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of Malaya would diminish the importance of Hong Hong University's service to overseas Chinese, or greatly reduce the numbers of Chinese students from Malaya coming to Hong Kong. The two Universities cooperate in the interviewing and selection of students in Malaya who wish to study et Hong Kong. As far as we could judge from our visit to Hong Kong and Singapore, we feel that there is justification for two independent Universities.
(g) The University at present cannot directly fulfil the
purpose originally defined by Lord Lugard (and emphasized in the Cox Committee report) of serving as a centre for Sino-British contact in the sphere of learning and "the maintenance of good understanding with the neighbouring country of China." It would be premature and defeatist to assume now that it may not later have contributions to make in direct cultural relations with China, and it is in any case serving the higher education needs of a large Chinese community in Hong Kong (recently increased by immigration) and overseas. Both as an immediate and as a long-term investment, this is an asset that we cannot afford to throw away.
(h) On the broader perspective of the Far East theatre, in
which the cold war is being fought with special intensity and in which great Commonwealth and Western interests are at stake, the two British inspired universities of Hong Kong and Malaya are conspicuously important centres of political and cultural influences. They represent British standards of scholarship and professional training; they are centres of exceptionally successful race relationships; they are educating young men and women who will play leading parts in the public life of their communities and possibly in wider spheres.
The deep issues now being fought out in the Far East may be decided in part by the less spectacular and dramatic developments in the political and cultural sphere, as well as by the immensely costly military and economic measures to which the Commonwealth is committed. In a strategy of political and moral defence of our positions in this theatre, it is fortunate that we have in being two universities which a relatively small amount of financial help now can render powerfully influential.
13./
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