges and Perspectives

Abstract

In the month following the retrocession of sovereignty from UK to China in 1997, the world watched and waited to see how Hong Kong was to be transformed from a free, open - albeit undemocratic - society, to one under the banner of the People’s Republic of China. At the time, it seemed significant that one of the first academic freedom “incidents” occurred within a month of July 1, 1997. A member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council aimed to remove academics from their posts at two universities for what he viewed as “unpatriotic” views. The incident unfolded before the watchful public through front-page press coverage by Hong Kong leading newspapers. In this case, two university presidents stood their ground and defended academic freedom (Postiglione, 2005).
Three years later, Hong Kong was rocked by a second major academic freedom “incident” which led to the resignation of the president of Hong Kong’s premier university. A third “incident” in 2007 occurred at the Hong Kong Institute of Education (now known as the Education University of Hong Kong) in which the Secretary of Education was blamed for interfering in the Institute’s autonomy (Law & Pan, 2015). Each of these three incidents reaffirmed the protection and durability of academic freedom in Hong Kong, even after the return of sovereignty to the People’s Republic of China. However, new threats to academic freedom in Hong Kong stem not only from changes within China, such as a tightening of the political environment, but also from a decline of academic freedom and institutional autonomy around the world (Altbach, 2015). This paper discusses how Hong Kong’s higher education sector is managing in this new and increasing complex atmosphere of national and international challenges to academic freedom.

Author

• Gerard Postiglione, The University of Hong Kong