The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Vice-Chancellor

It’s a mind-boggling mystery why the University of Hong Kong decided to destroy its long-established reputation in its centenary year by placing the campus under martial law during Chinese vice-premier Li Keqiang’s visit.

 Even more enigmatic is the decision to pay for a first-class flight ticket and a five-star hotel room to invite a former British governor, who is also former chancellor of the University, to come back to Hong Kong only to witness the destruction of the colonial academic brand, which was established and nurtured by the British. Sir David Wilson displayed some first-class diplomatic skills as he gave a speech with an academically inscrutable smile, while angry students—who don’t have the good fortune of being his colonial subjects—booed an embarrassed Dr. LC Tsui, the vice-chancellor, outside Loke Yew Hall for selling the good name of the University down the river.

Li was given the exceptionally privileged ancient-wooden-chair treatment on the stage. A relic, like the gold-and-crimson throne in the House of Lords reserved for the royal sovereign head, the chair is exclusively for the use of the chancellor—giving it over to the vice-premier was a laughable faux pas. Property and casino tycoons including Stanley Ho were seated in the front rows in a gathering of the rich and the powerful, making the occasion little different from an evening at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. As the host, no wonder Tsui was jeered. It called to mind the former Czech communist leader Alexander Dubcek who allegedly “invited” his masters in the Kremlin to roll Soviet tanks into Prague in 1968. A shrieking student was dragged into a room and locked up for an hour by police, the noise drowned out by the applause in the hall.

Vice-premier Li could well have been annoyed at the political show being hijacked by the unpatriotic anarchists, though some interesting questions should be raised as to whether such excessive security measures were designed deliberately as a part of an indirect image-demonization campaign. University of Hong Kong alumni—many of whom are now successful bankers, solicitors or medical doctors who own a few properties on the Peak—could also question whether Tsui fulfilled his duty as vice-chancellor when he failed to ask the Chinese government to donate a few billion dollars since Li wanted to ascend to the respectable platform once occupied by President Clinton, Chris Patten and Lee Kuan Yew, who have all addressed students in Putonghua-accent-free English at that respectable venue. It would cost about US$30,000 for a New York Chinatown restaurateur to be admitted to a fundraising event and take a hand-shaking picture with the American president. The not-made-in-China HKU brand—where academic dissertations are mostly authentic rather than plagiarized—is ranked the number one university in Asia by the Times Higher Education rankings. It is certainly worth a few bucks, rather than a free pet and grope from the vice-premier.