Written by Joyce Lau and Calvin Yang, International Herald Tribune
HONG KONG — While there are plenty of academic institutions looking to enter China, the University of Macau is taking a more radical approach: It is abandoning its current campus and relocating entirely to Zhuhai, just across the mainland Chinese border.
That means moving 10,000 students and faculty, 650,000 books and about 60 laboratories. But what is most striking is that the new campus will be governed by the laws of Macau, not Beijing, despite its location.
Macau, like Hong Kong, is a former European colony that returned to Chinese rule in the 1990s, but is governed semiautonomously. The two cities have their own currencies, passports and border control, as well as freedoms like uncensored Internet access.
When classes start in September, the University of Macau’s new campus — still under construction on about a square kilometer, or roughly 250 acres, on Hengqin Island in southern Guangdong Province — will be “handed over” to Macau governance in accordance with a 2009 bill by the National People’s Congress in Beijing.
Students, most of whom will be from Macau, will gain access to the new campus via an underwater tunnel without the usual immigration checks. Concrete barriers will cut it off from the rest of China. The setup is one reason the campus will have its own fire and police stations.
It will also have an online hookup — including 3,800 WiFi hotspots — exempt from the restrictions commonly known as the Great Firewall of China.
“As the new campus will be under the jurisdiction of Macau, Internet and telecommunications services will continue to be provided by Macau providers,” said Wei Zhao, the University of Macau’s rector. “What students can access in the current campus will be accessible in the new campus, YouTube and Facebook included,” he said, referring to two popular Web sites blocked on the mainland.
China has made exceptions to Internet censorship before, during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, for example. And in terms of governance, there are some gray areas along the Hong Kong and Macau borders, mostly at customs checkpoints.
But experts interviewed for this article said there was no recent precedence for a chunk of Chinese land being passed to another legal jurisdiction in this manner, and certainly not for the sake of academic freedom.
While many professors and students in China find ways to jump the firewall, no other mainland campus has its own officially uncensored Internet connection.
Jorge A.F. Godinho, an associate professor at the University of Macau’s law faculty, called it a “curious situation.”
“This piece of land is not legally an enlargement of Macau, but in practice, it is,” he said. “There won’t be a border or Internet censorship or anything.”
But he added that in historic terms, “it’s an interesting twist.” “If there’s a crime committed, Macau law applies and Macau courts will rule on it,” he said.
The Macau government has paid 1.2 billion Macau patacas, or about $150 million, for a 40-year lease. It is also funding the new 9.8 billion-pataca construction.
What is also curious is the temporary nature of the agreement — as if laws can be turned on and off, for a given time frame, for a given price.
“It’s not permanent. It’s a rental — and Macau is paying” Dr. Godinho said.
The lease expires in 2049, the same year that the “one country, two systems” agreement giving Macau semi-autonomous governance ends.
Entering the Chinese market
Foreign universities have long been interested in entering the Chinese market, despite bureaucratic hurdles and concerns about academic freedom.
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Nanjing University opened a Center for Chinese and American Studies in 1986 in Nanjing.
In 2004, the University of Nottingham Ningbo, a collaboration with a British institution, became the country’s first official Chinese-foreign university campus.
New York University’s new Shanghai campus is opening in September. But it came under criticism when Chen Guangcheng — a dissident who first found refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and later at N.Y.U.’s main U.S. campus — said in June that he was forced out because the N.Y.U. administration was worried about its relations with China, a claim the university denied.
The Juilliard School in New York, an elite performing arts academy, is planning to open its first overseas branch in Tianjin, a city outside Beijing, in 2016, though its China branch will not grant degrees. Duke University in North Carolina is scheduled to open Duke Kunshan University in a city outside Shanghai.
Other institutions have opted for research outposts. The Harvard Center Shanghai and the University of Chicago Center in Beijing opened in 2010, followed by the Stanford Center at Peking University in 2012. In the same vein, the University of Pennsylvania is planning a Penn Wharton China Center in Beijing.
