In this episode, recorded in December 2023, Ed talks to Queenie Lam of Trier University (Germany) and Y-Europe about the issue of academic freedom in China, specifically as it relates to Hong Kong. Dr. Lam grew up in Hong Kong, but has family roots in mainland China (Fujian) and South East Asia (the Philippines and Indonesia). She worked from 2010 until 2022 at the Academic Cooperation Association in Brussels, having previously worked at various academic and administrative units of The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Our conversation ranges across various problems and issues affecting academic freedom both within China and beyond. We discuss Hong Kong’s National Security Law of 2020 (NSL) and its educational implications, reflecting on how dramatic the consequent changes in Hong Kong’s educational climate have been. After some discussion of the implications for schooling - based on our own experience teaching and studying in Hong Kong - we focus especially on the implications of the ‘securitisation’ of education for teaching and research in universities. Drawing on contributions to an October 2023 workshop at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, we discuss what the NSL has meant for academia in Hong Kong, touching on the case of Rowena He (He Xiaoqing), a researcher on contemporary Chinese politics who lost her job at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in the autumn of 2023, and ending with some discussion of freedom of speech issues in other countries affected by the extraterritoriality of Hong Kong’s NSL.
Although our main focus is on Hong Kong, we also discuss challenges to academic freedom in the field of China Studies in the West. We reflect on some of the pressures faced by China scholars today (whether they are Chinese nationals or foreigners), and some of the factors that may account for persistent failure by many to acknowledge the severity of the situation facing scholars and educators in Hong Kong, let alone the Chinese mainland.
Suggested Readings:
- Edward Vickers. 2023. “The Motherland’s Suffocating Embrace: Schooling and Public Discourse on Hong Kong Identity Under the National Security Law.” Comparative Education 60 (1). https://doi-org.libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/10.1080/03050068.2023.2212351.
- Baehr, P. 2022. “Hong Kong Universities in the Shadow of the National Security Law.” Society 59: 225–239. https://doi-org.libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/10.1007/s12115-022-00709-9.
