British universities have received huge amounts of Chinese funding over the past five years that was linked to the Chinese military, a recent think tank report reveals.
Out of 88 U.K universities surveyed by Civitas, a British think tank, 46 responded that they had received between £122 million (US$151 million) and £156 million from China since 2017, including research collaborations and one-off or multiple donations from Chinese entities, according to the think tank's report on Wednesday.
And 30% of this Chinese funding comes from entities linked to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, including those sanctioned by the United States. Three U.K. universities received 100% of their Chinese funding from entities linked to the Chinese military, including the University of Westminster, the University of Huddersfield and Cranfield University.
Chinese equipment manufacturer Huawei, despite being banned by the U.K. government from building 5G networks from 2020, remains the largest single source of Chinese funding for British universities, providing between £20 million and £38 million in grants since 2017. Such a figure accounts for nearly a quarter of the Chinese funding received by universities in the U.K.
Other Chinese military-linked entities that provide funding to U.K. universities include the seven education institutions, including the Harbin Institute of Technology and Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, that are controlled by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, research institutes for nuclear warheads, and the PLA’s largest supplier of precision-guided missiles.
The funding, however, does not take into account the £2.2bn in international student fee income that Chinese students bring to British universities each year, making them a major source of overseas income.
The report also mentions that British universities, in cooperation with the China Scholarship Council, a nonprofit arm of the Chinese education ministry, taps British taxpayers’ money to provide scholarships for Chinese students to study in prestigious universities such as Oxford and Cambridge.
What’s more, these Chinese students are selected on the condition that they “thoroughly implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, serve the national strategy, face national needs, provide talent support for the comprehensive construction of a modern socialist country,” and they also undergo “brainwashing education” by the Communist Party of China before leaving China.
The report also singled out the Confucius Institutes and the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSA) as Beijing’s united front organizations that monitor 700,000 Chinese students worldwide. United front organizations are agents of China’s united front strategy that taps a network of individuals and groups that are controlled or influenced by the Chinese Communist Party to advance its interests.
Robert Clark, director of defense security at Civitas and author of the report, said that China was not only endangering Britain’s national security by funding intellectual property theft at its universities, but its united front and surveillance efforts were also undermining academic freedom and free speech in the institutions.
“Our report looks at how Beijing is waging united front work around the world, particularly in the U.K. and the U.S., to subvert its academic institutions and increase China’s influence at home and abroad,” said Clark. “We also have very interesting findings on how Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party are conducting united warfare and exerting influence and intimidation operations on U.K. campuses.”
Clarke called on the British government to align itself with U.S. sanctions, to expand the market for students from other Commonwealth countries and Hong Kong in order to reduce the reliance on Chinese students, to stop working with the “China Scholarship Council”, as well as end its relationship with the Confucius Institute.
There are currently 30 Confucius Institutes in the U.K., the most in the world. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said during his election campaign that he would close them, but so far he has not honored his promise.
British Member of Parliament Bob Seely said that the U.K. government may not need to impose a total ban on universities receiving Chinese funds or close down Confucius Institutes, but it should set out clear guidelines on what can and cannot be done, such as not barring discussion of the Tiananmen Square incident on campus, and not spying on or intimidating students.
Translated by RFA Staff. Edited by Elaine Chan and Mike Firn.