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.