The Chinese proverb of “hanging a sheep’s head to sell dog meat” means to hide illicit activities behind something legal. This would be an apt description of the activities of Hong Kong’s major university student unions and the Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union.
Together, they have radicalized a whole generation of students and teachers, having long ago subverted their original mandates and turned themselves into mainstays of the city’s anti-government opposition and anti-China groups.
The Education Bureau has finally cut all ties with the 48-year-old PTU, which has about 95,000 members, after the official Xinhua News Agency and People’s Daily accused the union of violating its educational mission.
It’s been a long time coming. Since the 1997 handover and even before, the PTU has been exploiting its official status — which gives it public resources and funding to which it wouldn’t have otherwise been entitled — to function openly as an opposition group, most notably through the representative seat for the education sector in the Legislative Council, a functional constituency it has long dominated.
The head of the union, Ip Kin-yuen, was the lawmaker who represented the sector and has been one of the most prominent anti-government figures.
The latest bureau decision means the union can no longer send candidates to contest the LegCo seat. As it is no longer a professional body, all public and government-funded bodies are also free to eject its representatives.
This development follows a similar decision by the University of Hong Kong to cancel the official status of its student union, which has long been at the forefront of secessionism and radical incitement, after its leaders publicly commended a terrorist attacker who seriously injured a police officer then committed suicide. Other public universities are also reconsidering their ties with their respective radicalized student unions.
It’s time to return students’ and teachers’ unions to what they were originally set up to do: look after the welfare of their constituents and in the latter case, raise their professional standards
As a result of the bureau’s decision, the only ties the PTU will be left with are those with radical opposition groups. Ironically, what prompted the criticism from Xinhua and People’s Daily was the union’s announcement that it was withdrawing its membership of the subversive Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which has been the main organizer of the annual June 4 vigil in Victoria Park, banned in the past two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Both groups were co-founded by the late opposition leader of the education sector and legislative councilor Szeto Wah. A leopard never changes its spots. The union or its representatives have been involved in every large-scale anti-government protest and major social unrest in the past decade.
The national education row in 2012, the “Occupy Central” unrest in 2014, the anti-government riots in 2019 — you name it, the union’s leaders have supported it, whether directly or indirectly. In June 2019, the PTU called on teachers and students, including those from secondary schools, to boycott classes. Two months later, it organized a massive teachers’ rally.
From January last year, the union has been collecting donations and operating a legal fund to support member teachers who found themselves in legal troubles for their part in the 2019 violent unrest, as well as those who lost their teaching licences or were fired from their jobs, for promoting anti-government propaganda at school.
It has published many anti-government and anti-China books and materials, including those supportive of the 2019 riots. Some of those materials were dangerously close to advocating secessionism and the overthrow of the central government.
Some of the union’s leaders also have close relations with the Civil Human Rights Front, which organizes the annual July 1 protest march to disrupt public celebrations of Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997. Throughout the 2019 riots, the front regularly rallied protesters. Though initially peaceful, many ended up fighting police, beating up bystanders, committing arson and otherwise causing widespread destruction of public infrastructure and private businesses deemed to be China-friendly.
Many anti-government critics claim the bureau’s decision amounts to a political crackdown and that the Hong Kong government will spread it to other professional bodies in Hong Kong. That’s complete nonsense.
Perhaps because of their youthful inexperience, the university student unions at least have the courage of their convictions and admit being radical and secessionist. The teachers’ union long ago ceased to be a professional body and is a bona fide anti-government group while pretending to be politically moderate.
The PTU, run by cunning individuals, commits political agitations and has spread anti-government/China propaganda over many years while claiming to look after the best interests of teachers.
In fact, it only colludes with and looks after radicalized teachers. Ordinary and normal teachers, well-qualified and usually well-taken care of by their own schools and sponsorship bodies, have no use for the union and gain no benefits from it. Indeed, it blackens the professionalism and high standards of most local teachers who work day in and day out to educate our young and help care for them. Its only purpose is to encourage and promote the most subversive and politicalized minority among them.
The union cannot escape responsibility for polluting the minds of young people, many of them being led astray during the 2019 riots. Of the more than 10,000 people arrested and/or charged over their participation in the 2019 unrest, about 40 percent were students.
It’s time to return students’ and teachers’ unions to what they were originally set up to do: look after the welfare of their constituents and in the latter case, raise their professional standards.
The author is a veteran journalist focusing on the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong affairs. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.