6 yıl önce

University lifts suspension of students protesting Mandarin test

In a sign of Bejing's increasing influence, Baptist University in Hong Kong requires students to take a Mandarin test before they can graduate. Students who opposed the decision were suspended.

AP

Baptist University students and supporters attend a rally at the Hong Kong Baptist University on January 26, 2018. The students in the Cantonese-speaking semi-autonomous region of China were marching after two peers were suspended over a dispute involving a mandatory Mandarin-language test.

It all started in January when two students argued with teachers over what they called an overly stringent test that requires them to prove they are proficient in a language used in mainland China but not so much in the semi-autonomous, Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong.

The university accused Andrew Chan and Lau Tsz-kei of making the teachers "feel threatened and insulted" and suspended them. The suspension has now been lifted.

Critics accuse Beijing of increased meddling and of trying to eventually replace Cantonese, and other regional Chinese dialects in Hong Kong, with Mandarin in a bid to homogenise society.

Chan, 22, said the state-run tabloid Global Times had singled him out as a supporter of Hong Kong's independence from China—an allegation he denies—forcing him to give up an internship at a Chinese hospital in the southern city of Guangzhou after receiving more than 100 threatening messages.

TRT World's Patrick Fok reports from Hong Kong.