The Founding Vision Clash: Ch’ien Mu, Vice-Chancellor Li Choh-ming, and the 1965 Resignation

⚠️ This article belongs to the Wild History module (13: University Governance and Restructuring). It draws on multiple sources to reconstruct a founding-era philosophical rift, presenting each side’s claims through attributed statements without adjudicating between them. The scholars involved (Ch’ien Mu, Li Choh-ming, Tang Chun-i, and others) are deceased; their names are recorded in full, based on publicly available historical materials. This article focuses on the divergence in educational philosophy and its personnel consequences. It forms a complementary pair with The Fulton Reform, which details the “centralisation vs. autonomy” tension at the institutional level.

# 1. From Alliance to Rift: A Neglected Prelude

When discussing the falling-out between Ch’ien Mu and Li Choh-ming, it is easy to imagine “two men at odds from the very start.” The historical record offers a more intriguing picture: in the earliest planning stages for CUHK, Ch’ien Mu was actually among Li Choh-ming’s supporters.

• Mr. Ch’ien Mu: Founder of New Asia College (for the college’s founding history, see 10-colleges/new-asia-college.md). According to the Wikipedia entry for New Asia College^※, he founded New Asia College in Hong Kong in 1949 (initially named the Asia College of Arts and Commerce; it was reorganised, renamed, and relocated to a campus on Kweilin Street in Sham Shui Po, Kowloon, in March 1950). He dedicated roughly sixteen years of his life to building the institution, becoming a spiritual leader among émigré scholars and making the preservation and reconstruction of Chinese culture his life’s mission.
• Mr. Li Choh-ming (1912–1991): According to the English Wikipedia^※, he was the founding Vice-Chancellor of CUHK (his tenure reportedly began in February 1964 and continued until September 1978). An economist by training, he taught at the University of California, Berkeley, before coming to Hong Kong, bringing with him international academic prestige and administrative experience.

As documented in Chinese Wikipedia and related historical sources^※, Ch’ien Mu was one of the figures who strongly advocated for a Chinese scholar to serve as Vice-Chancellor and specifically supported Li Choh-ming for the inaugural role—a fact often obscured by the later narrative of “opposition.” In other words, the two were not initially adversaries: Ch’ien Mu held high hopes for a Chinese-led university and was once optimistic about Li’s appointment. Yet, after the three Colleges federated to form the University, cracks in their educational philosophies gradually surfaced, ultimately pushing this early alliance towards a breaking point.

This prelude is laid out in full to dismantle an overly dramatised imagining. The rift between Ch’ien Mu and Li Choh-ming was not a case of “instant antagonism” but rather a tension that grew, within a shared enterprise, from fundamentally different answers to the question: “What should this university be?”

# 2. A Clash of Visions: The “Special” vs. the “Ordinary” Chinese University

Drawing from a compilation of related historical materials^※ and CUHK’s official “Master Profiles: Mr. Ch'ien Mu”^※, the core of their disagreement can be distilled into these two contrasting answers:

According to accounts of Ch’ien Mu’s vision: Ch’ien Mu hoped to establish a “special Chinese cultural university”—one that would integrate Western learning into the main body of Chinese culture, positioning the University as a bastion for inheriting and promoting Chinese culture. The primacy of Chinese culture was the crux of his ideal. This was consistent with the educational mission he had set for New Asia College: to “trace the lecturing spirit of the Song and Ming academies upwards and adopt the tutorial systems of Western European universities laterally,” bridging Chinese and Western cultures through a humanistic education.

According to accounts of Li Choh-ming’s vision: Li Choh-ming was more inclined to build an “ordinary Chinese university” (meaning a modern, comprehensive university with a predominantly Chinese student body and staff). He placed greater emphasis on aligning with international norms, efficiency, and modern academic standards, rather than treating a “cultural mission” as the sole guiding principle.

This divergence was not simple personal friction; it was a collision of two conceptions of a university: one viewing the university as a vessel for cultural transmission (Ch’ien Mu), and the other as an engine for modern knowledge production (Li Choh-ming). Both visions had their legitimacy, but they proved difficult to fully reconcile within the governance of a single institution—especially when resources, academic structures, and authority all required unified planning. At each concrete decision point, “culture as the foundation” and “modern regulation as the foundation” were bound to clash head-on.

