- HKU President
- 4 days ago
- 11 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Exclusive | Hong Kong will reel in talent due to geopolitics but won’t exploit tensions: university chief
Vice-chancellor Xiang Zhang says HKU has over 100 transfer applications because of uncertainties in US but won’t ‘take advantage’ of situation
The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is not about to “take advantage” of international students and scholars facing difficulties in the United States but it will just focus on welcoming and nurturing talent, its head has said, revealing it is handling over 100 transfer applications.
Vice-chancellor Xiang Zhang, a renowned scientist, told the Post that HKU should “rise above the storm” to promote international collaboration via technology and tackle global challenges and not be deterred by geopolitical tensions.
Zhang also expressed confidence in the future of Hong Kong, which he said should leverage its advantages under the governing principle of “one country, two systems” to contribute to developing China into a strong nation.
The 61-year-old school president, who spent almost three decades in US academia before taking on his current role at Hong Kong’s oldest university in 2018, hoped HKU would go “from strength to strength”, but stressed that it should always “take the high road” to success, not profit from the ills of others.
“Any top university wants to be better. They will focus on talent building, not because of geopolitics,” he said in an exclusive interview.
“Maybe some people take that as a convenient advantage, but HKU would rather take that as, I would say, we welcome the talent.”
Zhang, who said he was “sympathetic” to the challenges faced by Chinese students and scholars in the United States, noted that geopolitical tensions between the US and China meant HKU could recruit talent hobbled by the friction.
HKU and other local universities have stepped up efforts to accommodate students affected by the US government’s ban last month on Harvard University enrolling international students on national security grounds.
The Ivy League university later obtained a temporary court order against the ban.
Zhang said HKU had received about 300 inquiries from top US students and made “multiple offers” after screening, but he stopped short of revealing how many had been taken up.
He said that the students could either transfer to HKU or come for short-term study before returning to their home university. Among the 300 inquiries, HKU was processing more than 100 transfer applications, including from those at Harvard, he added.
Zhang said HKU would recognise academic credits from its dual degree partners, such as UC Berkeley, the University of Cambridge and Peking University, but still had to work on mutual academic credential acceptance with Harvard.
The vice-chancellor noted that HKU had started recruiting students from the top 50 universities globally during the Covid-19 pandemic and offered candidates flexibility.
He also said the university had launched a global professoriate recruitment drive five years ago to attract 100 scholars from various disciplines.
The university had outperformed its goal, recruiting more than 120 top scholars from 13 countries or regions last year alone, he added.
In the 2024-25 academic year, HKU had a student enrolment of more than 42,000 and academic staff of about 5,000.
Just last week, HKU rose in the Quacquarelli Symonds rankings to become the world’s eleventh top university, coinciding with Zhang’s seventh year of his tenure, which will end in 2028.
Zhang, who is in his second term as president, had previously clashed with a key member of the university’s governing council, but he appeared to have put the episode well behind him.
Turning philosophical during the interview, he conceded the role of a varsity chief was difficult due to myriad challenges.
“I think this is a part of life that to be a university president is not an easy job; we have to [overcome] one by one. By doing so, the only outcome is the university going...from strength to strength. That’s what I’d like to see,” he said.
Zhang said he wanted to contribute to Hong Kong by helping build a great university, not just for the city but also for the country.
“Not only for Hong Kong but also for China as well. That’s my personal wish. But of course, I know it’s not easy to do. Along the way, there’s many obstacles. You have to convince people, bring people along. These are all hard jobs. It’s not easy,” he said.
With a highly internationalised academic profile, HKU aspired not only to support Hong Kong in becoming an international education hub but also to turn China into “the leading education nation” in the world, he said.
The university and Hong Kong should also help the country become a leader in promoting international collaboration to address global challenges, such as climate change, health issues and resources, said Zhang, an expert in the field of nano-optics who led the team that created the world’s first “invisibility cloak”.
Zhang said technology could help solve these problems but such international collaboration could be a challenge amid geopolitical tensions.
“Somebody has to rise above the storm to see things from a much broader perspective,” he said, adding that he hoped HKU could not only help “Hong Kong [and] our country, but also do something for the common good [of] humanity”.
