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Kristen Cheung

The president of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) has said “the path is open” for the revival of the institution’s main student union, so long as it registers with authorities in accordance with the law.
Dennis Lo Yuk-ming also pushed back on claims that the university was overreliant on intake from mainland China, arguing that it was making strides in diversification.
In an interview with the South China Morning Post, he said the pathway to re-establishing a central union remained available through legal registration, pointing to the two college unions that had already done so, but offered no timetable.
“Our position has never changed. The student union will need to go through Hong Kong’s legal procedures. We require registration under the Societies Ordinance or the Companies Ordinance,” Lo said.
“Among our nine colleges, SH Ho College and Morningside College have already done so – this proves the path is open. We have colleagues actively in touch with students to help them through this process.”
In March 2021, the main student union’s cabinet, known as “Syzygia”, resigned after CUHK warned that the organisation faced legal risks under the national security law. The university also cut off the group’s fee collection capabilities and administrative support.
The union formally announced its dissolution in October of that year.
The University of Hong Kong’s student union also disbanded in August 2021, with groups at Baptist University and Polytechnic University, among other campuses, following suit after demands that they undergo independent registration.
On Thursday evening, Lingnan University’s student union announced its dissolution as well. The move leaves the union at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology as the only one still operating on campus among the city’s publicly funded universities.
City University’s student union also remains active, but has been operating out of a space in Cheung Sha Wan after the institution cut ties with it and ordered it to vacate campus premises in 2022.
CUHK’s student union was a federal union of nine college affiliates that supplied its membership and electoral mandate.

The central union was first notified of the need to register in February 2021, before the requirement was extended to constituent college unions in 2023, because they maintained independent finances and electoral systems – meaning they risked being deemed illegal unless they registered.
Between January 2024 and January 2026, seven college unions ceased operations after their respective colleges withdrew recognition, with student leaders citing risks to their autonomy.
While the central union has ceased to function, other student bodies representing specific populations continue to operate independently, including the Mainland Undergraduate Association and the International Student Association.
Asked whether a revived union framework should incorporate greater diversity to reflect the campus’s increasingly mixed student body, Lo said the university and its colleges continued to provide support for student activities, with participation numbers growing.
“Some of our colleges have many non-local students. Morningside College, for example, is a model for internationalisation. It is one of their traditions,” he said. “We will definitely make our university more international, more diverse, more inclusive.”
The government earlier doubled the non-local student quota for publicly funded universities to the equivalent of 40 per cent of local places, starting from the 2024-25 academic year, before the threshold was raised to 50 per cent from 2026-27 under last year’s policy address.
At CUHK, non-local undergraduates accounted for about 24 per cent of the student body in 2025-26, up from 17.3 per cent the previous year.
Official figures showed that 71 per cent of the university’s non-local undergraduate students in 2025-26 were from the mainland.

Pushing back against claims of an overreliance on mainland students, Lo noted that the university was attracting more applications from international candidates.
“Looking at the statistics, non-local applications have increased by 20 per cent year on year. But if you break it down, out-of-China applications have actually increased by 75 per cent. So I believe we are already seeing some results in diversification,” Lo said.
With student numbers set to grow under the expanded quota, he said the university would need to recruit more academics, adding that 56 per cent of CUHK professors were already non-locals.
“We are grateful for the government’s schemes, including the Frontier Technology Research Support Scheme, which provide matching funds to recruit talent,” he said.
“These professors will need laboratories. That is why we have Area 39, where a new medical school building is now under construction, and why we will conduct a campus master plan exercise to map out new facilities over the next decade. We hope to build more to attract more staff.”
CUHK unveiled its five-year strategic plan on Thursday, with major development slated for Area 39. The plan includes establishing a postgraduate college, which will extend the university’s collegiate system to master’s and PhD students.
Asked whether local scholars were being displaced by the growing non-local faculty ranks, Lo, who began his career at CUHK in 1997, said the academic job market and research funding had expanded rapidly over the past three decades.
“The posts were much fewer then, and the research grants were much smaller,” he said. “If you hired a postdoc for two years, it would basically eat up your entire grant.”
He noted that the research funding pool was now so much larger that the total number of positions had risen alongside the influx of international hires.
“I think it is much more exciting now to be a scholar in Hong Kong compared with my time,” he said.


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Hong Kong

Education

University head also bats back at claims the university is overreliant on intake from mainland China


University head also bats back at claims the university is overreliant on intake from mainland China.


The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Universities in Hong Kong

China

Dennis Lo Yuk-ming

‘Path open’ for revival of CUHK student union – if it registers, Dennis Lo says

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}University head also bats back at claims the university is overreliant on intake from mainland China

University head also bats back at claims the university is overreliant on intake from mainland China