It is intriguing to note that Vice-Chancellor Li Choh-ming himself formally proposed, in 1967, the university’s mission statement to “combine tradition with modernity, and to bring together China and the West”—a formulation that, in fact, accommodates both the cultural and modern dimensions. This suggests the divergence lay less in absolute opposition and more in the question of which element would take precedence and how this would be implemented in practical governance. This archive presents both accounts side-by-side and does not rule on which was “more correct.”

# 3. The Key Institutional Detail: The Joint Meetings of College Heads and “Show of Hands”

Why did this philosophical clash ultimately escalate into a resignation? A crucial, often overlooked institutional mechanism was at play—the joint meetings of the three College Heads.

According to an account collated by rujiazg.com^※ and related historical sources^※:

• After Li Choh-ming’s arrival, the Heads of New Asia, Chung Chi, and United Colleges convened a joint meeting once a week.
• Per this account, at these meetings, “if a difference of opinion arose, it was resolved by a show of hands, passed on the spot, with no opportunity for further discussion.”
• Under a mechanism of “one vote per college, majority rule,” once New Asia’s proposals were voted down, there was little room for manoeuvre.

This procedure, seemingly neutral and efficient, was a structural defeat for Ch’ien Mu: the “New Asia spirit” and cultural ideals he championed, once they failed to convince the other two Colleges, were vetoed in meeting after meeting of on-the-spot voting. According to the account, Ch’ien Mu consequently felt he was “drifting further and further from his own educational ideal,” witnessing the gradual erosion of the “New Asia spirit,” and finding that “everything was at odds with the principles of personal conduct he had held all his life.”

This is the critical link where a “philosophical dispute” became a “governance dispute”: the divergence was not over abstract slogans but played out in a weekly conference room, via a snap show of hands. When a cultural ideal must yield to a majority vote, and that vote offers “no opportunity for further discussion,” those who insist on the ideal are left with only two paths—compromise, or depart. This institutional tension is, in fact, an early manifestation of the same structural conflict described in The Fulton Reform: “college autonomy vs. centralisation.”

# An Interlude Requiring Restraint: The Dispute over Scholarly Lineage

During this period, there is a separate, informal account concerning academic factionalism. According to the article on rujiazg.com^※, some commentators partly attribute Ch’ien Mu’s intention to leave to differences among New Asia colleagues over “scholarly succession.” One view prioritised the continuation of a specific teacher-student lineage, while Ch’ien Mu reportedly held the attitude that “anyone can learn scholarship—why must it be divided into schools and factions?”

This section touches upon private relationships and disagreements among the university’s founding scholars. It relies heavily on one party’s recounting, and matters of motivation are difficult to verify. This archive documents the existence of a “verifiable difference in views on scholarly lineage” but does not adopt or reiterate any speculation assigning motives such as “ostracism” or “purges” to named scholars—such readings lack reliable primary archival support and conflict with this archive’s principle of “document the events, present the accounts, refrain from imputing motive.” All scholars involved have passed away; such judgments are best left to historians with access to more complete records. Credibility note: this section is drawn from a single-source second-hand account and is recorded here only as a contingent narrative.

# 4. The 1965 Resignation: Forgoing a Pension as a Statement of Principle

The accumulated frustrations of philosophical divergence and institutional defeats finally led to a personal denouement in 1965.

According to the Wikipedia entry for New Asia College^※, Ch’ien Mu served as the founding Head of New Asia College from 1949, resigning in June 1965. He was succeeded by Wu Chun-sheng as the second College Head, beginning in July 1965.

Regarding the specifics of the resignation, chinanews.com^※ and rujiazg.com^※ recount a widely circulated detail:

According to this account, when Ch’ien Mu tendered his resignation, he was reportedly informed: if he chose to “resign,” the unpaid salary owed to him since New Asia’s establishment could not be compensated; if he chose to “retire,” he would not only receive the back pay but also a pension amounting to “several hundred thousand Hong Kong dollars.” Yet Ch’ien Mu chose to forgo this pension and insisted on leaving by “resignation” rather than “retirement,” as a statement of principle.

This choice—to sacrifice a pension and opt for resignation—has been seen by many commentators as a reflection of Ch’ien Mu’s character and stance. What he sought was not the benefits of a graceful exit but the act of “resigning” itself, a gesture to signify his disapproval of the university’s direction at the time.

