Rocky Tuan: I’ve had a hard time at CUHK, but I’ve got no regrets

Few university leaders can have had more external challenges thrown their way during their tenures than Rocky Tuan.

Appointed president of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in 2018 after three and a half decades as a biomedical researcher in the US, just 18 months later the city was shaken by pro-democracy protests. Amid growing unrest, by November 2019 CUHK’s campus was on the front line, with more than 100 students injured in a confrontation with the police, despite Professor Tuan’s attempts to negotiate with the authorities.

Violence was quelled only by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to strict lockdowns and limits on international mobility.

Coming against a backdrop of mounting tensions between China and the US, and lingering discontent in Hong Kong over the 2020 imposition of the national security law, the result was a brain drain of scholarly talent from the city and a perception that the academic freedom that was once cherished there was no more.

More recently, Hong Kong’s legislature pushed through a controversial bill reducing the representation of academics on CUHK’s governing council, which local media linked to legislators’ opinion that Professor Tuan had been too soft on the 2019 protesters.

Announcing his departure at the start of 2024, Professor Tuan said the new governance structure made it an “opportune moment” for him to step down.

But as he prepared to pass the baton next month to CUHK medicine professor Dennis Lo Yuk-ming, Hong Kong-born and raised Professor Tuan told Times Higher Education that he had “no regrets” from his time as president, even if he acknowledged that he had had a “hard time”.

“I came here to do my best for Hong Kong and the university, and I think I made some contributions, and I’m happy with that,” he said, pointing to the introduction of a new course in “grand challenges of the 21st century” for all students at CUHK – which was formed in the model of US liberal arts colleges, in contrast to the British colonial-era heritage of most of Hong Kong’s universities – and efforts to bring Chinese and American higher education leaders together through a now-annual Sino-US University Presidents’ Dialogue.

In terms of the future, Professor Tuan accepted that, while Hong Kong’s universities retained great academic strengths, they could face challenges as geopolitical tensions impeded research in potentially sensitive areas such as artificial intelligence and semiconductor chips.

“We have a sort of black mark [in the Western media] right now, and so it might make it difficult for us to attract international talent,” said Professor Tuan. “On the other hand, the US is doing the ‘China initiative’ [targeting Chinese academics], so we have a lot of China expats who are pretty fed up with Uncle Sam and they’re thinking of alternatives. Returning to China is one; coming to Hong Kong is another one. How can we take advantage of that?

“Personally, I don’t think Hong Kong is taking full advantage of it as yet…That’s something we need to improve on.”

Perceptions of academic freedom are likely to be key in attracting scientific talent, and Professor Tuan argued that now in Hong Kong it was “not as good as before, but largely OK”.

“It ought to be something we pay attention to, for sure,” he said. “But on the other hand, I have always been impressed by how academics can manoeuvre around things…There are ways to get around things, and throughout history that has been the case.

“Yes, there are possibly some hurdles, but I don’t think they are impossible to overcome.”

Reflecting on the challenges that he had faced during his presidency, Professor Tuan emphasised that universities were meant to be “apolitical” and said that external interference was one reason why he had decided, after seven years as president, to return to his research.  

“I think the university largely appreciates what I have done, but when there is turbulence you are bound to ruffle some people out of their comfort zone and they look [out] for their own interests,” he said.

He added: “Universities need leaders who know universities, and therein lies where politics meets academia. Politicians tend to like to control things, whereas universities are a symbol of liberal thinking [and the] search for the truth. I think those things need to be also maintained and kept.”

Nevertheless, Professor Tuan insisted that Hong Kong still had “tremendous potential”, not least in higher education, given its “unique” culture and history as a bridge between East and West.

“I think those must be preserved in order for Hong Kong to be able to play a role in the world,” he said.

chris.havergal@timeshighereducation.com