Who is Professor Huang Jing (黄靖)?

Professor Huang Jing (黄靖) was a prominent senior academic from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP) in Singapore. Last Friday (Aug 4), he was identified as “an agent of influence of a foreign country,” by the Singapore Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and as such, Huang Jing and his wife Shirley Yang Xiuping, who are United States citizens, will be permanently banned from Singapore.

“He knowingly interacted with intelligence organisations and agents of the foreign country, and cooperated with them to influence the Singapore Government’s foreign policy and public opinion in Singapore,” said MHA in a news release, without naming the foreign country which Huang was accused of working for.

How much do we know about Dr. Huang Jing? 

Huang was born in 1956 and has a startle academic credential from both China and the United States.

Before joining the LKYSPP, Huang received his PhD in government from Harvard University in 1995 and had lectured at Harvard University from 2013 to 2014.

He holds a masters degree in history from Shanghai’s Fudan University, and a degree in English literature from Sichuan University in China.

He was director of the Asia Studies Program and associate professor of political science at Utah State University from 1994 to 2004, and was granted tenure in 1998.

He was a Shorenstein Fellow at Stanford University from 2002 to 2003, and became Senior Fellow at the John Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution from 2004 to 2008. Various foundations have also awarded him grants and fellowships.

This guy basically ticked all the top universities in both the east and the west.

At LKYSPP, Huang was the Lee Foundation Professor on US-China relations, where he also headed the Centre on Asia and Globalisation.

Huang also serves as a senior overseas economic analyst for Xinhua News Agency, and is an overseas advisor to the China Foundation for International and Strategic Studies.

He also sits on various boards, including Keppel Land, the Steering Committee of the NUS Research Institute in Suzhou, the Fujitsu-JAIMs Foundation Japan, and Chinese energy firm Wasion Group.

He has authored three books and many journal articles, book chapters and policy papers on China’s politics, development strategy and foreign policy, as well as US-China relations, China’s military and security issues in the Asia-Pacific. One of his book, Factionalism In Chinese Communist Politics, published in 2000, won the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize that is awarded to authors of books in politics, economics, culture and technology.

 

Dr Huang is a frequent commentator in the Singapore media – including The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao. His latest commentary for The Straits Times, published in June, was on the interdependence of US and China. He is also a regular commentator on television news programs, including this controversial interview he gave recently:

Huang is still in Singapore and is appealing against the allegations by the Singapore government. In an interview with South China Morning Post, Dr Huang rubbished the allegations and proclaimed his innocence.

“It’s nonsense to identify me as ‘an agent of influence’ for a foreign country,” he said. “And why didn’t they identify which foreign country they’re referring to? Is it the US or China?”

He said he would seek help from his lawyer and the US embassy in Singapore.

“My family and my home are all here. I have property in Singapore, too. How can they treat me like this? If they have evidence, they should take me to court,” he added.

What was Dr. Huang Jing’s crime? 

The statement from MHA stated that Huang’s acts amounted to subversion and foreign interference in Singapore’s domestic politics, and that Huang had recruited others for his activities.

His wife, Yang was also aware that Huang was using his position at the LKYSPP to advance the agenda of a foreign country, it added.

This is not Dr. Huang Jing’s first brush with the law in Singapore. Back in 2016, Huang engaged in a heated debate with a cab driver over a S$1 tip that he had given to the driver.

According to an article on STOMP, Huang paid the driver S$100 for a S$21 cab fare. When the driver offered him the change, he took just S$78 out of the S$79 and left S$1 as tip. He then demanded the driver to step out to “show respect”, threatening to lodge a complain if the driver don’t do as he said.

Well this time round, would Huang be asking the Singapore government to show him respect too?