Contrite but undeterred, suspended students look back on Hong Kong Baptist University Mandarin saga

Andrew Chan denies pro-independence leanings, while Lau Tsz-kei refuses to apologise for angry protest which sparked weeks of acrimony on campus

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Andrew Chan (left) and Lau Tsz-kei (right) were reinstated to their classes after apologising in person to staff involved in the heated row. Photo: Nora Tam

Published: 3:02pm, 3 Feb 2018Updated: 11:07pm, 3 Feb 2018

After weeks of protests, anger and even death threats over a Mandarin language exam at Baptist University, campus seemed to have calmed down by the end of this week, when the school announced it was lifting the suspensions of two students, after the pair apologised to affected staff.

But for the two central figures, the saga’s denouement was not an act of surrender, as they try to refocus the debate back to what kicked it all off – the institution’s Mandarin language graduation requirement.

Speaking this week, student union president Lau Tsz-kei and Year Five Chinese medicine student Andrew Chan Lok-hang said their one-week ban from attending classes, and the public scrutiny during the row, would not stop them fighting to improve school policies.

“It is something right so I will continue to fight for it,” Chan said.

They were among about 30 students who stormed the school’s language centre on January 17 to demand more transparency for an exemption test introduced last year for a compulsory Mandarin module. Lau was filmed using foul language, but none resorted to physical violence.

The students were unhappy about a requirement, introduced in 2007, for local undergraduates to pass a Mandarin module to graduate.