Zhang said he hoped HKU could help with cutting-edge technology to benefit humankind, echoing Chinese President Xi Jinping’s advocacy of “a community of common destiny” – a new type of international relations and global governance characterised by mutual respect, common security and peaceful development.
With the US and China competing in a tech war, Xi also said that self-reliance in advanced manufacturing was the right path for the country, which should also try to grasp core technologies.
Asked if HKU’s international collaboration would be obstructed under the Trump administration, Zhang said he did not see any reason to stop “peaceful means” of working to solve the world’s problems, such as climate change and other global problems for the benefit of humankind.
Zhang also expressed confidence in Hong Kong’s contribution to its mother country, pointing to the huge advantages the city enjoyed under the one country, two systems governing principle.
“We have to, you know, take that advantage and really not only contribute to Hong Kong’s economy and prosperity, but also to China’s future,” he said.
“That [is], to be a strong nation and to be really advancing [on] every front to contribute to humanity as a strong nation.
“Of course, we have our own challenges, and I’ve been going through some different challenges almost every year, but that’s part of life. And now I do think Hong Kong has a bright future.”
Exclusive | Embrace AI in teaching to survive ‘tsunami’, University of Hong Kong head says
Xiang Zhang also says HKU will establish school of government and public policy to attract young leaders
Universities should embrace the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in teaching if they want to survive, the president of Hong Kong’s oldest tertiary education institution has said, as he expects the sector to be reshaped in the coming decade.
Xiang Zhang from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) also said it would establish a school of government and public policy to attract young leaders to Hong Kong.
In an exclusive interview with the Post, Zhang said AI presented a huge opportunity and a challenge because universities could no longer simply feed students knowledge amid an “AI tsunami”.
“Now students have many other alternatives. They can have AI teachers from the internet who could be better than some of our teachers, so we’re going to compete with AI basically in terms of the avenue of acquiring knowledge,” he said.
“So can teachers be better equipped with AI tools so students can more easily absorb the materials and content?”
Zhang added that institutions would be left behind if they did not embrace change.
“Any universities doing the fast transition better are going to survive and thrive, and those keeping the old-fashioned way of teaching, if you just simply go to chalk and board, one day they may find it obsolete and students may turn away, as they can find other ways to [learn],” he said.
“To be ahead of the curve, we need to define the curve. AI is a perfect challenge, but an opportunity at the same time.”
He said higher education would be “reshaped in the next 10 years”.
“Whoever can act fast and position themselves in the right way, they will get ahead. We hope HKU will be the one,” Zhang said.
He said universities needed to have an edge by offering something more, such as interpersonal interaction, collaboration and guidance from teachers.
HKU will make an AI literacy course mandatory for all students regardless of their discipline starting from the 2025-26 academic year to equip them with foundational knowledge and skills, according to the university president.
Zhang added that the university provided students with free access to DeepSeek and ChatGPT, two main AI chatbots.
He said while AI could be seen as deepening technology competition among countries, AI technology also needed international collaboration to push it further to help solve people’s daily problems. Such efforts should not be affected by geopolitics, he said, citing robotics supported by AI to help the elderly live independently as an example.
“Climate change, human health, cancer, Covid, energy, water, food, these are all global challenges. Unfortunately, geopolitics, especially in some of the Western countries, try to withdraw the collaborations and so on. But these are a few areas where we could have a potential collaboration,” Zhang said.
“I think Hong Kong and HKU should help China to become a world leader in promoting international collaboration, addressing global challenges. And because these are the challenges that will affect everybody, if you don’t address that, we’ll see there’s two countries fighting for water in a war.”
He said HKU also wanted administrative staff to be familiar with the technology.
“That is actually the campuswide AI transformation,” Zhang said.
“So in a way, we want to use AI to connect different faculties and different disciplines … this is a very exciting time for us as educators and academics.”
Zhang said HKU would soon establish a school of government and public policy to nurture young talent. The move follows the recent launches of a school of computing and data science last July, a school of innovation last November and a school of biomedical engineering in March.
“Building the future leaders is important. Hong Kong is the best place to bring the East and the West cultures [together],” he said.
