2023-06-30 18:30 Last Update: 21:36
The death of former Chinese justice Yang Tieliang reminded me of some past events with Yang Guan. Yang Guan later entered politics and ran for the first Chief Executive. I mainly covered related news, so I had more contact with him. But the first time I met Yang Tieliang was much earlier than this time. There is one thing that is so impressive that it is worth a book.
Back in 1984, Yang Tieliang was the chairman of the University and Polytechnic Appropriation Committee at that time, and I was a student representative of CUHK at that time, and I attended the University Senate of CUHK. The then president of CUHK, Ma Lin, once urgently summoned several of our student representatives for a meeting. He said that the University and Polytechnic Funding Committee would visit CUHK to hold a meeting with the CUHK Senate. The school will introduce the development plan of CUHK for the next three years to the University and Polytechnic Funding Committee. This development plan is extremely important to the future of CUHK, and student representatives are expected to cooperate and support it.
Principal Ma’s implication is that students in your class usually have a lot of opinions, but at such a critical moment, you must put the interests of CUHK as the most important thing.
Yang Tieliang was already a Chinese prosecutor at that time, and Li Fushan was one of the few Chinese who could reach a high position in the Hong Kong judiciary. He also served as the chairman of the University and Polytechnic Appropriation Committee.
On the day of the meeting of the Academic Affairs Council of CUHK, Yang Tieliang and others attended the meeting. CUHK put forward two important proposals at the meeting: the establishment of a law school and an engineering school. Zhong Dali Chen Hong Kong will need a lot of lawyers and engineers in the future, and the establishment of these two colleges by CUHK can train more relevant professionals.
And Yang Tieliang’s question was very sharp. He questioned from different angles whether Hong Kong needs so many lawyers and engineers. He repeatedly asked the CUHK’s basis for estimating the future demand for relevant talents, and asked the CUHK “dumb”. After the meeting, I saw that the high-level management of the school was ashamed. As a student attending, I felt that CUHK would “frozen” the law school and the engineering school.
However, three years later, the government approved City Polytechnic (which had not yet been upgraded to a university) to establish a law school. I thought I was really naive, thinking that the government really didn’t need so many legal talents, so it didn’t approve the opening of CUHK, but in fact it just didn’t allow CUHK to open.
After I joined the press, I learned more about things. In 1984, China and Britain signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration. The Hong Kong and British governments believed that a large number of Hong Kong people would immigrate to other countries in the future, and there would be a huge demand for professional talents. Therefore, they deployed to expand university education and increase the training of professional talents. At that time, the Chinese University and the Baptist College all followed the American-style 4-year system, rather than the British-style 3-year system like the University of Hong Kong. The government asked CUHK and the Baptist Church to change from 4 to 3, but the Baptist Church accepted it but CUHK refused. CUHK’s move angered the British Hong Kong government, and CUHK’s plan to set up a law school and an engineering school fell through.
After this battle, I also realized what administrative leadership is. In the era of the British Hong Kong government, administrative power was centralized, and institutions like universities that opposed the government would stifle opportunities for development.
Many years later, when I talked about this matter with Yang Tieliang, he had a vague impression and believed that this matter was just a small matter among the many public offices he held. As a CUHK senior, I was particularly impressed by this matter. Executive leadership, that is.
Lu Yongxiong
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2023-06-30 10:10:46
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