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Writer's pictureCFHK Foundation

The Strategic Dependence of UK Universities on China – and where should they turn next?



Introduction

This project is concerned with examining two overarching, interlinked phenomena. The first

is the ability for UK higher education institutions, universities and academics, to financially

de-risk from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), in order to end the reliance on Chinese

funding both in terms of international student fees, and research grants and donations made

from Chinese entities which will often have a capacity to significantly harm and compromise

national security.


The second phenomenon this research is concerned with is highlighting how this reliance on

the PRC negatively affects many aspects on British campuses, including academic freedoms,

safeguards for students, very high risk research collaborations with Chinese entities linked to

the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and intellectual property theft.


Whilst the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attempts to extend its overseas intelligence

gathering and foreign policy agenda on to British campuses, harming academic freedoms and

endangering student safeguards, it’s the CCP’s ‘Military-Civil Fusion’ (MCF) strategy which

further endangers national security, as the CCP attempts to rapidly expand its military

modernisation programs, and attempt regional military hegemony across the Indo-Pacific – a

critical region for UK foreign policy and national security.


To read more, download the PDF above. Robert Clark is the author of this report and the Director of the Defence and Security Unit (DSU) at Civitas. This report was made possible in part by the support of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation.


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