Hong Kong university curriculum are piloted by US organizations

Editor's note: Raphael Blet is a journalist based in Hong Kong. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Whenever journalists or scholars make mention of America's influence in Hong Kong, they would often be labelled as "pro-government," "pro-Beijing" or even "pro-Communist."

Many of them are politically neutral; their only quest being that of the truth. Sadly, the current one-sided narrative puts these truth seekers in a constant fear of being wrongfully labelled for providing a fact. I am sure that many international journalists and scholars would like to look further into how America influences Hong Kong, but they know that the chances of such stories being published in the mainstream are small.

It seems there is now a de facto rule that whenever you talk about Chinese mainland's influence over Hong Kong, you tell the factual truth. When you talk about America's influence over the territory, however, you disseminate "fake news," "state propaganda" and "conspiracies."

As journalists, our duty is to analyze all facts. While neutrality is not a must, fairness and truthfulness are key components of journalistic ethics.

Some media outlets did release articles about the sources of America's influence over Hong Kong but many of them are either unpersuasive or regurgitating facts we are already aware of.

It is also needless for scholars and journalists to keep using the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) as an example of influence since we all know about it. Despite being factually true, regurgitating this well-known example portrays critics of America's influence over Hong Kong as obsessive.

There are plenty of other facts that have so far been unexplored or under-reported, and doing so would certainly help audiences to get a better picture of how America influences Hong Kong.

American influence over Hong Kong is not facilitated through the NED, Embassies or Congress. This is a common misconception. The three of them are all too detached from the local population to have a direct influence.

Instead, analysts should look into tertiary education if they really want to understand the United-States' influence over Hong Kong, Chinese mainland and Asia.

Hong Kong is home to many organizations, with a pursuit to enhance business and academic cooperation between America and Chinese mainland.

The fact is that some of these organizations are more than just NGOs. They are de facto supervisors of Hong Kong's university curriculum.

Let's take the Hong Kong America Center as an example. I'm sure this organization is unknown to many, but yet it plays an important role in the local community.

Established 25 years ago, the Hong Kong America Center defines itself as enhancing "Cross Cultural Understanding Between Chinese and Americans over the Bridge of Hong Kong."

When looking at the list of board members, you quickly understand that it is more than a facilitator of cross-cultural exchanges. Board members include presidents of all of Hong Kong's universities as well as influential figures, some of whom are former US diplomatic service members.

After looking for the physical address of these organizations, you find out that they are headquartered in the premises of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), putting them in a rather privileged position.

But how are they influencing Hong Kong's tertiary education?

Formed 25 years ago, the Hong Kong America Center started to gain influence in the early 2000s, when the State Department came to realize that most of Hong Kong's ethnic Chinese University heads studied in the US. It was an opportunity for the American government to use their educational arm, the Fulbright program, to persuade Hong Kong universities to shift from a British-style system to an American one: This is probably the worst mistake Hong Kong could do.

Unfortunately, this eventually happened in 2005, when it was decided that tertiary education in Hong Kong would switch from a three- to four-year curriculum in 2012, erasing a long legacy of British-style education with Chinese characteristics and replacing it with an American one. The fact is that Hong Kong's tertiary education curriculum have been designed and supervised by the US, with generous donations from local philanthropic figures.

One million US dollars was donated by Mr. Po Chung, a local business figure, philanthropist and educator, who — according to the Hong Kong America Center — "valued" American style liberal education and wanted to bring US experts to collaborate with Hong Kong scholars in designing the new curriculum. This included visits from State Department sponsored Fulbright program scholars who quickly acted as advisers to Hong Kong's universities. In other words, Hong Kong scholars had very little say in this new program.

This was certainly a clever move by the American government, to export an education that failed at home and experiment in Hong Kong. But it was certainly not welcomed by everyone.

What is this American curriculum all about and why it may play a part in the current issues facing young people?

The current American designed curriculum emphasizes so-called "whole person education" more commonly referred to as "liberal education." In reality, this is forced academic shopping where students are obliged to take courses unrelated to their field of studies in pursuit of ideals dictated by a handful of American government-sponsored good thinkers, with no or little teaching experience but whose agenda is to impose unrealistic ideals upon the young generation.

People in the West would commonly refer to Chinese curriculum as "close-minded" and "rigid."

As a result of this curriculum, Hong Kong students are obliged to deviate from their major field of study and take courses unrelated to their discipline, many of which are aimed at impregnating American style teaching values.

Students will end up getting a sense of purposelessness, lose passion and not know why they are at university. A sense of purposelessness is one factor that leads people to commit suicide, according to specialists. It could also lead others to take part in radical actions, such as violent protests for example.

I spoke to a handful of professors teaching these courses, and many despise this US-style curriculum structure but few dare to speak publicly. Those who spoke out against it were either implicitly warned or saw their contracts not being renewed.

In 2012, local scholar Victor Sit Fung-shuen was dismissed from Hong Kong Baptist University, on grounds of academic dishonesty. Fung published the Hong Kong Blue Book of which one part claimed that US funding and influences were involved in Hong Kong's university curriculum.

CUHK representatives at the time complained about his "fictitious" allegations. His book was subsequently withdrawn from shelves and he was quickly dismissed.

Are such allegations of American influence really "fictitious?"

Facts speak for themselves.