They should not hold their breath if they are looking for an exemption from Chinese law.
Fu Hualing, a constitutional scholar at the University of Hong Kong and an expert on Chinese cross-border legal relations, said that in terms of governance, the University of Macau case was “not the same as China renting a place to a foreign university.”
Making space
Hong Kong universities are extending into Shenzhen and Zhuhai, border towns that boomed after they were given exceptional funding and economic freedoms in the 1980s as “special economic zones.”
The appeal is obvious: Hong Kong and Macau have soaring real estate prices and limited land supply, while Guangdong has affordable real estate nearby. Local mainland governments, eager to introduce university options in an area where there were few or none before, have sweetened the deal with funding and generous land-use agreements.
The University of Macau’s new campus will be nearly 20 times the size of the old one, where there is no room for growth.
“Right now, because we have no space, the students attend classes here and after that, they go home,” said Dr. Zhao, the rector. “When we move to the new campus on Hengqin Island, students can live, eat, play and study on campus. They will be able to enjoy a complete college life.”
But there is more to college life than bigger dorms and better facilities. Students and academics in Hong Kong and Macau are free to discuss politically sensitive events and criticize the government. Universities are now waiting to see what happens with campuses that straddle the border.
“The whole point is that there is greater integration between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau,” said Dr. Fu, the expert on cross-border relations. “Hong Kong and Macau will be asserting greater influence on the area.”
“In the 1980s, Shenzhen was an economic experiment,” he added. “Now, this is a governance experiment.”
The joint ventures that already exist seem to be a hybrid of Hong Kong’s more open education system and the mainland’s more restrictive one.
The United International College in Zhuhai, established by Hong Kong Baptist University and Beijing Normal University in 2005, teaches mostly in English, follows Baptist’s curriculum and grants Baptist University undergraduate degrees.
When asked about politically sensitive fields of study, Chai Hi-Hing, a U.I.C. spokesman, said that “courses such as international relations, journalism, political science etc., are taught in the same way as they do at H.K.B.U. as well as Western universities.” He added that the college president did not report to the local Communist Party committee, which is normal practice in China.
However, “as far as the Internet access is concerned, it is out of our control,” he said.
Zhuhai has promised more land for a new campus, which would accommodate an additional 6,000 undergraduates and 2,000 postgraduates, Mr. Chai said.
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, which has two research institutes on the mainland, signed an agreement in March with Shenzhen University to establish a campus there. Shenzhen will allow use of about one square kilometer of land and pay for the first phase of development.
Xu Yangsheng, pro-vice chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, wrote in an e-mail that there was an “expressed provision for academic freedom to be protected” in the agreement, but would not divulge details.
He said it “would not likely” be an issue at the Shenzhen outpost, which would operate independently from Hong Kong and recruit mostly mainland students.
Shenzhen has also funded the opening of the University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital, a 2,000-bed facility that cost 4 billion renminbi, taking pressure off Queen Mary, a Hong Kong teaching hospital. While the University of Hong Kong has research and learning centers on the mainland, plans for a proposed campus are still in the air.
Dr. Fu said that cross-border collaboration could be seen as “good news,” but also as a potentially “sticky issue.”
The relationship will probably not be tested until a university comes face to face with a politically sensitive issue.
“There is a bridge that is governed by Hong Kong law, but the water it passes over is governed by Chinese law,” Dr. Fu said. “So what happens if someone falls off the bridge into the water?”
Calvin Yang reported from Macau and Zhuhai, China.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: July 16, 2013
An earlier version of this article stated that almost 300 laboratories would be moved from the old University of Macau campus to its new home. While the new campus will have almost 300 laboratories in total, only about 60 of those will be moved from the old campus. It also stated that the land lease would be for 50 years; it will be for 40 years. The cost of constructing the new campus will be 9.8 billion patacas, not 9.8 million patacas, as previously stated, and will be paid entirely by the Macau government.
