Opinion

Hong Kong has a China problem: we don’t talk and think deeply about the mainland in our universities

Universities in Hong Kong need to have a conversation about China that goes beyond Mandarin and business opportunities. The lack of research into contemporary China only benefits nativists and colonial-era nostalgists in Hong Kong

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A protester holds a placard that reads “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” outside the People’s Liberation Army headquarters in Hong Kong. Photo: Reuters

Daniel Vukovich, associate professor in the School of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong, is the author of the books China and Orientalism (2012) and Illiberal China (2019).

Published: 10:30am, 1 Sep 2019Updated: 10:34am, 1 Sep 2019

Cooler heads will be needed for Hong Kong to think through the main issue behind the rejection of the now-dead extradition bill. It is a political but also a historical, intellectual, and emotional issue: not just the rule of law but our real relations with the mainland, and its real if inchoate sovereignty.

The Basic Law is here to stay, but it has also become apparent that, not unlike a piece of literature, it means different things to different people and has fundamental ambiguities: for example, what does it mean by “universal suffrage” and “democratic principles”? It all sounds like a matter for the tutorial room.

As Hong Kong cools off, and school kicks in with class boycotts and nastiness on campuses, the city needs to slowly, rationally think through and work out its relations with the mainland in practical terms and virtually all others.