University of Hong Kong council never stooped so low, says leading international scholar on criticism of Johannes Chan

HKU emeritus professor of law Yash Ghai, University of Melbourne laureate professor Cheryl Saunders, and David Feldman from Cambridge University all told the South China Morning Post today that Chan was a distinguished lawyer as well as an outstanding academic of high international standing.

“I was shocked to learn that the council of HKU had rejected [Chan’s] nomination as the university’s pro-vice-chancellor,” Ghai wrote in an email reply as he accused the council of using “nasty tricks to deny” Chan the appointment in order to please Beijing. “The reasons given by the council are spurious and totally unbecoming of the council.”

Their remarks came after HKU student union president Billy Fung Jing-en, a council member, abandoned confidentiality rules to spill the beans on what pro-establishment council members had said behind closed doors before they voted down the sole recommendation of the university’s search committee.

Quoting executive councillor Arthur Li Kwok-cheung and seven others, Fung cited reasons they gave ranging from Chan having no PhD degree and not publishing enough academic research of international standing to his unpopularity in the Google Scholar search engine.