A necessary verification note: The specific sum of the “several hundred thousand” pension and the details of the dialogue appear primarily in second-hand accounts (memoirs and critical biographies). Details may vary. Credibility: corroborated by multiple sources (though the financial figure is a second-hand quotation). However, the basic historical fact—that “Ch’ien Mu resigned as Head of New Asia College in 1965″—is supported by official and multiple sources and is beyond doubt.

Ch’ien Mu’s resignation marked a concrete eruption of the tension between the founding-era “cultural idealists” and the “modern institutionalists.” Historical records show this departure was of a piece with New Asia College’s vehement opposition to the later 1976 Fulton Reform—which culminated in the collective protest resignation of nine Council members, led by Ch’ien Mu and Tang Chun-i (see fulton-reform-and-college-autonomy.md). New Asia’s wariness of centralisation shared a deep spiritual continuity with its founding scholars’ insistence on the primacy of a college-based culture. In other words, Ch’ien Mu’s personal “resignation” in 1965 and New Asia’s collective “resignation” in 1976 were two echoes, eleven years apart, of the same persistent conviction.

# 5. Historical Assessment: A Dual Legacy Behind the Rift

The divergence between Ch’ien Mu and Li Choh-ming should not be reduced to a simple matter of who was right and who was wrong. In the long arc of history, each left a significant legacy:

Ch’ien Mu’s Legacy: He infused CUHK with a spiritual gene of “Chinese culture as the foundation.” This gene is manifest in the New Asia spirit, the humanistic tradition of the college system, the Institute of Chinese Studies and its Art Museum (see 05-campus/art-museum-and-institute-of-chinese-studies.md), and even the spatial tribute to his “Unity of Heaven and Man” philosophy at the Pavilion of Harmony on the New Asia campus (see 15-campus-lore/ju-ming-gate-and-pavilion-of-harmony.md). To this day, it remains a cultural hallmark that distinguishes CUHK from other Hong Kong universities.

Li Choh-ming’s Legacy: As the founding Vice-Chancellor, he spent more than a decade laying the institutional skeleton for a modern, comprehensive research university—its disciplinary structures, administrative regulations, and international connections, along with foundational acts like the 1964 adoption of the motto “博文約禮” (“Through learning and temperance to virtue”) and the first conferral of degrees. Without this modern framework, CUHK could not have grown into the world-class university it is today.

CUHK’s later self-definition—to “combine tradition with modernity, and to bring together China and the West”—is, in a sense, the product of the long-term tension and eventual synthesis of these two forces: Ch’ien Mu’s “cultural ideal” and Li Choh-ming’s “modern institution.” The founding-era clash of visions is therefore not a footnote about “internal strife” but the first formative act in the shaping of CUHK’s identity.

This through-line of tension—cultural primacy versus modern institution—belongs to the same spiritual lineage that this archive repeatedly traces: “Chinese mission vs. internationalisation” and “college autonomy vs. centralisation.” They all feed into answering the fundamental question that has run through CUHK’s half-century: How, precisely, should a “Chinese University” situate the two words “Chinese” and “modern/international”?

A necessary note of restraint: In popular discourse, the rift between Ch’ien Mu and Li Choh-ming is occasionally given a dramatic spin, sensationalised as a “personal feud” or “factional power struggle.” Drawing on official records and reliable second-hand sources, this archive records only the traceable factual backbone: “a philosophical divergence + repeated defeats in joint-meeting votes + the 1965 resignation (including the account of the forfeited pension).” It presents the two men’s educational philosophies side-by-side using attributed statements, does not endorse either side’s interpretation, and does not speculate on the personal motives of the individuals involved. Both founding figures have passed away; judgments on their disagreements are best left to historians working with more comprehensive primary archives, not settled by this archive. This is also the consistent approach of this archive when handling sensitive institutional history involving “disagreements among past masters”: document the events, present the accounts, refrain from imputing motive.

Related reading: New Asia College In-Depth Archive (including the Kweilin Street hardships), The Fulton Reform and College Autonomy, The Language of Instruction and Internationalisation Debate, The Pavilion of Harmony and “Unity of Heaven and Man”, The University’s Founding Origins.