A History of Student Movements at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (1960s–2010s)

⚠️ This article belongs to the wild-history module (14 — Student Movements). It compiles events supported by multiple sources, presenting different accounts in neutral, attributed language, and does not adjudicate any position. Highly politicised campus conflicts from 2019 onward are treated as a sensitive touchpoint under §6.2; this article does not narrate them. Related external sources are listed in 18-wilder-movements/source-directory.md.

Content concerning identifiable living individuals is anonymised as "Mr./Ms. [Surname]"; historical names and publicly documented events are recorded according to their sources.

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# I. Background: the "Fiery Years" (1960s)

In 1960s Hong Kong, a range of social tensions gave rise to an awakening of political consciousness among students:

• After the 1966–1967 Hong Kong riots, local young people began to reflect critically on colonial rule;
• university students began taking part in grassroots community surveys (the "community concern" movement), going into neighbourhoods to learn about labour and poverty issues;
• international left-wing currents of thought (France's May 1968, the US anti-war movement) also reached Hong Kong campuses;
• a "Know China" movement emerged among students, forming the social basis for the later Chinese Language Campaign.

CUHK students (then belonging to the three constituent colleges — Chung Chi College, New Asia College, and United College) were one of the important participating forces in Hong Kong's student movements during this period, forming, together with HKU students, a group of "student elite" activists.

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# II. The Chinese Language Campaign (1968–1974)

# 2.1 Course of the movement

According to a Cambridge China Quarterly academic paper^※, the "Chinese Language Campaign" emerged around 1968, calling for Chinese (encompassing written Cantonese and Chinese) to be given legal status as an official language of Hong Kong alongside English.

The movement formed a united front made up of three main forces:

1. the "Hong Kong-wide Working Group for Chinese as an Official Language" — representing approximately 298 organisations;
2. a joint committee formed by thirteen youth magazines and student organisations;
3. the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) — an alliance of student unions from tertiary institutions, of which the CUHK Student Union was a member.

According to academic sources, the movement gained broad social support in the early 1970s — a territory-wide petition launched by the above united front collected approximately 332,400 signatures, close to one-tenth of Hong Kong's total population at the time.

# 2.2 Outcome

In 1974, the Hong Kong colonial government formally made Chinese one of the official languages (on a par with English) — the movement's key outcome. The formalisation of Chinese's status carried both symbolic and substantive significance at the level of law and government documents.

According to academic research, the movement began with language-rights demands and, in its later stages, developed broader local identity and anti-colonial nationalist sentiment; some participants' political orientation shifted toward support for Chinese reunification. Different participants have since offered differing interpretations of the movement's character.

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# III. The 1989 June Fourth Events and the Response of Hong Kong Students

# 3.1 Collective action by Hong Kong students

According to an Ohio State Origins academic article^※, the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) was one of the first organisations in Hong Kong to publicly voice support for the Beijing student movement:

• raising funds from students to support the movement;
• sending a delegation to Beijing to observe the situation firsthand;
• helping organise, in late May 1989, what was reportedly the largest solidarity march in Hong Kong's history (estimated participation of 600,000 to 1,000,000).

CUHK students took part in these activities through the Student Union.

# 3.2 Tradition of June Fourth commemoration

After 1989, CUHK became one of the important sites for June Fourth commemoration activities in Hong Kong: each year, the Student Union and related groups organised commemorative events on campus, including forums and candlelight vigils.

Note: changes in the situation surrounding June Fourth commemorations in Hong Kong after 2020 are a highly politicised matter and are not narrated in this article; related media sources can be found in the site's link directory (see the §6.2 rule).

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# IV. The Chinese University Student Press (CUSP): From a Tri-College Joint Publication to an Independent Press

According to Wikipedia^※ and a Chinese Wikipedia entry^※, the Chinese University Student Press (CUSP) is published by the CUHK Student Union and is one of Hong Kong's longer-running university student publications, known for its sustained coverage of social issues and, at times, contentious content.

# 4.1 Origins: from "tri-college joint publication" to independent press (1967–1975)

The origins of the CUHK Student Press predate the CUHK Student Union, which was founded in 1971. According to a compilation of Wikipedia sources, its predecessor can be traced to the "Chung Chi–New Asia–United Joint Student Press" of late 1967 — jointly published by the student unions of the three constituent colleges, Chung Chi, New Asia, and United College. The formally named Chinese University Student Press Joint Publication began on 3 October 1969, with an editorial board formed jointly by editors from the three colleges; this joint arrangement continued until the end of 1970. Following the 1971 founding of the CUHK Student Union, the publication came formally under the Union's executive committee, and the word "joint" was dropped from its name. From 1975, the press became independent of the executive committee and was instead run by a cabinet of an editor-in-chief and managing editor elected by universal student vote — forming the basic structure that persisted for decades afterward: an editorial board of 8 to 12 elected members, holding a status comparable to the Student Union's executive committee and CUHK's campus radio station, all being student organisations elected by the entire undergraduate body.

