“He did not realise that those political matters became more complicated when a vice-chancellor took a lukewarm attitude to council members,” the insider said. “I guess he realised it was time for him to step down. He might now want to return to his academic circle and focus back on his research.”

“Tuan performed as usual in the recent council meetings, and did not say he will resign,” a council member, who requested to remain anonymous, said. “He told us how the university has performed well and we were all very happy to hear that.”

Tuan on Tuesday said he was quitting after the council was overhauled by an amendment to the ordinance that covered the school’s operations in November, taking the number of members drawn from outside the university to more than half the body’s total.

Calls for change go back to a 2002 government report which suggested that smaller universities governing bodies would be better.

The other government funded universities in Hong Kong went ahead with reforms, but CUHK held out, despite proposals over the years to adjust the council size and ratio of internal and external representatives.

In 2022, after Tuan in April was granted a second term by the council, legislators Tommy Cheung Yu-yan, Bill Tang Ka-piu and Edward Lau Kwok-fan, who all sit on the university council, put forward a bill proposing the latest amendments. The move divided university alumni, and some council members launched an online petition calling for the plan to be scrapped.

The council responded by setting up a task force, which decided instead that reform plans left dormant since 2016 were still fit to go and that the body would trim in size and review whether it needed to cut the number of appointed lawmakers.

Despite the task force’s call, the Legislative Council bills committee proceeded to scrutinise the proposed legislation.

But Tuan refused to attend each of the three separate committee meetings, saying he was ill.

The council member source pointed to that absence from the three committee meetings as an example of Tuan’s failure to communicate with stakeholders, prompting questions about his abilities to lead the university, concerns that council chairman John Chai Yat-Chiu pledged to discuss with Tuan.

“Tuan did not communicate with the Legislative Council and he did not even attend the meeting related to CUHK,” the council member said. “I am sorry for him doing this … He put himself in a difficult situation if he declined to communicate. Others felt so embarrassed when he was absent from every meeting.”

The passing of the bill cut the number of council members from 55 to 34 and adjusted the ratio of external appointees to internal ones to 2:1. About 24 of the 34 members have since been appointed.

The council member said he expected nearly all the members would be on board as soon as the first quarter.

The trio of legislators who proposed the amendment earlier said the passage of the bill was just a “first step”. They had vowed to look into changes to the university’s emblem in 2022 that were dropped after an outcry and look into who “abused the power”.

The poor relationship between Tuan and some of the establishment’s members could also be reflected in the announcement of his reappointment in 2022.

Tuan’s reappointment infuriated the pro-Beijing camp, with former chief executive Leung Chun-ying complaining that it amounted to a reward for the academic’s questionable performance during the 2019 social unrest, when he showed sympathy towards protesting students.

In August, the Independent Commission Against Corruption said it was investigating a medical research centre run by CUHK over allegations of misconduct and misusing funds, with sources saying it was run by Cecilia Lo Wen-ya, Tuan’s wife.

Bailey Chan Chung-hei, vice-convenor of the Joint College Student Unions, also called Tuan’s resignation sudden.

“We understand his decision … We do not know his real reason for resigning and therefore we cannot even comment on whether we feel sorry for his resignation,” he said.

Chan said the president had wanted to meet the union in August last year, but it was eventually cancelled. The group aims to organise a new student union after the previous one was dissolved in 2021.

“We even do not know if Tuan supported the restoring of the union,” he said, suggesting the successor should spend more time communicating with students.

Heung Shu-fai, a former CUHK councillor who opposed the legislative amendment, said he was saddened by the announcement and that he felt the resignation was “mainly” due to the overhaul.

“When new guys come in with massive power and [are] not hesitant to exercise the power, either you bend over to accommodate them or you leave quietly,” he said. “I believe Rocky chose the latter option.”

Heung added that he felt the reform “did not reflect kindly” on Hong Kong’s image in the international academic community and that it would be difficult for the university to find a replacement with a stature equal to Tuan.

“We lost a star player,” he said. “Now that he’s gone, I don’t know if you can find another academic who can compare.”

Additional reporting by Connor Mycroft and Lilian Cheng