Students on Chinese University of Hong Kong council should have limited decision-making powers, lawmakers say

Student delegates to the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s (CUHK) council should only be allowed to participate in discussions on certain matters, lawmakers and the university council’s chair have said. They were discussing the matter at a meeting about a bill that would reduce the influence of staff and academics in the running of the school.

Lawmaker Peter Douglas Koon. Photo: Peter Lee/HKFP.

Lawmaker Reverend Peter Koon argued at a Legislative Council’s Bills Committee meeting last Friday that while students should be allowed to participate in discussions, they should not be allowed into the council.

“For students and staff in universities overseas, they don’t have seats on the council. Instead, they have a session where they can engage in discussions regarding the university. They’ll leave after that, and the council will consider what they have to say,” Koon said in Cantonese.

“The council, I believe, needs to hear … the voices of different stakeholders. But when it comes to making a decision, members of the council might not be able to speak freely because students and staff might obstruct discussions,” he added.

The bill proposed reducing the CUHK council from 55 seats to 34. The number of alumni seats would be reduced from three to one, while the number of lawmaker seats would remain at three.

The changes would drastically increase the proportion of external members, with a proposed ratio of 23 external members ro 11 internal members, for the purpose of “monitoring the effectiveness of CUHK in achieving its goals and operation targets.”

CUHK University — The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Photo: Lea Mok/HKFP.

The Bills Committee will submit its report to the Legislative Council’s House Committee on October 13, before the bill’s second reading on November 1.

‘Opposition’

Koon also said that opinion and voting power were separate concepts, adding that granting students the ability to make decisions on the council could cause “opposition.”

In response, however, Tommy Cheung of the pro-business Liberal Party – one of the lawmakers on the CUHK board who initiated the amendment bill – said the council generally agreed on having student representatives.

“The main difficulty lies in determining the information that students need to know,” Cheung said in Cantonese, adding that he understood Koon’s concerns.

Reverend Peter Koon at Friday's Bills Committee meeting. Screenshot: LegCo livestream — Reverend Peter Koon at Friday’s Bills Committee meeting. Screenshot: LegCo livestream

CUHK council Chairman John Chai said students were important stakeholders, who may also have vested interests when it came to tuition fees and student halls. “However, when it comes to other matters such as [staff] promotions, it might not be necessary for students to participate [in discussions] or access reports,” he said, also in Cantonese.

Responding to questions from lawmaker Benson Luk from the pro-establishment Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong about how to ensure student representatives are patriots, Chai said he would look into the issue later.

Speaking to reporters in Cantonese after the meeting, Bills Committee Chairwoman Priscilla Leung said the university’s management was “not up to par,” and that the legislative amendment would help the institution “catch up.”

University president absent

The university’s Vice-Chancellor Rocky Tuan, who has been the target of criticism by supporters of the bill, was absent from Friday’s meeting for a third consecutive say.

Leung said that lawmakers and universities had a “mutually reinforcing and mutually supervisory” relationship. “Unfortunately, the highest decision-maker of the university, Rocky Tuan, has never attended the committee meetings regarding the proposal,” Leung said.

rocky tuan cuhk chinese university november 12 — Rocky Tuan negotiates with police at CUHK. Photo: Kris Cheng/HKFP.

Friday’s meeting came a week after more than 1,500 people signed a petition to oppose the bill, with one of the organisers, CUHK Council Member Enders Lam, saying that the change would “damage the university’s autonomy and academic freedom.”

Signatories “deeply regretted” the amendment bill initiated by three lawmakers on the CUHK board – Cheung, Bill Tang of the pro-Beijing Federation of Trade Unions, and Edward Lau of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, the city’s largest pro-establishment party.

The proposed amendments were made “in… light of the incidents which took place in CUHK in 2019,” according to a LegCo brief.

At the height of the 2019 extradition bill protests, protesters at CUHK attempted to paralyse the Tolo Highway by occupying an overpass on campus and throwing objects to obstruct traffic. Protesters briefly occupied the university, which became the site of intense clashes between demonstrators and police.

Protests erupted in June 2019 over a since-axed extradition bill. They escalated into sometimes violent displays of dissent against police behaviour, amid calls for democracy and anger over Beijing’s encroachment. Demonstrators demanded an independent probe into police conduct, amnesty for those arrested and a halt to the characterisation of protests as “riots.”