Reflections | Professor gives up trying to mend rifts tearing Hong Kong apart
Simon Shen, think tank founder, international relations scholar and one of Hong Kong's brightest and ablest young people, is leaving the city, and thinks he won't be missed, writes Wee Kek Koon
Professor Simon Shen Xuhui, the Hong Kong-born international relations scholar, political and cultural commentator, prolific writer and founder of think tank Roundtable Institute & Its Network, has decided to leave Hong Kong.
Widely considered as one of the brightest and ablest among Hong Kong’s young people (he’s 37), he said he’s leaving because there’s nothing more he can do to promote international relations here and that Hong Kong won’t need him for the next 10 years.
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One could sense his resignation when he said he didn’t think anyone in Hong Kong could mend the rifts that were tearing the city apart.
And so, he’s leaving for Europe, mainland China, Singapore and Taiwan.
After the Mongols invaded China and founded the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), many educated Han men eschewed their traditional calling of public service as officials because they refused to serve the occupying “barbarians”. It was the same three centuries later, following the Manchu invasion and founding of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912).