LGBT+ History Month Special Edition
THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD’S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER
ISSUE 141 | WEDNESDAY 12TH FEBRUARY 2020 | FREE
Student groups “shocked” by ISO’s pro-China posts James Cottis News Contributor
“We never take students’ support for granted”: UoS UCU president Ben Warner Editor-in-Chief
Ahead of another 14 days of strike action, the President of the local University and College Union branch at the University of Sheffield has told Forge Press how important the support of students is. For the second time this academic year, lecturers, researchers and support staff are set to go on strike in two separate disputes, beginning on Thursday 20 February.
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Sam Marsh, who teaches in the School of Maths and is the President of Sheffield UCU, said there is still time to stop the strikes going ahead, but Universities UK (UUK), who represent the employers in the negotiations, need to return to the negotiating table with a good enough offer to make the strikes unnecessary. He also thanked students for their support in the previous round of strike action last semester, and said it was important for the morale of
striking staff to see the support from students at the University. Negotiations are still ongoing between the UCU and UUK, with the aim of reaching an agreement before the strikes begin. Marsh is also one of the five elected national UCU negotiators on the pensions dispute, and he called on UUK to make a fair offer. “If they don’t make some kind of move to try and resolve the dispute before we go to strike action then I really despair... (cont. on p6)
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Taiwanese and Hong Kong students were left feeling “shocked”, “angry”, and “disappointed” after a series of posts made by the SU International Students’ Officer (ISO) over the Chinese social media platform WeChat, which potentially led to worsening tensions on campus. Shared with Forge Press in late November 2019, we understand that the posts had been circulating online since August 2019. The screenshotted posts from Sissi Li’s personal account found their way into a Taiwanese group chat of more than 300 students, and were soon picked up by Hong Kong and Chinese student communities in Sheffield. Sissi Li admitted that the WeChat posts were her own, and she has since apologised for any distress caused by her posts, recognising that the comments she made as an elected official of the Students’ Union were inappropriate. Taiwanese and Hong Kong representatives argue that Sissi was defending the contentious ‘one China’ principle - and have expressed concerns that their community is not being faithfully represented by the ISO. In independent translations provided to Forge Press, one post expressed annoyance over the ‘fake reports by the foreign media’
that have been critical of Beijing’s influence in Taiwan and Hong Kong over the past year, adding that: ‘foreign citizens of some regions are able to post nonsense that call[s] ‘white’ ‘black’ on some influential social media platforms.” Hong Kong student representatives argue that the posts potentially reinforce Beijing’s framing of the Hong Kong protests as a seperatist movement opposed to Chinese sovereignty - despite protesters calling for the protection of the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ principle. Another post criticised the way in which university registration documents for foundation, undergraduate, and language courses list ‘China’, ‘Hong Kong’, and ‘Taiwan’ as separate nationalities. Referencing the University language classes, the posts encourage Chinese nationals to ‘actively report’ this ‘situation to officials’, adding that: ‘I hope you could contact me when you find such a low-level mistake and need any help. We can help him/her correct it together.’ Hong Kong and Taiwanese student representatives have been alarmed by the posts, alleging that the ISO was encouraging the University to adopt the ‘one China’ principle in registration forms, leading China, Taiwan and Hong Kong being grouped... (cont. on p7)