Wang Dan seeks teaching job talks
Exiled student leader in bid to find out if he can come to HK
Exiled June 4 student leader Wang Dan wants to talk to the Hong Kong government about how he can come to the city and teach at a university, and says he has an open attitude about conditions that might be imposed.
'I think if I can enter Hong Kong, I will respect the concerns of the Hong Kong government', Mr Wang said from Taiwan, where he is carrying out research for his doctoral thesis.
'My stance is very clear. I hope to apply for jobs, not to carry out political activities,' said the 37-year-old, one of the main student leaders who organised the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in 1989.
Mr Wang wants to come to Hong Kong to teach after completing his thesis - a comparative study of the politics of violence across the Taiwan Strait in the 1950s - at Harvard University in June.
He said he did not intend to visit Hong Kong to coincide with the June 4 anniversary to avoid 'provoking' the city's government.
Asked if he would accept any precondition for coming, he said: 'I'm willing to discuss it with the Hong Kong government. It's not [the case] that all conditions cannot be accepted.' He said he would be willing to try any means, such as various government schemes like the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme, to come to Hong Kong, but believed the most important concern was the government's position.
'I still trust that the universities could obviate political interference, yet I don't have confidence in the central and Hong Kong governments,' he said.
Mr Wang tried to apply to come to Hong Kong in 2003, but his application was refused. 'The SAR government said publicly that Wang Dan's entry to Hong Kong was harmful to the city's interests,' he recalled. He said he hoped to teach contemporary history of the mainland or Taiwan at a university in Hong Kong but said he did not have any particular institution in mind. 'I will be very happy if any university will employ me.'
He said he wanted to come to Hong Kong because of his 'special feelings' towards the city, especially public support for the student movement, the proximity to Beijing and his wish to teach and do research in a Chinese community.
'My parents are very old ... As I can't go back to Beijing, at least I can go to a place that is closer to it,' he said. His parents, both aged 70 and who live in Beijing, visited him in the US early last year.
If his attempt to come to Hong Kong failed, he said he might opt to teach in Taiwan or the US. Mr Wang was arrested a year after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown and again in 1996, but was exiled to the US on medical parole in 1998.
An Immigration Department spokesman would not comment on an individual case.
