TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Extra demands by Hong Kong’s immigration service caused a Taiwanese professor to cancel a program he was scheduled to teach at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, reports said Wednesday.
Huang Ko-wu (黃克武), a researcher at the Academia Sinica’s Institute of Modern History, said the requests for extra information during the visa application process seemed politically motivated, per CNA. He expressed disappointment with the Hong Kong authorities’ attitude toward academic exchanges with Taiwan.
In September and October he taught three classes about ideology and prominent characters in modern Chinese history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. For the new program, Huang designed a course of 13 lectures about subjects from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century.
Because of the long duration of the course, he applied for a visa in December. However, on Jan. 10, he received a message asking for information about his academic experience, how he had been invited to teach in Hong Kong, and his motivation for wanting to teach in the territory.
The university assumed it would be too difficult for Huang to receive the visa in time for the start of the course, so after a discussion, both sides decided to cancel. The academic surmised the Hong Kong authorities preferred not to have a professor from Taiwan teach sensitive subjects, so he would not try again.
