Censorship rising as academic freedom declines in Hong Kong

Hong Kong students and university faculty previously accustomed to academic freedom must now tread carefully to avoid retribution for what they teach, research and publish – and even with whom they associate – according to a new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on academic freedom in the city since the 2020 National Security Law was imposed by Beijing.

The law prohibits “secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces” to endanger national security but definitions of what constitutes such offences are vague.

The 80-page report, ‘We Can’t Write the Truth Anymore’: Academic Freedom in Hong Kong under the National Security Law, noted the Chinese and Hong Kong governments had “reshaped multiple sectors and institutions so they become compliant to the Chinese government”.

The report pointed out that university administrations appear to have put up “little discernible resistance” to government pressure.

It is based on interviews conducted between October 2022 and June 2024 with 25 academics and eight students from all eight of the city’s publicly funded universities.

At least four academics, all of whom focus on China and Hong Kong issues, said they were unable to publish some of their work due to censorship.

Maya Wang, associate China director at HRW, who wrote the report, said: “The Chinese government considers gaining ideological control over Hong Kong’s universities a top priority, and many students and faculty now find themselves in the line of fire.”

Referring to various levels of constraint and self-censorship, Wang told University World News: “A lot of it is taking place quite subtly. There are only a few instances of direct censorship because of decisions made even before coming to that point.

“Now, students, academics, and administrators, especially those from Hong Kong studying contemporary socio-political issues, feel as if they are living under a microscope.”

According to the report: “They believe they must tread carefully, as any misstep as to what they say, research, write, teach, or publish, or with whom they partner, can potentially land them or those they associate with in serious trouble, resulting in a ripple of repercussions that could even land them in prison for years.”

Impact on scholarship

While there is “widespread agreement” among the students and academics interviewed by HRW that the campus environment has become significantly more repressive, interpretations differ on the impact on scholarship itself of the 2020 National Security Law.

Most of the interviews were carried out before the Hong Kong National Security Law, known as Article 23 of the Hong Kong Basic Law, was passed by the city’s legislature in March this year.

The law’s impact varies, with those from Hong Kong who are perceived to be pro-democracy, and those whose scholarship focuses on Hong Kong and China socio-political issues, bearing the brunt of the pressure, including censorship of their academic articles by university administrators and academic publishers, the report noted.

A small number of academics – those who teach physical sciences, are well-established in their fields, are not ethnically Chinese, or hold passports from major democracies – said they felt little or no pressure to self-censor.

But some academics who write on contemporary Hong Kong and Chinese politics feel the pressure to self-censor “at the moment of writing”.

One academic told HRW that it “is hard to articulate voices critical of the government. It’s not that you can’t criticise the government or the politicians … but likely that moment when you write, you have more worries”.

Wang explained: “The kind of academics who would otherwise have played a public role in Hong Kong society, now, increasingly, if at all, play a quieter, marginalised, more private role than in the past.”

She said a lot were staying silent as they try to gauge what could get them into trouble, and not only in the present.

“The crackdown in Hong Kong would continue and would be expected to go deeper, so people have to gauge what can get them into trouble in one or five years down the road. The uncertainty is an overwhelming feeling for a lot of academics,” she said.

Even talking to academics was a challenge for HRW.

“Since passage of the National Security Law, the risks for those speaking with international human rights organisations have significantly increased. As a result, identifying and accessing students securely for interviews became more difficult,” the report noted.

One Hong Kong academic half joked he was “risking his life” by being interviewed, while another withdrew her interview days afterwards, HRW said.

Impact on publishing academic papers

Academics have faced pressure from universities and academic publishers to withdraw articles on topics deemed “sensitive” in Hong Kong, such as writing about the 2019 mass protests.

In one rare case where the academic was named in the report – most interviews were anonymous – visual artist and academic Justin Wong said administrators at Hong Kong’s Baptist University reported him to the police in November 2021 for his academic writing which discussed the activist art of Hong Kong’s 2019 protests, a claim the university has denied.

Wong told HRW that his superior told him: “‘Your essay has problems’, because of what I wrote about the protests and some of the cartoons in it. He said it would be a bit sensitive … so I said … ‘If that’s the case then don’t distribute it.’ After several days, suddenly, my boss said the university had called the police.”

Wong added: “The university management didn’t talk to me, and my boss told me directly that the police had been contacted. As soon as they found out that the police had been contacted, the [publisher] withdrew the magazines and pretended nothing had happened.”

Another academic said they were unable to publish an article in an academic journal edited by a school at a Hong Kong university. “At the 11th hour, the editor told me she can't publish it because the head of the school told her it's too dangerous now. She didn't want to put the editorial team at risk,” the academic explained.

He found out afterwards the article had been dropped, apparently “because of pressure from the central government’s [Beijing’s] liaison office in Hong Kong”.

The head of the school told the academic he received emails and messages from the liaison office every day. The academic eventually published the article in a foreign language.

“This kind of censorship, and direct censorship, essentially moves sensitive topics from mainstream common knowledge to an increasingly more marginalised and smaller distribution. It’s not that these kinds of topics no longer exist, but in Hong Kong it used to be a very big part of common knowledge,” Wang told University World News.

A similar incident was reported by another academic with an academic publisher who decided not to print her article, which she described as being on a “mild” topic, just before it went to print, although she did not know the reasons for the decision.

“That [academic] publisher put a stop to it after I’ve already read the third galley [proof] … I had to agree … if they wouldn’t take it to be printed what can I do?” she told HRW, adding, “I don’t know if any [official] had contacted them about it. The publisher didn’t tell me. But we all know that at this point, if you keep going, there will be trouble.”

Similarly, an academic known only as ‘N’ said he withdrew publication of a book in Chinese because the publisher was worried about finding a printer, and the consequences.

“A publisher friend was very willing to publish it for me but he … said after publication there may be problems. Actually, there are problems even before publication.

“He said now it is not easy to get printing companies to print things. He said my book discusses Hong Kong activists who promote Hong Kong independence … the book may have to be edited before bringing it to the printer.

“So, along the way, I fear harming this friend, because this friend is also in academia, so I said let’s not print it …,” said N.

Beyond Hong Kong’s borders

Censorship and pressure to withdraw articles has reached beyond borders as some publications are published by foreign universities and distributed globally, HRW pointed out.

“I have a paper coming out … But I know that two of the other authors of that paper are still working in Hong Kong. And we had a discussion about whether this would affect us,” an expat academic told HRW.

“‘Is this safe? Are we going to get reported for this?’ ... There’s just this sense of fear,” he said.

Wang said: “The transformation of Hong Kong’s universities has implications far beyond the city. It’s about how the world understands China at this critical time when the Chinese government's influence globally is raising a lot of concern and interest.”

Referring to Hong Kong’s unique past during which it had few barriers to access and it fell outside of the Chinese government’s control, Wang said: “It is at this time that Hong Kong, which has played an enormously important role as a window into China, has closed, in particular, in the form of the space of academia, and that has implications for how the world understands Chinese history, politics, economy, technology, and you name it.

“That space has been important, especially as the world is eager for knowledge about China as it takes on an increasingly global role, and as the Chinese government is increasingly manipulating and controlling such knowledge.”