Recent documents seen by the BBC and the Guardian have shown that Sheffield Hallam University recently halted one of its professor’s Laura Murphy’s study into the Chinese government’s treatment of Uyghur people, which is widely considered to be genocidal. It is speculated that the reason this occurred was that Chinese officials threatened some of the University’s staff that there may be a potential boycott of the University by international students. For many, this story is just one example of a wider trend of Chinese government intervention in British universities.
To try and understand this issue better, I sat down with David Stroup, who is a senior lecturer of Chinese politics at the University of Manchester. He told me that British universities are in a difficult position because they want to retain a good relationship with China, but also want to preserve academic freedom. The relationship between British universities and China is especially important as China is the main source of international students for UK universities, being about 151,000 in 2022.
Another issue involving universities that leads to tension between the British and Chinese governments is that of Confucius Institutes. The claimed purposes of these institutes that exist in many Universities across the UK, including at the University of Manchester, are to promote Chinese culture and language, but they have widely come under scrutiny due to their close ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Rishi Sunak promised to ban Confucius Institutes in British universities but eventually backtracked on this due to fears it would negatively affect Britain’s relationships with China.
Whilst in some ways increased tension between China and British universities affects everyone who attends those universities but it will particularly affect those who require access to China for their research. David Stroup explained to me that many people in his field have done things such as “using two different sources of research, different field sites and learning how to access China from outside”. Having some kind of access to China is not just important for those who directly study China, as it is also estimated that at least a fifth of British research in some Science and Technology fields relies on collaboration with China. Jo Johnson, who is the former universities minister, created a report stating that the UK needed to urgently assess its academic links with an authoritarian regime.
There is also somewhat of a concern that increased tension between universities and the Chinese government may have a negative effect on Chinese international students. David Stroup told me “there is a line between protecting and defending essential freedoms and engaging in Sinophobia, which lecturers in fields surrounding China need to be concerned about”. Racism and discrimination against Chinese students at British universities have often been an issue in the past, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Universities are not the only area of British life where alleged Chinese interference has been a major issue. There has also been concern about this issue in government, especially after two parliamentary researchers were accused of spying for the Chinese government. This comes among an increase in tension, which many describe as being like a new Cold War between China and its allies and the US and its allies, such as the UK.
The closing comment that David Stroop made to me was “I think one way that we need to consider how we defend the robustness of academic freedom and the robustness of our universities in the UK is to reinvest in our universities”. This exemplifies how the issue of Chinese government interference is connected to many of the other issues that British universities currently face.
