Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) says she has “returned” her honorary fellowship to a Cambridge college after a row over whether the territory’s academic freedoms are being suppressed as authorities crack down on pro-democracy opponents.
Lam said she was cutting ties with Cambridge’s Wolfson College after it began looking into the state of academic liberty in Hong Kong.
Lam said she was “deeply disappointed by the college smearing a person on the basis of hearsay instead of facts.”
Photo: AFP
“Therefore I can hardly convince myself to maintain any relation with Wolfson College,” she wrote on Facebook late on Saturday alongside a photograph of herself in leafy Cambridge.
Wolfson College said it had recently raised concerns with Hong Kong’s leader about “her commitment to the protection of human rights and the freedom of expression.”
Its governing body had been due to consider Lam’s fellowship next month, but would no longer do so now that Lam had returned the honor.
Beijing’s new National Security Law ramps up the Chinese Communist Party’s control over the territory and in the weeks that followed about two dozen pro-democracy supporters have been arrested under the new powers, including the owner of a Beijing-critical newspaper.
Others have been disqualified from standing in local elections while libraries and schools have begun pulling any books deemed to breach the law.
Three well-known academics also lost their jobs because they had been previously jailed for leading pro-democracy protests.
Wolfson College had been under pressure to rescind Lam’s honorary fellowship since last year.
In November three members of Britain’s House of Lords called for the move over Lam’s response to months of huge and often violent pro-democracy protests.
In her Facebook statement, Lam — who previously studied at Cambridge University — said she had written to Wolfson College last year and last week to explain her administration’s stance on the protests, and denied suppressing freedoms.
“Regarding such groundless accusations, I wanted to dismiss them with a laugh,” she wrote.
In other developments, the Observer yesterday reported that an Oxford academic handed out a “meaningless” university qualification to a Hong Kong businessman with ties to the Chinese authorities at a high-profile ceremony in Shanghai last year.
Alan Hudson awarded the title “Belt and Road Academician from Oxford University” to Chan King Wai (陳經緯), founder of Hong Kong King Wai Group and a member of an advisory body to the Chinese National People’s Congress, at a ceremony attended by an official from the British consulate and dozens of other people.
Hudson, who has now retired from his position at Oxford, confirmed he had created the title given to Chan, and that it did not carry any official weight.
“I looked up the meaning of ‘academician’ and it is absolutely meaningless, it means anybody involved with the university, of any description. So I said there you go, we can put that on the certificate. In recognition of his contributions to the program,” he said.
“The incentive for this was a potential donation to the university or the department, and for a number of programs,” Hudson said.
He added that he did not plan the lavish ceremony that was captured on camera, and was surprised it was such a big event.
At Oxford, in his role as director of programs in leadership and public policy, Hudson organized short courses, usually a couple of weeks, for officials from countries including China.
“I was contacted by the Hong Kong development office [of Oxford] who wanted to approach Chan King Wai ... from the point of view of a substantial donation to the university,” he said.
Chan was born in mainland China before moving to Hong Kong in 1979 where he built his fortune.
British lawmaker Neil O’Brien, a founding member of the China Research Group, which brings together Conservative Party politicians who are critical of Beijing, said British universities needed to be more careful about fundraising in China.
Additional reporting by the Observer
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