2021/22 Seminars

The securitisation of education in contemporary China – insights from Hong Kong and beyond

9th March 2022

Time: 4:00pm – 5:30pm
Room: W3.08
Venue: Institute of Education, University College London – 20, Bedford Way, WC1H 0AL, London 

Speaker: Professor Edward Vickers, Kyushu University, Japan
Discussant: Professor Steve Tsang, SOAS University of London
Chair: Dr Tejendra Pherali, IOE, Faculty of Education and Society, University College London

The implications of Hong Kong’s National Security Law (NSL), which came into force in July 2020, are still being worked out in many spheres – not least education. During the protests of 2019-2020, schools and universities were widely blamed by ‘patriots’ for fomenting sedition among Hong Kong youth. In the aftermath of those protests, the NSL mandated an educational overhaul designed to ensure the inculcation of loyalty to China’s Communist regime. In this talk, I discuss various measures introduced under the auspices of the NSL, and how these have been justified by the authorities and by ‘patriotic’ voices locally and on the mainland. I argue that Hong Kong’s cultural distinctiveness has in fact never been acknowledged by Beijing, and that this partly explains the tensions bedevilling Hong Kong-mainland relations. The latest legal and educational measures go further than ever in delegitimating any meaningful conception of ‘Hongkongese’ distinctiveness. Rather than assuaging conflict and tension, this is likely to entrench and exacerbate alienation and resentment. Hong Kong’s experience also reflects a broader pattern in the CCP’s dealings with restive populations on its borders (e.g. in Xinjiang) and in the role assigned to education in propagating a monolithic, neotraditionalist and strongly Han-centric vision of ‘Chineseness’. Under the NSL, Hong Kong has thus been drawn into a wider securitisation of education in contemporary China that highlights the colonial (or neocolonial) features of CCP governance. These recent developments in China also underline the narrow eurocentrism of the outlook, widely prevalent today in the field of educational studies, that equates ‘coloniality’ with Western culture, or ‘hegemony’ with Western dominance.

Professor Edward Vickers is Professor of Comparative Education at Kyushu University in Japan, where he also holds the UNESCO Chair on Education for Peace, Social Justice and Global Citizenship. He researches the history and politics of education in contemporary East Asia, especially in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland PRC, as well as the relationship between heritage and identity politics in East Asian societies. He is author (with Zeng Xiaodong) of Education and Society in Post-Mao China (2017), and co-editor of Remembering Asia’s World War Two (2019). He is currently President of the Comparative Education Society of Asia.

Professor Steve Tsang is the Director of SOAS China Institute at SOAS University of London.  His research interests focus on Twentieth-century Chinese history; Chinese foreign policy; China’s ‘peaceful rise’ strategy; China’s rising military might; China’s soft power; China-UK relations; China-EU relations; China-US relations; China-Taiwan relations; China-Asia relations; Chinese politics; nature of political system in China; the Chinese Communist Party and democracy; human rights in China; Taiwan politics; Taiwan’s external relations; Taiwan’s democratisation; Taiwan’s security; US-Taiwan relations; Hong Kong politics; Hong Kong’s relations with mainland China; colonial history of Hong Kong.

Professor Tsang is a frequent commentator for the BBC, including for programmes like Newsnight, BBC One News, BBC News Channel, Today, BBC World Service’s various programmes such as Newshour and World Tonight. He has also appeared on Sky News, Channel 4 News, Channel 5 News, Voice of America, France 24, Channel News Asia, CNBC, Al Jazeera and Russia Today.

Dr Tejendra Pherali is Associate Professor in Education and International Development at the IOE – Faculty of Education and Society, University College London, UK. He currently leads the research theme on Education, Conflict and Peacebuilding within the Centre for Education and International Development and is the Programme Leader for the MA Education and International Development: Conflict, Emergencies and Peace. He is involved in research projects that focus on access to and quality of learning in conflict-affected and humanitarian situations, including Afghanistan, Lebanon, Myanmar, Nepal and Thailand. He is the Chair of British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE) and the Editorial Board of Compare. He is also the editor of Education and Conflict Review.

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