Hong Kong’s Education Bureau is taking the unprecedented step of cutting all ties with the city’s largest teachers’ union and stripping it of its status as a professional group after two Communist Party mouthpieces branded the body a “malignant tumour” that must be eradicated.

The pro-opposition Professional Teachers’ Union (PTU) – which represents some 95,000 members – expressed disappointment and regret over the decision on Saturday, saying it would be a loss to the whole education sector.

The government’s move, according to analysts, could mark the start of a fresh crackdown against groups deemed to be “unpatriotic” or overly critical, with some warning that sections of the legal and media communities might come under threat next.

A government source hinted that the move had been in the works for some time, adding that they believed word of the decision had prompted the PTU’s recent withdrawal from the alliance behind Hong Kong’s annual Tiananmen Square vigil in a bid to ease the pressure.

Explaining the decision, a spokesman for the bureau said on Saturday that PTU comments and actions in recent years had rendered it no different from any other political group, a point also made by one of the state media commentaries published just hours earlier.

He pointed to its participation in both the Tiananmen vigil alliance – which the PTU confirmed on Thursday it had withdrawn from – and the Civil Human Rights Front, organiser of the city’s yearly July 1 march, and accused the union of bringing politics to campuses through its promotion of teacher strikes.

“During the social unrest, some students and teachers were affected by others and joined violent and illegal activities, but the PTU didn’t carry out its function in the education profession,” the spokesman said in a statement, referring to the anti-government protests of 2019.

“It adds fuel to the fire, and this violates the mission of education and sacrifices the benefits of students.”

After cutting ties, the bureau will no longer regard the union as a professional body, and will neither engage in any formal or informal meetings with it, nor take its opinions on matters pertaining to the sector.

The bureau will also temporarily stop looking into any cases referred by the union, and will review its advisory bodies and other groups with an eye to removing members who represented the PTU.

Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union president Fung Wai-wah.

The PTU said it handled over 3,000 complaints and inquiries from members each year, and that the bureau’s decision failed to take into account teachers’ interests and welfare.

“The union has a positive impact on safeguarding workers’ rights and bettering policies. Even though we have different views, if the bureau decides to cut ties with the union, it will be a loss to the whole industry,” it said.

Before the bureau’s announcement, the 48-year-old PTU issued a statement responding to attacks in Chinese state media saying that it had always opposed Hong Kong independence and had cared about the country’s development ever since the union’s establishment. It also refuted the outlets’ accusations that it was “inciting kids to break the law” during the 2019 anti-government protests, saying it cared about students’ safety and never invited them to participate in any demonstrations.

The union, the statement added, would continue to listen and communicate with different sectors, and keep up its education work.

The PTU, founded by the late pro-democracy politician Szeto Wah, is seen as having the best benefits of any trade union in the city, and maintains four locations across town. Teachers who join pay HK$80 (US$10) per year for access to perks such as medical services, insurance packages, free legal consultation and discounts at two supermarkets operated by the union.

Without specifically mentioning the teachers’ union, Chief Secretary John Lee Ka-chiu insisted on Saturday that all organisations had to abide by existing rules, warning that if any group acted beyond the scope of its professional purview, the government would deal with the matter according to the law.

Hours before the bureau’s announcement, Communist Party mouthpieces Xinhua and People’s Daily simultaneously ran commentaries responding to the PTU’s withdrawal from the Tiananmen vigil alliance, a move the union attributed to the “worsening political situation”.

But PTU president Fung Wai-wah told local media at the time that the union’s stance on the bloody 1989 crackdown remained unchanged and that members had not ruled out working with the alliance in the future.

The commentary from state news agency Xinhua, which ran under a reporter’s byline, said the union’s exit from the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China was merely a “trick to evade accountability”.

It added that the union, which it described as “long-hidden dirt in the education system”, had been engaged in anti-China and anti-Hong Kong activities, and had been closely connected to the alliance.

It had also deviated from a union’s traditional purpose and become a full-fledged political organisation, the reporter wrote, causing politics to infiltrate campuses and leading students to riot.

Commentaries in Xinhua and People’s Daily on Saturday accused the PTU of inciting students to take part in the 2019 protests.

The Hong Kong government, the Xinhua piece continued, “should get rid of the union”, calling the task “an unshirkable responsibility”.

In its own commentary, People’s Daily said the PTU’s existence had nothing to do with education or professionalism. Like Xinhua, the article also used the term “malignant tumour” to describe the union in calling for its eradication.

Tam Yiu-chung, Hong Kong’s sole delegate to the nation’s top legislative body, said the central government had disliked the union for quite some time for its participation in political affairs.

“Instead of serving as an educational professional body, it’s been more like a political group throughout the years,” he told the Post. “It does not matter whether the union is historical, it’s more of whether it’s an opposition force.”

Ivan Choy Chi-keung, a political scientist at Chinese University, characterised the bureau’s move as the beginning of a third wave of suppression by the central government under the national security law with the goal of silencing the opposition. The first wave, he said, took aim at localist groups, while the second targeted pan-democratic political parties.

“Now, the suppression has turned to civil society, which might involve not only teachers’ unions, but also lawyers and medical [groups] that were labelled opposition forces,” Choy said. “It is alarming, as the boundaries [of the crackdown] have been extending to areas that the public might have hardly imagined.”

“The white terror will further worry some professionals in the city, and they might try to distance themselves as much as they can by quitting the unions or even migrating to other countries,” he added.

Lau Siu-kai, vice-president of semi-official Beijing think tank the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, said he expected authorities to turn their focus to the media and education sectors next.

Also predicting potential repercussions for other sectors, veteran China watcher Johnny Lau Yui-siu said labelling some groups as undesirables was a common tactic in mainland China that served to isolate them and cut them off from support. In such cases, if the groups did not “disappear on their own”, he added, the government might resort to other powers to deal with them.

PTU representatives are involved in at least two important groups that can make suggestions to the government, namely the Education Commission and the Council on Professional Conduct in Education.

A union member who spoke on condition of anonymity said he had expected the tie-cutting, but added the government had still gone too far in making the move given that the PTU already had very little sway in the policymaking process.

He added that the PTU had provided a unique service to some teachers in that it helped them lodge complaints against schools without disclosing their identities to education officials.

Hong Kong’s annual candlelight vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown was banned by police for the second year in a row.

Opposition-leaning groups in the city have been under increasing pressure in recent months.

In April, police launched an investigation into the Civil Human Rights Front – best known for organising several massive protests during the 2019 social unrest. While the group had long interacted with Hong Kong police in securing permission to protest, the probe was said to be examining whether it even had a legal right to exist.

The alliance behind the annual June 4 vigil in Victoria Park, meanwhile, saw its vice chairwoman, Chow Hang-tung, arrested for allegedly inciting others to take part in the rally after it was barred for the second year in a row by police, who cited coronavirus concerns.