HKU council member questions candidate Johannes Chan's motives in appointment controversy
Council member says conduct of Johannes Chan suggests that he doesn't want key post
University of Hong Kong council member Arthur Li Kwok-cheung has criticised a legal scholar for behaving in a way that "suggested he does not want to be appointed" to a key managerial post at the university.
Li, a former education minister, also admitted that he once considered endorsing Professor Johannes Chan Man-mun's appointment as a pro-vice-chancellor, based on the former law dean's résumé.
Last Tuesday, a group of students stormed a HKU council meeting after members voted down a motion demanding it stop delaying the appointment until a provost is named.
Condemning the incident, Li told TVB's "if [Chan] really loves HKU … all this havoc would make you think again, and say: 'Do I want to cause so much controversy at … the university I love?'"
"But instead of doing that, he goes on and says there's a middleman telling him to step down but he won't and so on," Li said, referring to claims made by Chan last Wednesday.
Li's remarks came as the state-run said yesterday it would be "the best choice to safeguard the HKU and the social consensus" for Chan to "give up" his candidacy.
Chinese University political scientist Dr Ma Ngok said the remarks by Li and both indicated that Beijing and its loyalists are also trying "a different strategy".
"They just cannot find a reason to block the appointment … so they are hoping Chan will give up, but I think it won't change the [outcome] because Chan will not withdraw," Ma said.
During the TVB programme, Li also hit back at 's former chief editor, Kevin Lau Chun-to, who suggested in an article last Monday that Li was involved in appointing a middleman to persuade Chan to resign as soon as he was appointed.
Li said: "[Chan has] clarified I have not done that. Why Kevin Lau, a highly respected journalist … could make a fundamental journalistic mistake? Journalism 101, you check your sources, [so] why didn't he phone me up and say 'did you do that?'"
But Lau told the : "What I wrote was a commentary, and I don't need to call [everyone] for reaction before publishing it. But when wrote a new story about it, the journalists did ask Li for comment."