In terms of format, sources indicate the publication used a large-format "octavo" newspaper layout from 1969 to 1978; from volume 11 in 1979, it changed to a "sixteen-mo" magazine format; after March 2024, it became an online-only publication.

# 4.2 Recurring controversies: not only the 2007 incident

The history of the CUHK Student Press includes more than one controversy — not only the 2007 incident:

• The 2004 "profanity" incident: the Student Press published an article headline containing coarse language, drawing reaction both on and off campus; the press subsequently published a response article in November 2004.
• The 2007 sexuality-section controversy (detailed in the section below): the most widely felt and longest-running of these controversies.
• The 2015 "Ma Liu Shui Press" incident: according to sources, the executive committee formed a campus reporting team on its own initiative, and its operation was subsequently characterised as an organisation that did not conform to procedure.
• The 2017 election controversy: two cabinets, 「破駢」("Po Pin") and 「螢」("Ying"), contested the editor-in-chief and managing editor positions that year; the process involved alleged electoral irregularities, and the result was ultimately overturned and re-run.

# 4.3 The 2007 sexuality-section controversy

According to Wikipedia^※, in May 2007 the CUHK Student Press was named by multiple newspapers over a section containing "sexuality"-related content (including a survey on sexual behaviour; the section had, according to sources, been introduced in December 2006), triggering broad public attention and debate in Hong Kong:

• the points of contention included: the boundaries of freedom of expression and publication for campus publications, the university's handling of the matter and its educational responsibility, and media involvement in student self-governed publishing.
• The university ultimately decided not to discipline the students involved.
• At the court level: a High Court judge ruled that the relevant classification application (for an "indecent" rating) was not established, and set aside the interim classification order concerning the CUHK Student Press and Ming Pao.
• The episode ran from approximately May 2007 to October 2008.

According to the positions of the various parties, the university held that content management for student publications should have clear boundaries; the Student Press maintained its editorial autonomy; some public opinion held that the content exceeded acceptable limits, while other opinion characterised outside intervention as press censorship. No conclusion was reached.

# 4.4 The press's fate after the Student Union's dissolution (2021–2022)

According to a compilation of sources, after the CUHK Student Union announced its dissolution in 2021 (detailed in the section below), the CUHK Student Press, as an affiliated society of the Union, simultaneously lost its original clubroom and funding source. On 11 August 2022, the press was renamed University Community Press and re-registered as a university-affiliated society — a student publication born from the 1967 tri-college joint publication and carrying an independent-press tradition of more than half a century has, since then, continued under a new name and new organisational affiliation.

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# V. The 2014 Umbrella Movement: The Class Boycott Began at CUHK

According to a compilation of Wikipedia and RFA sources, on 22 September 2014, a class boycott initiated by the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) began, with more than 13,000 tertiary students and staff gathering at CUHK, calling for genuine universal suffrage by 2017 and for the withdrawal of the National People's Congress's "31 August Decision" — CUHK's University Mall (see the related landmark discussed below) thereby became one of the launch points of this territory-wide movement.

The boycott subsequently converged with secondary-school organisations such as Scholarism into what became known as the "雙學" ("Double Student") coalition, and on the night of 26 September 2014 developed into the "Reclaiming Civic Square" action, which triggered a 79-day occupation (commonly known as the "Umbrella Movement"), ending with the full clearance of the Causeway Bay and Tamar Legislative Council protest sites on 15 December of the same year. According to estimates from a CUHK poll, approximately 1.2 million people across Hong Kong (roughly one-sixth of the population) took part in some form during the course of the movement; more than 20% of respondents said they had personally visited an occupation site.

CUHK students (through the Student Union, HKFS representatives, and spontaneous participation) were one of the significant participating groups in this movement. According to sources, the movement itself spanned multiple institutions and social strata and was not initiated or led solely by CUHK students; CUHK's role as the boycott's starting point gives it a distinct place in the collective memory of the movement.

The specific course of the Umbrella Movement, the demands of the various parties, and its subsequent political impact extend far beyond the campus and constitute a major event in Hong Kong's social history; this article records only CUHK's role at the movement's launch stage and does not offer political commentary on the movement's full course. Campus-related political events after 2019 fall outside this article's scope per house style; see the Module 18 link directory.

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# VI. The CUHK Student Union (1971–2021)

According to an HKFP report^※, the CUHK Student Union was founded in 1971 and went through major historical moments including the Chinese Language Campaign, the 1989 response to June Fourth, and the 2014 Umbrella Movement.

In 2021, the CUHK Student Union announced its dissolution. According to HKFP, a former Student Union leader was quoted as saying the union was forced to dissolve "in such an ugly way."

The specific circumstances of the Student Union's 2021 dissolution involve the political situation in Hong Kong at the time and are a highly politicised matter; this article records only the founding/dissolution years and a publicly quoted statement from a former member, without narrating the events in detail (related external links are in Module 18).

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