Published in The New York Times on 16 Jul, 2013
HONG KONG — While there are plenty of academic institutions looking to enter China, the University of Macau is taking a more radical approach: It is abandoning its current campus and relocating entirely to Zhuhai, just across the mainland Chinese border.
That means moving 10,000 students and faculty, 650,000 books and about 60 laboratories. But what is most striking is that the new campus will be governed by the laws of Macau, not Beijing, despite its location.
Macau, like Hong Kong, is a former European colony that returned to Chinese rule in the 1990s, but is governed semiautonomously. The two cities have their own currencies, passports and border control, as well as freedoms like uncensored Internet access.
When classes start in September, the University of Macau’s new campus — still under construction on about a square kilometer, or roughly 250 acres, on Hengqin Island in southern Guangdong Province — will be “handed over” to Macau governance in accordance with a 2009 bill by the National People’s Congress in Beijing.
Students, most of whom will be from Macau, will gain access to the new campus via an underwater tunnel without the usual immigration checks. Concrete barriers will cut it off from the rest of China. The setup is one reason the campus will have its own fire and police stations.
It will also have an online hookup — including 3,800 WiFi hotspots — exempt from the restrictions commonly known as the Great Firewall of China.
“As the new campus will be under the jurisdiction of Macau, Internet and telecommunications services will continue to be provided by Macau providers,” said Wei Zhao, the University of Macau’s rector. “What students can access in the current campus will be accessible in the new campus, YouTube and Facebook included,” he said, referring to two popular Web sites blocked on the mainland.
China has made exceptions to Internet censorship before, during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, for example. And in terms of governance, there are some gray areas along the Hong Kong and Macau borders, mostly at customs checkpoints.
But experts interviewed for this article said there was no recent precedence for a chunk of Chinese land being passed to another legal jurisdiction in this manner, and certainly not for the sake of academic freedom.
While many professors and students in China find ways to jump the firewall, no other mainland campus has its own officially uncensored Internet connection.
Jorge A.F. Godinho, an associate professor at the University of Macau’s law faculty, called it a “curious situation.”
“This piece of land is not legally an enlargement of Macau, but in practice, it is,” he said. “There won’t be a border or Internet censorship or anything.”
But he added that in historic terms, “it’s an interesting twist.” “If there’s a crime committed, Macau law applies and Macau courts will rule on it,” he said.
The Macau government has paid 1.2 billion Macau patacas, or about $150 million, for a 40-year lease. It is also funding the new 9.8 billion-pataca construction.
What is also curious is the temporary nature of the agreement — as if laws can be turned on and off, for a given time frame, for a given price.
“It’s not permanent. It’s a rental — and Macau is paying” Dr. Godinho said.
The lease expires in 2049, the same year that the “one country, two systems” agreement giving Macau semi-autonomous governance ends.
Entering the Chinese market
Foreign universities have long been interested in entering the Chinese market, despite bureaucratic hurdles and concerns about academic freedom.
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Nanjing University opened a Center for Chinese and American Studies in 1986 in Nanjing.
In 2004, the University of Nottingham Ningbo, a collaboration with a British institution, became the country’s first official Chinese-foreign university campus.
New York University’s new Shanghai campus is opening in September. But it came under criticism when Chen Guangcheng — a dissident who first found refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and later at N.Y.U.’s main U.S. campus — said in June that he was forced out because the N.Y.U. administration was worried about its relations with China, a claim the university denied.
The Juilliard School in New York, an elite performing arts academy, is planning to open its first overseas branch in Tianjin, a city outside Beijing, in 2016, though its China branch will not grant degrees. Duke University in North Carolina is scheduled to open Duke Kunshan University in a city outside Shanghai.
Other institutions have opted for research outposts. The Harvard Center Shanghai and the University of Chicago Center in Beijing opened in 2010, followed by the Stanford Center at Peking University in 2012. In the same vein, the University of Pennsylvania is planning a Penn Wharton China Center in Beijing.