“We hope by taking advantage of ‘one country, two systems’, we can bring the world’s young leaders to come to Hong Kong to study and to make contributions … and develop our unique advantage in this arena.”
Exclusive | It’s our ‘internal strength’: University of Hong Kong head on top rankings
Xiang Zhang likens HKU’s QS ranking advancement to training in martial arts, says good ranking is ‘by-product’ of university’s efforts to build up its academic excellence
The president of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) has expressed hopes the institution will rank among the world’s top 10 before his term ends in 2028 after it rose to 11th place in a global league table, saying it was vital for the varsity to contribute to the country’s talent development.
In an exclusive interview with the Post, president Xiang Zhang said he was “very happy” about HKU’s latest advancement in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) rankings.
He said the achievement was a reflection of the “internal strengths” of the institution, akin to developing internal discipline and dedication in martial arts, as he noted a good ranking was a “by-product” of the university’s efforts to build up its academic excellence over the years.
“When your internal strengths build up, your appearance, muscles and everything show up, so ranking is appearance, but your internal strength is what HKU and I myself really focus on, the academic strengths and the quality, all of these matters,” he said.
Zhang said he liked to read martial arts novels like those by the late Hong Kong wuxia novelist Louis Cha Leung-yung, also known as Jin Yong, which reminded him that internal strengths were critical to building one’s reputation and standing.
Asked whether he was confident HKU could make it to the top 10 during his term, Zhang was optimistic, saying “I hope so” three times.
“I hope so, I hope so, I hope so. But once again, I’m not looking at external appearance but internal strength which I know is hard to measure in the short term. I hope 20 years later, people say this president in that term, he did this, this, this, and that transformed the university, and that has a long, lasting impact,” he said.
HKU was ranked 17th last year and 26th in 2023. The latest result is the institution’s best since the table was launched in 2004.
QS said HKU was the local leader across four indicators, performing particularly well in academic reputation and graduate employability.
Five other universities in Hong Kong also climbed in the rankings, with the Chinese University of Hong Kong rising four spots to 32nd for its best placing since 2010.
HKU also beat two prestigious mainland Chinese institutions, Peking University and Tsinghua University, to become the top varsity in China and second in Asia, after the National University of Singapore, which maintained its eighth position globally.
Zhang previously said HKU should gradually develop into a top university on par with Cambridge and Harvard, but he said his institution had not yet reached the goal.
“We are very good, but we’re not [yet] on par with Cambridge or Harvard and so on,” he said. “How we are going to get ahead of many other universities to be the world leading university, which is an aspiration we want to achieve.”
Harvard and Cambridge ranked fifth and sixth respectively in the latest QS table, while the Massachusetts Institute of Technology topped the chart.
Zhang said his staff often misunderstood him, thinking that he was focused on rankings, but he said that was not the case.
“I’m focusing on academics … what kinds of research and discoveries [they have] made that are world-renowned,” he said. “People after 30 years still talk about it. It’s timeless.”
He added the university’s performance was also the result of contributions by students and graduates, as well as their impact on society.
Zhang said he hoped that after 20 years people would still remember what he did to transform the university.
Last Thursday, Zhang and other universities’ heads met Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO) director Xia Baolong when Xia had a five-day fact-finding visit to the city, his third since taking office.
Asked what he would tell Xia if he got a chance to speak to him in the meeting, Zhang said HKU wanted to contribute to the country’s advancement, especially aiming to become a strong nation in education.
“We, University of Hong Kong, now being a leading university in China, we want to contribute, and also we want to maintain this momentum. We also want the government to continue to support HKU,” he said.
Zhang said universities helped groom talent who may be able to make an impact on Chinese education, research, economy and technology one day.
In 2018, HKU had about 15 world-leading scholars, and the number jumped to 53 in 2024, Zhang said.
The university ranked 10th globally among all institutions last year in the “Highly Cited Researchers 2024” by Clarivate Analytics, which measures the number who have demonstrated significant and broad influence in their fields of study through the publication of multiple papers.
Hong Kong was ranked 8th globally among countries and regions, with 40 per cent of the scholars rated being affiliated with HKU, marking the highest representation among local tertiary institutions.
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