Hong Kong’s fractious politics challenging for universities, says Tony Chan – the third man to leave a top job early in past year
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s outgoing president Tony Chan said political storms of Occupy movement and recent calls for city’s independence from China had put universities ‘between rock and hard place’
Heading the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has become more complicated in recent years because of the city’s fractious politics, its outgoing president and acclaimed scientist Tony Chan Fan-cheong said, on the eve of his departure to another institution.
“There have been enormous changes in Hong Kong over the past decade, with the greatest change in politics,” Chan said last week. He will join King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia in September.
The 66-year-old mathematician, who was headhunted from the United States to join HKUST in 2009, cited the political storms of Occupy movement in 2014 – in which many students took part the sit-ins to demand greater democracy – and the recent tide of calls for the city’s independence from China.
“As the university is a microcosm of the society, the stance of the president, and the school, is between a rock and a hard place,” Chan told the Post.
He is the third university head in Hong Kong to depart earlier than expected in the last year, heading off a year before the contract for his second term expires.
HKUST is the second-ranked university in the city, and top-ranked University of Hong Kong also saw its head Peter Mathieson leave early, while No 3 institution Chinese University’s vice chancellor Joseph Sung Jao-yiu did the same.