They should not hold their breath if they are looking for an exemption from Chinese law.
Fu Hualing, a constitutional scholar at the University of Hong Kong and an expert on Chinese cross-border legal relations, said that in terms of governance, the University of Macau case was “not the same as China renting a place to a foreign university.”
Making space
Hong Kong universities are extending into Shenzhen and Zhuhai, border towns that boomed after they were given exceptional funding and economic freedoms in the 1980s as “special economic zones.”
The appeal is obvious: Hong Kong and Macau have soaring real estate prices and limited land supply, while Guangdong has affordable real estate nearby. Local mainland governments, eager to introduce university options in an area where there were few or none before, have sweetened the deal with funding and generous land-use agreements.
The University of Macau’s new campus will be nearly 20 times the size of the old one, where there is no room for growth.
“Right now, because we have no space, the students attend classes here and after that, they go home,” said Dr. Zhao, the rector. “When we move to the new campus on Hengqin Island, students can live, eat, play and study on campus. They will be able to enjoy a complete college life.”
But there is more to college life than bigger dorms and better facilities. Students and academics in Hong Kong and Macau are free to discuss politically sensitive events and criticize the government. Universities are now waiting to see what happens with campuses that straddle the border.
“The whole point is that there is greater integration between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau,” said Dr. Fu, the expert on cross-border relations. “Hong Kong and Macau will be asserting greater influence on the area.”
“In the 1980s, Shenzhen was an economic experiment,” he added. “Now, this is a governance experiment.”
The joint ventures that already exist seem to be a hybrid of Hong Kong’s more open education system and the mainland’s more restrictive one.
The United International College in Zhuhai, established by Hong Kong Baptist University and Beijing Normal University in 2005, teaches mostly in English, follows Baptist’s curriculum and grants Baptist University undergraduate degrees.
When asked about politically sensitive fields of study, Chai Hi-Hing, a U.I.C. spokesman, said that “courses such as international relations, journalism, political science etc., are taught in the same way as they do at H.K.B.U. as well as Western universities.” He added that the college president did not report to the local Communist Party committee, which is normal practice in China.
However, “as far as the Internet access is concerned, it is out of our control,” he said.
Zhuhai has promised more land for a new campus, which would accommodate an additional 6,000 undergraduates and 2,000 postgraduates, Mr. Chai said.
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, which has two research institutes on the mainland, signed an agreement in March with Shenzhen University to establish a campus there. Shenzhen will allow use of about one square kilometer of land and pay for the first phase of development.
Xu Yangsheng, pro-vice chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, wrote in an e-mail that there was an “expressed provision for academic freedom to be protected” in the agreement, but would not divulge details.
He said it “would not likely” be an issue at the Shenzhen outpost, which would operate independently from Hong Kong and recruit mostly mainland students.
Shenzhen has also funded the opening of the University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital, a 2,000-bed facility that cost 4 billion renminbi, taking pressure off Queen Mary, a Hong Kong teaching hospital. While the University of Hong Kong has research and learning centers on the mainland, plans for a proposed campus are still in the air.
Dr. Fu said that cross-border collaboration could be seen as “good news,” but also as a potentially “sticky issue.”
The relationship will probably not be tested until a university comes face to face with a politically sensitive issue.
“There is a bridge that is governed by Hong Kong law, but the water it passes over is governed by Chinese law,” Dr. Fu said. “So what happens if someone falls off the bridge into the water?”
Calvin Yang reported from Macau and Zhuhai, China.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: July 16, 2013
An earlier version of this article stated that almost 300 laboratories would be moved from the old University of Macau campus to its new home. While the new campus will have almost 300 laboratories in total, only about 60 of those will be moved from the old campus. It also stated that the land lease would be for 50 years; it will be for 40 years. The cost of constructing the new campus will be 9.8 billion patacas, not 9.8 million patacas, as previously stated, and will be paid entirely by the Macau government.
Published in The New York Times on 16 Jul, 2013
